Banh Cuon
Banh Cuon
Thin rolled steamed rice cakes
I have been wanting to taste this one all week and to my surprise you can’t find them everywhere. I assumed that as per Pho, they would be on every corner, but not so much. Once I found a store and stood watching them for a couple of minutes I completely understood why.
Outside the stores you will find enormous 50ltr stock pots filled with water. On top of the pots are, what looks like drum sieves covered with a very thin cloth almost like a muslin.
A very runny batter then gets poured on to cloth and spread in an incredibly thin layer and steamed for about a minute with a loose lid on top. This then gets lifted off the cloth with a stick…… yes a stick and placed on a slightly oiled surface. Filling gets added and then rolled loosely and man handled in sort of waves on to a plate.
With three of these rolls on the plate a pair of scissors gets taken to them to cut in half. Everywhere I go I have seen more pairs of scissors used than knives, from cutting springrolls to attacking the salad/herb baskets. Watching a little old aunty walk around almost every restaurant with scissor in Han has made me giggle almost every day
Anyway enough about the fetish with Edward scissor hands and back to my Banh Cuon. It is truly like nothing I have ever eaten. It is delicate and light yet flavourful and texturally like satin. It gets rolled around numerous sorts of fillings, this one in particular was pork. At first I thought to myself that aunty was being very mean with her filling, but only to realise that the filling plays second fiddle to the actual “pancakes” which without a doubt is the hero
Steamed Banh Cuon
The rolls get served with a sort of fish sauce chili dipping sauce and a basket full of mint, basil & perilla leaves. However don’t make the mistake of letting go of the slippery sucker once you have lifted half a roll in your chopstick once you have hold of them, otherwise they will be floating around in your sauce and become a soup of its own. Every mouthful is just a joy so much so that I ordered the chicken one too!! For R16 each I was certainly not breaking the bank.
For such little money this is such a big effort, but there were people constantly in and out of the little stall and aunty was doing her thing!! What always amazes me is that in this little street side family run business the aunty “chef” also always takes the money!! Just to prove once again what control freaks we are!!
Another Empty Bowl