Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on Feb. 20, 2015
A fire destroyed their restaurant, along with 11 other businesses on Route 9 in Hadley 15 months ago, Chuong Son and his wife, Mung Pham, are finally bringing Banh Mi Saigon back to life in downtown Northampton.
It’s been a slow process, complicated by the fact that the restaurant’s specialty — banh mi, a grinder-like sandwich — is relatively unknown around here.
“It’s not like next door, where you say Local or Local Burger and know exactly what a burger is,” Son said, referring to the hamburger restaurant next to his business. “When you say banh mi, people wouldn’t always know or understand what it is.”
Son, 31, who opened his Hadley shop in the summer of 2012, had developed a following in that town when tragedy struck in October of 2013.
The Norwottuck Shoppes, where his restaurant was located, burned to the ground and he and Pham were left with nothing.
“After the fire in Hadley, we had a lot of people who helped us,” Son said in a recent interview at his new place. “It was something that we were not use to, people came out from left and right.”
After an arduous process of finding a new location and getting the financing in place, the couple reopened in August near the corner of Main Street and Strong Avenue at the site of the former Pho Vietnam restaurant.
Son grew up in Amherst, but he and Pham have family in Trà Vinh, the capital city of the Trà Vinh Province in southern Vietnam, where food carts line the streets outside of the vendors’ homes. Usually the carts feature one item. Son and Pham’s family sells banh mi.
“That’s how people make a living,” Son said. “If you’re selling sandwiches, it’s your main focus and you try to make it as best as you can. You get returning customers if your food is better than the next food cart.”
French influences
The phrase “banh mi” literally translates to “bread flour,” Son said. The sandwich is influenced by the French, who controlled Vietnam until 1954.
“A baguette, that’s where it came from, the French,” Son said. “What the Vietnamese did was, they added whatever they had in terms of ingredients, and made it their own.”
The banh mi is a crusty, but soft bread filled with a protein, such as tofu, beef or chicken, pickled carrots and daikon, or radish, and a dressed up mayonnaise.
Son points out that the banh mi contains all of the food categories recommended by the U. S. government for daily consumption.
“You got your carbs. There’s cucumber — veggies, cilantro in there — your protein and you also have a little mayo, so you have all the food from the pyramid together in one sandwich,” he said.
“It you get something wrong on the sandwich, everything just doesn’t work out,” Son said. “The whole flavor just collapses.”
Son and Mung Pham also have a variety of Vietnamese appetizers on their menu — egg and summer rolls, wontons, noodle dishes and pho — a soup packed with chicken, beef or tofu, scallions, onions, cilantro, Thai basil, lime and bean sprouts.
But it was banh mi that prompted the couple to give the restaurant business a try.
It was while working as a cook with University of Massachusetts’ Food Services that Chuong Son realized that not only were there few places to get banh mi sandwiches here, few people knew what they were.
“Pho (noodle soup) is known, but with banh mi, I figured, why not bring it to the area so people can experience the unique, delicious flavor,” he said. “Something was missing in the dining scene. That’s how we started.”
American touches
While the sandwich is better known in large metropolitan areas where cultural cuisine is popular, Banh Mi Saigon is one of just two Vietnamese restaurants in Hampshire County serving it. Miss Saigon in Amherst is the other.
Son says he tries to keep his sandwich as authentic as local taste buds will let him, but he has bowed to American preferences.
“We took the shell and incorporated, especially for the proteins, what people would like around here,” he said. “Americans wouldn’t eat headcheese or pâté or things like that. It’s an acquired taste.”
The proteins that are easily accessible here, like chicken, beef and pork, are luxury items in most parts of Vietnam, Son said. Therefore, the butchers’ scraps are used. Headcheese, cured meat but made from the head of an animal, or pâté, a spreadable meat puree made from animal organs are the focal points of a street cart banh mi.
You won’t get that at Banh Mi Saigon. Instead, Son marinates tofu, chicken or beef, grills it, and then finishes it with a slightly sweet sauce in a wok.
Son declined to say what he puts in his marinade and sauce, just that they are fish-based with a bit of this and little of that to build a subtly sweet umami complex.
Another break from tradition at Banh Mi Saigon is the bread. Replicating the Vietnamese-style here is difficult, Son said.
“It’s like fluffy, it’s flaky. You bite into it and it crumbles, it’s messy,” he said.
The couple’s family, like other food-cart vendors, take pride in making their own bread. Son and Pham used that recipe when they started out but couldn’t keep up with demand. So, they decided instead to buy bread from a Vietnamese bakery in Boston, where they found a similar product.
“There are four or five bakeries in Boston and the surrounding areas,” Son said. “We settled on the one that we thought was more authentic in terms of look and feel and taste. If you compare it to a French baguette, there’s not one hint of similarity except the way it looks, the way you grab it.”
The vegetable toppings come the closest to the traditional fare. Carrots and daikon are pickled and paired with cucumbers and cilantro. The sandwich is finished with a mayo, but not a thick spread like Hellmann’s or a hot Japanese mayo that tops sushi. Banh Mi Saigon’s condiment offers a sweet heat from a combination of sugar and Sriracha among other ingredients that Son, again, declines to reveal.
Mouthful of flavor
“When you bite into the bread, you get that texture of the crunch,” Son said. “Then you should taste the fish sauce, the protein and the tang from the pickled carrot and daikon, then it finishes off with the cilantro and jalapeño, if people want it spicy.”
As some Asian food can be heavy or greasy, banh mi is not. Son says people have described it as addictive, which I can attest to. The sandwiches are large and filling, and, just as Son describes, the perfect bite contains a little piece of everything — chicken, cucumber, pickled veggies, mayo and a chunk of the flaky bread. The layers of flavor make you eager for the next mouthful.
As Son and Mung attempt to rebuild their business, luring back the devotees they had in Hadley and attracting new fans in Northampton, they want to show their appreciation for the help they received after the fire. And so, since reopening in August, each Tuesday they have donated $1 for each banh mi sold, split three ways among the United Way, Cancer Connection and the Amherst Family Center.
Son said they learned a lot from their hardship: “Things we wouldn’t see or know if we didn’t go through that tragedy, just seeing that and how we can get back in business, we want to be able to help those that are going through hard times.”