me, b and the bahn mi.

there's this sweet little vietnamese grocery store just east of the city market in columbus park. b and i walk by it often with kolby and sometimes, go in to buy a few things. on our last trip in, we discovered it has a little restaurant area with an array of chicken-feet items and the often illusive bahn mi. bahn mi is a traditional vietnamese sandwich of pork, pickled vegetables, cilantro and chilies. this place sold them for only $2.50. so yesterday, we decided to venture there for a cheap lunch.

the bahn mi were huge. and at once, we decided we'd only eat half and then save the other half for dinner. it seemed like the best deal in the city. for the first few mouthfuls.

b even declared, "i'm coming back here! this is the best deal in the city! cheaper than eating at home." see?

then, it started to taste a little too authentic. but, i wanted to be all "anthony bourdain" on it. i was going to eat it and like it, damn-it. except, it was making me feel sick.

so i poured fish sauce all over it. except, this wasn't the fish sauce i'm used to ordering. it was more like fermented fish guts. which is fine if you like that sort of thing. i didn't.

then i deconstructed the sandwich to find that the pork was actually two different types of vietnamese cold cuts. one was made of fermented headcheese (which consists of pork lips, snout and such.) and the other was sort of gelatinous and infused with red food coloring.

b was slowing down on his sandwich, too. then, right as i said, "you sure you're going to come back here a lot?" with a wink, a bird (read: a big, black bird) flew out of the kitchen and into the window right next to our table.

no joke.

anyway, the bahn mi wasn't for me.

happy gillis does a nice, americanized version though. and unfortunately, i'm going to have to stick with that.