NYC’s Best New Sandwich is Vietnamese

[upbeat music plays]

[Nhu Ton] Banh Anh Em,

we try our best to showcase the beauty

of Vietnamese craftsmanship.

I want to showcase different type of banh mi in Vietnam.

It could be from the south, like the OG,

or it could be from the north, like Banh Mi Pate Hai Phong.

Anh Em is mean brotherhood and sisterhood.

When I came to America, when I had nothing,

and I wouldn't be who I am today and where I am today

without older brother and sister that I met along the way.

Hi, this is Chef Nhu. Welcome to Banh Anh Em.

This is 09:30, we have a lot of things to do. Come on in.

This is our upstairs kitchen.

That is the bread oven that we bake bread every day.

So, we have different type of banh mi.

We have OG Banh Mi Pate Hai Phong, barbecue pork,

rib eye, and chicken.

And we also offer vegan sandwiches.

We are gonna start to go downstairs to check on the dough,

and we're gonna start to make our banh mi.

Let's go.

[upbeat music plays]

This is our prep kitchen. We make a lot of bread here.

But, first thing first, I need to double check the dough

to make sure that the quality of the dough is good.

In Vietnam, the weather is really hot.

Normally it take only like couple hours.

But for me, it's important

for the flavor of banh mi to develop,

so we make it and let the dough rest

in the walk-in overnight.

In order to check the dough,

you see like, how smooth it is?

It will determine how the bread turns out.

It's like, when you pull it,

you don't see any like, gluten structure break.

The banh mi itself, it have to be like very fluffy,

so it expand rapidly inside the oven.

And we need the gluten structure strong.

Otherwise, it will collapse.

And it won't be airy, the outside won't be crispy.

The dough look really good already.

This is our Ongdi, the bread baker.

It took me over two years to come up with this recipe.

I took a motorcycle from Saigon all the way to Hanoi

and try different kind of banh mi.

I went back five times.

After I came back from Vietnam,

I work on my recipe for over two years.

The other side of it is like, it takes a lot of time.

There's so many night that if we bake a lot more bread,

then I stay at the restaurant and sleep at the restaurant.

But again, the restaurant is just so small,

so I just brought very small blankets so I could sleep here.

I don't have pillow or anything.

So, we gonna put the flours and ice in here.

So, while we wait for the dough to get ready,

I gonna start shaping the bread butter to the tray.

Later on, after everything is done,

it's easier to remove the bread.

We are gonna do three bread here and two here,

to make sure the air could go evenly.

It's really important to have enough room,

especially with our OG banh mi.

They come with our homemade pate,

which is the star of that sandwich.

We also do different kind of Vietnamese cold cut in-house,

and it's also come with pork floss, pork skin,

which we marinate and mixed with roasted brown rice.

In order to create the fluffy, super airy inside,

we gotta create some layer inside of the bread.

That's why we have to roll it.

We pinch it over here, in order to like, seal it.

If you don't seal it

and the banh mi is rapidly expand inside the oven,

this one it could open, and it will destroy the shape.

We shaping 600 bread by hand today.

Sometime, like, I sleep at night

and I have nightmare that I over-proof the banh mi.

We still have a lot of bread to make,

but I'm gonna let Ongdi do it.

I'm gonna move on to making roasted pork banh mi.

[upbeat music plays]

So, it's now 10:45.

We're gonna grab some pork from the walk-in.

So, this one, we're gonna prepare for Heo Quay,

which is the roasted pork sandwich,

one of our best selling items.

The skin is crispy,

and the meat has to be really moist.

As you could see here, the belly part,

so you want it a little bit fat.

It's also lean, but you don't want it too much meat either.

So it's like, very specific kind of cut

that I'm looking for.

That's why the entire pork, a whole big pieces,

sometime we get only one pieces for roasted pork.

Sometime, luckily, we have two.

It's like gambling, you don't know.

Sometime you spend so much money

and you get only like two pieces like this.

So, with the crispy pork,

it's very important to prep the skin.

This is my tool.

I want this area together,

and with the metal tool I can't really adjust it.

So, this one, it just work for me.

You have to poke this one to create hole

that later on it will help.

So, for the skin to help and create the crispiness.

So, we want to use like younger pig.

The skin is softer and it's easier to poke.

So, I gonna start to marinate the pork belly.

I will cut it in a way that I don't touch the skin,

because if you touch the skin,

it will create a gap right here,

and this part, it won't be crispy.

It's important that the meat is always have flavor,

and we create our own rub here

that have five spice, salt, garlic powder, black peppers,

and I even have customer farm Saigon.

You know, she say that it tastes

like the one that she have in Saigon,

which mean a lot to us.

The food from Saigon, which is south end of Vietnam,

it's always a little bit more sweet.

The central Vietnam, which where my family from,

the flavor is really bold

it's spicy, it's strong, it's salty.

I really massage it

to make sure that the seasoning really go inside the pork.

This one, it sit overnight already.

I gonna start putting salt on top of the skin.

This one it have nothing to do with the flavor,

just make the skin as dry as possible.

I'm gonna put inside the oven for 30 minutes

to remove the moisture from the skin.

Then we start to roast it.

Gonna move to the next step, making pate.

[upbeat music plays]

So now, it's 11:30. We're gonna move to making pate.

It's a combination of liver, ground pork,

and with Vietnamese pate, we add crispy onions in it too.

So, it create a thick paste

that we spread it on our banh mi.

It's called Banh Mi Pate Hai Phong

that we serve at our restaurants.

The ingredients super simple.

The bread is very small, pate,

and then the crispy pork floss.

We are gonna use the old bread, and soak it in heavy cream.

The purpose of doing this one,

it make the pate a lot more moist.

What different from Vietnamese pate and French pate

is we use crispy onion, crispy shallot,

and we use fish sauce to add more umami flavor to it.

And I think the process of making pate,

like, traditionally Vietnamese pate is also very different.

We slow cook it.

For example, I learned how to make pate

from a grandma in the north of Vietnam.

The process making pate take her generally like eight hours.

The pate is the key ingredient for all the flavor.

I gonna bring this upstairs,

and we will continue with the process.

It's noon now.

In order to make pate,

I normally grill the liver over charcoal.

I like that smoky flavor,

and it's also like, to kill the smell from pork liver.

I think working with charcoal,

it could be a little bit tricky.

We use the Japanese charcoal,

because it hold the heat a lot better.

So, we want like, the heat as consistent as possible.

While we waiting for the charcoal to heat up,

I gonna talk about crispy onion.

We go through probably around like, 200 pound of onions

every week.

Every batch like this,

it will take probably like 20, 30 minutes.

Some places when they make pate,

they will use just regular onions,

but to me, the flavor of fried onions, it's very different.

So, this is the final product.

We don't fry a lot of onions at the same time,

because there's so much water inside oil,

it won't create crispy onions.

So, this is the pork liver,

that we're gonna grill it over charcoal for our pate.

I'm gonna put all the ingredient inside the pot,

and then the next step, I gonna add chicken liver,

and then bake it in the combi-oven for two, three hours.

It become like super soft.

We finish with the pate.

Then now, we're gonna go downstairs to make hot sauce.

[upbeat music plays]

So, it 2:15. We gonna start to making hot sauce.

My staff already helped me to peel some already,

but this process, it takes so much time.

Most of the time, my staff doesn't wanna do it.

This is the bird-eye chili.

This is the ingredient to make the lokbak,

which is the hot sauce that we make to pair with our soup.

Particularly is used with our Pho.

Each batch of hot sauce,

normally it take for us six to eight months.

We really struggle to find spaces.

The rent in Manhattan is not cheap,

but we sacrifice the rent for our hot sauce,

for our pickling that also take a lot of time.

So, the next step, we're gonna blanch it in hot water.

A lot of people ask us why we put so much time

into making hot sauce.

But in Vietnam, we pair different dishes

with different type of hot sauce.

I'm really surprised that when I came to America

then I saw only sriracha.

For this hot sauce, it come with salt, tomato, garlic,

and a little bit sugar,

to help with the fermentation process,

but we don't use anything else.

It is very simple.

So, this is all cooking right now. We have some time.

So I gonna move making Banh Uot Chong.

The pure beef pan that we gonna use for the rice roll tower.

The raw sheet towers, it originally from my hometown.

It's like a fun dish wrap and roll with grilled pork,

and we grill it over charcoal.

So we have some beef here. It's really lean.

With this dish, you gotta make sure everything dry.

I have the garlic powders, and black pepper,

so when I mix it well,

it create like the chewy texture for the Banh Uot.

So this dish, it come with the steam rice roll.

It have a lot of component in this dish.

So with a Banh Uot Chong, you want something like umami,

you know, great grilled flavor.

That's why we use pork gel. It juicy.

And you also want some sourness, you know?

So, we have green mango, we have lots of green pickle.

But it's all come together and balance everything out.

Just so many components.

So, I have to debate with myself that,

Should I put it on the menu or not?

Because I know that the amount of dishes

that my dishwasher had to go through every day

is such a nightmare,

and there's a lot of time, especially during weekend,

my dishwasher had to stay here

until like five in the morning to really finish everything,

and I feel bad.

So, this is fish sauce and sugar and garlic.

So, the very last step, I gonna add pork skin to it.

It create very nice, chewy texture.

We're gonna move it here,

and you have to press it really hard,

otherwise there's a gap between the hem,

and it will get broken.

So, after we done with everything, I gonna weigh this down.

I gonna put this away,

and then we're gonna move it to the next task.

[upbeat music plays]

I want to introduce you to another component for Pho.

This is called peanut woang, [indistinct] in Vietnamese.

I partner with a family in Quang Ninh.

They really go out there and then harvest this one.

It create very nice, deep umami flavor,

but it's also like a natural ingredient as MSG,

that it balance everything out.

A lot of restaurant, they don't wanna use this one,

because it's a little bit expensive.

It take time to ship from Vietnam.

But this key ingredient,

it make our broth so much different

as from any other restaurants,

it have a lot of sand,

so we have to wash it really carefully.

So, I'm gonna add some water in here.

You just have to massage it

so all the sand can just go out of the woang.

I would let it soak for 10, 15 minutes,

and then I gonna come back and wash it again.

So, the woang have been soaking

for around like, 30 minutes.

It's like normally, I would wash it

for like six to eight times.

It's have a lot of sand here.

We don't want any sand that get into the soup.

When the water start to get really clear,

then this one is ready.

So, this one you can just put it inside the soup.

And you need to season the stock 30 minutes before we open,

and it's ready for the serving.

[upbeat music plays]

So, it's five o'clock, I'm gonna start to score the bread.

So, this is the bread that we shaped this morning

and we proofed it for four hours.

The process of scoring the bread,

it make the bread expand a lot better.

I have to like, calculate the time

to make sure that we bake the bread right before we open,

and we have fresh bread throughout the night.

I'm gonna put this one in the oven.

I put the hotel pan with hot water at the bottom,

and provide a lot of moisture to help the dough

to expand as much as possible.

In order to achieve the thin crust, and the fluffy inside,

then I bake very high heat.

I bake at 500 Fahrenheit,

and it would be for around like 20 minutes,

and it's ready for service.

Every time we make around 30 bread.

After you take it out the ovens,

you will start to hear the sound of crackling.

And that's a good sign of really great banh mi.

[upbeat music plays]

So, it's 5:55.

We only have five more minutes till open for service.

We don't take reservation.

There's already a line in front of the restaurant.

We don't take reservation,

because I grew up, you know,

there was no reservation suchsoever in Vietnam.

So no reservation.

So it depends on the day,

but normally I gonna stand up at expo station

to control the food quality.

I'll double check all the food before it's sent out.

If any problem in the kitchen then I jump in the kitchen,

you know, to help the staff.

And I also look like how the staff like, plating everything.

Make sure all the food is hot.

If it's cold, then it should be at the right temperature.

I normally will jump on the line every day,

to make sure, you know, everything is done properly

whenever I work.

Now, it's six o'clock. It's showtime.

[upbeat music plays]

I need one salted [indistinct].

I need four more sandwich to get done.

Four more. Four more.

I need one noodle, okay, again.

I need the noodle first. Hot table cover.

For B three.

I need two pate chaud, okay?

Thank you for spending a day with me,

but the restaurant is really busy right now.

You guys should go.