I'm sorry about the title of this post. It's awful. I have been trying for at least twenty-four hours to come up with a good pun for this post (she admits unabashedly, as though that's not something worth being judged for), and I just can't do it. A couple of weeks ago I was shopping with my mom and we stopped to get lunch at Ruby Tuesday's, and on our table there was a card with a picture of fondue that said "Fondue If We Don't!" and I was immediately all like, "Ugh they can't come up with a better phrase? I mean watch I'll do it right now - Don't mind if I fondue!" I practically high-fived myself. I love punny phrases so much, especially when they're about food.
Anyway, for this, I've got nothin'.
As I mentioned before we left dear Brooklyn, I was [very] attached to tofu bahn mi sandwiches from Hanco's in our neighborhood. So, so, so, so, so delicious. Even going to the previous blog entry and then the Hanco's site to make those hyperlinks had my mouth watering. This was literally a once-a-week food for us when we lived there. If I could have I would have had Hanco's as my birthday cake, but that would have been weird (actually - no, that's a GREAT idea. Opportunity lost, me).
Anyway part of the deliciousness of it is the pickled vegetables that go on it. I found a recipe and discovered that those are actually pickled carrots and daikon. I went to the store with the intention of getting the ingredients, but couldn't find daikon. However I had already set my heart on making the stuff, so I tried to make it with carrots and... carrots. Yeah, just carrots.
The result was less than exciting; the daikon must contribute something big to the recipe (um maybe that's why half of the recipe is daikon) and what I had when I tried one of the carrots 24 hours later was a very vinegary carrot. Gross. So being the genius that I am, I added water to it, thinking that would remedy the situation. But instead I just got a bunch of waterlogged vinegar carrots.
Before they became waterlogged, they weren't sinking to the bottom like this:
Oh well, better luck next time. I'll continue my search for daikon but in the meantime, I got to wondering if bahn mi was something I could get somewhere up here. I put it into my phone and found that there was a Vietnamese restaurant in Amherst, MA. Score! That's 45 minutes or so from us and better yet, it's where Garret's working on a freelance project. He goes there twice a week at present. Excitedly, we decided to get some bahn mi for dinner the next night.
He stopped to pick it up and I was so sure it would be exactly like it was in Brooklyn and in eating it and therefore replacing my favorite sandwich ever, I would have effectively learned to quit Brooklyn for good. I considered wearing a nice outfit just to eat the sandwich, so that this moment could be photographed, looked back on, and preserved forever. (Considered, didn't do. Working from home is not a fashion-forward pursuit.)
They looked pretty good:
But they tasted.....................
AWFUL!!!!!
Well, the tofu one did anyway. I didn't try Garret's pork one. The tofu one had barely any tofu on it, and what tofu was there tasted as though it had been soaked in cheap bouillon cubes before being microwaved. And where Hanco's sandwiches were often so spicy that I had to go across the street and buy ice cream just to cool off afterwards (yes, yes, me - the ice cream as a necessity... just keep telling yourself that) these ones didn't even come with the option of spicy!
What a bummer!
It looks like my search for daikon must continue if I'm ever to experience half of the deliciousness again. I have no hope that I can recreate Hanco's genius sandwich, but even if I could perfect the carrot/daikon mixture, I'd feel a little happier.
So I guess, this story remains to be continued...
If you are anywhere within an hour of me (actually two hours) and you know of good bahn mi, please tell mi (hah hah hah). I'll buy you a sandwich and as we say, "Cheers!" we'll clank our toasted french baguettes together like the containers of deliciousness they are. (Toasting with toasted baguettes? There's totally a punny food phrase in there... or at least a good cartoon for the funny pages).
.lsm.
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