If you go to a banh mi sandwich shop and get super confused with all the Banh Mi options, you might be asking yourself, “what kind of Banh Mi Sandwich should I get”?

My answer? Get a classic Banh Mi like "Banh Mi Dac Biet" or “Banh Mi cha lua”.

A Banh Mi Dac Biet and Cha Lua Banh Mi is typically filled with cold cut ham, chicken liver pate, mayonnaise, pickled daikon and carrots, fresh cucumber, black pepper, green chili and cilantro.

One of the my favorites and also an iconic dish of Vietnam is the famous Banh Mi sandwich which has such deep history starting with the introduction of french baguette and pâté chaud (among many other things) during Vietnam’s French colonial era (1887 to 1954).

The original Banh Mi sandwich is believed to have been created in the 1960’s and is rumored to have been created by a northern Vietnamese couple who immigrated to Saigon after 1954 and named their shop, Hoa Ma, after their village outside Hanoi. They offered quick take-away food using fresh ingredients at a cheap price.

Learn how to make a banh mi sandwich here! Click post to learn more.

Every year in during the first week of August we would take a trip to Carthage, MO for Marian Days which is a big pilgrimage & festival for tens of thousands Vietnamese American Roman Catholics. There would be dozens and dozens of tents from all over the US with food vendors and they would serve the BEST Vietnamese foods. One of the favorites for us kids were banh mi sandwiches.

A warm crispy baguette is filled with meat (usually pork), pate, cilantro, pickled carrots and daikon, jalepenos, and lightly slathered in mayo with a few dashes of Maggi! My favorite was always the BBQ pork (Xa Xiu).