I get it now!

Vietnamese Pork Bahn Mi with Sriracha Tahini Mayo, I finally understand what all the hype is over this sandwich, it’s an incredible thing you guys! It may not seem like it to you, but from where I’m standing the Banh Mi is a hugely popular fad right now. Maybe you can help me out because my perspective is probably skewed with me being a food blogger and everything.

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It’s funny ’cause when it comes to almost anything else current (music, celebs, movies, huge world events…..) I’m pretty behind and oblivious to most of it. Like, sometimes I feel as if I may as well be living on Mars for all I can tell you about what songs are most popular or who the “it” people of the moment are. What I do get into keeping up with is what everyone is eating, so it’s likely you may have never even heard of a banh mi before and are really confused. If that’s the case let me introduce you.

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Enter: these Vietnamese Pork Banh Mi’s with Sriracha Tahini Mayo! So you’ve probably gathered that it’s a sandwich but it’s not just any sandwhich. “Banh” (pronounced bun) actually just means bread and “Mi” (me) means wheat, so the name kind of only includes the bread, the filling is sort of implied though. I guess it would make more sense if you speak Vietnamese. There is some very interesting history behind these creations. They’re a fusion between French and Vietnamese cuisine that happened in the late 1800’s when Vietnam was under French rule. The French brought the bread to the party but then when their rule over the locals ceased years later the sandwich slowly evolved to include more and more of traditional Viet flavors.

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By this point in history the Banh mi has gotten popular in places all over the globe due to immigrants and refugees pioneering the way for them. You can find this classic Vietnamese street food in places like London and NY, and like I’ve already pointed out, it’s an understandable craze ’cause they’re SO good!

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I kept my recipe here pretty close to what I’ve found to be the basic style, are you shocked? I know, I’m always throwing in my own twists all over the place and changing things around, what’s happening to me? I don’t know, I just felt like I should keep something so delicious intact and not fix what wasn’t broken. The only thing that I did throw in was the tahini, because I had the idea a few weeks ago when I told myself I was finally going to try these and it’s been stuck in my head to do it with them ever since. I’m having a moment with tahini right now, can you tell? I love that stuff.

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Oh right, how could I have forgotten to mention that I did the pork for these in our new slow-cooker! Obviously that seems like no big news if you live anywhere else on the planet but you’ve gotta understand, we have been without one ever since moving here to Chile because you can’t find them here. My wonderful dad surprised Mom and I with one and its arrival in the mail the other day so magically coincided with my plans to make this recipe. I’m a little bit psyched about it if you didn’t deduce that.

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Alrighty, sorry if I’ve bored you with history lessons and nuances of my real life when all you probably wanted was a sandwich. What really matters here is that I’ve inspired you to try a banh mi. Have I (please say YES!)? Yay, then my job here is done!

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As always, the recipe is available upon request. The first request gets an upvote.

ALL CONTENT IS MINE AND ORIGINAL! All of these food photos were taken with my Nikon D5300 and my favorite Lens, the Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G. You can find out more in my INTRO POST. And by the way, my intro post did a huge $0.21