I AM NOT NORMALLY FOND OF MEALS WRAPPED IN PASTRY (UNLESS THEY HAPPEN TO BE HIGHLY MEAT & CHEESE SPECIFIC, THE ULTIMATE BEING THE FAMED BURRITO OF MEXICO, OR THE MIGHTY KEBAP OF THE TRUNG-DONG, OR THE DONG-TRUNG, OR HOWEVER THEY CALL THE MIDDLE-EAST IN VIETNAMESE). When it comes to largely vegetable or roots & shoots spreads wrapped in pastry I am afraid you are going to have to count me out, as John Lennon once asserted, defiantly. It doesn't look good, it doesn't crunch good, and I am not exactly sure why. Maybe I had the odd bad experience with monjayaki in Japan, or a soggy okonomiyaki in some park somewhere. My mother always used to make me soggy sandwiches with prefreezed thawed out on the kitchen sink in the morning sun white bread when I was at school. The slices of bread would still be icy while she was buttering them up, coating them with Vegemite. However, no need to fear bad cooking here -- the Vietnamese have a knack for kicking life into the types of food which often taste bland in other countries (Vietnam style rice porridge being a prime example). So, Bánh xeo may yet surprise me. Many claim it is the best food to be found in southern Vietnam, and its popularity has spread to other parts of the world. For the uninitiated, banh xeo (literally "cake sizzling") are Vietnamese crepes stuffed with pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts. If the photos on the Internet are anything to go by, the bean sprouts sure do outnumber the bodies of shrimps of the pieces of pork, and that is what concerns me. I am disturbed by the thought of biting through pastry to discover limp vegetable matter, soggy waterlogged vegetable pastry mush... that makes me want to barf. To intensify the greens factor, banh xeo are wrapped in vegetable leaves... for example, mustard leaf, lettuce leaves, etc. Wrapping food in leaves and then plonking the finished product into a dipping sauce is a big tradition in Vietnam...
WHY DO THEY GIVE BANH XEO THE FIERY, EXPLOSIVE NAME THAT THEY DO? Noodlepie the lonely food nerd says: "While the recipe itself might be a piece of piss, getting it right requires a deft hand, a frying pan as hot as the sun and a nibble touch with the batter." As if to echo my aforementioned sogginess fears, Noodlepie carries on: "Banh xeo pancakes should be crispy on the outside and ever so slightly moist on the inside. Leaving it hanging around too long and you've got a soggy savoury crepe on your hands and you don't want that, believe me..."
I have watched a few videos of banh xeo being cooked, and it seems the secret to its explosive crispiness lies in the way the chef swiftly swirls the batter around the hot wok. In the photo above you can see a banh xeo chef at work on his wok, halfway through the swirling process.
Bánh xeo
lurping the broth, skewering the noodles with their chopsticks, and biting into pieces of meat. Even food connoisseurs in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City admit to a love of Bun bo Huế, especially when it is served in Huế."
There are plenty of places in Ho Chi Minh City to eat Bun bo Huế, among them:
Bun Bo Hue Hanh: 135 Banh Van Tran St., Ward 7, Tan Binh district. Phone: 08 865 4842. Map/price details: .
Said to be one of the famous shops that serve bun bo Hue in Ong Ta area.
Banh Xeo 46A: 46A Dinh Cong Trang, District 3. Phone 824 1110.
This is said to be one of the best banh xeo restaurants in Saigon, according to Lonely Planet. This chaotic, open-air joint has been a Saigon institution since 1941, according to Qantas.
