500 Po Boys: Tet Festival In New Orleans

500 Po Boys Visits Tet Festival In New Orleans
We were on a po boy run with our sights vectored in on the Tet Festival
Cries of Chúc mung nam moi (Happy New Year) greeted the arriving throngs as thousands of people crowded onto the grounds of Mary Queen of Vietnam church.
An ACDC tribute band provided the soundtrack from a giant stage with a speaker system that would do Hawkwind proud.

The Versailles Neighborhood Of New Orleans East
And man can they cook. New Orleans restaurant scene is chockablock with Vietnamese cafes, diners, restaurants and bakeries. We often go weeks on end only eating Vietnamese food when we dine out.
Our introduction to the banh mi (Vietnamese po boy) came back in the 80s at a long-shuttered restaurant in Austin, Texas called Ba Le. If memory serves it ran about $2. We were instantly hooked.

A Vietnamese Beauty At 2017 New Orleans Tet Festival
Which is how we came to land a pluperfect Vietnamese meatball banh mi.
At our favorite booth we noticed a crockpot filled with a brilliant red soupy broth that portended unimaginable deliciousness. A brief exchange with the cook led her to plunge a ladle deep into the cooker revealing dozens of perfectly formed meatballs.

2017 New Orleans Tet Festival
Accoutrements were standard: cucumber, daikon, jalapeno, shredded carrots, cilantro, and creamy mayonnaise. If the garnish were run of the mill, the protein was anything but: ground pork, seemingly bound with nothing more than love, and seasoned vigorously with anise, powered this sandwich-one of the finest in the entire series. .

Tell Me This Lady Doesn’t Know How To Make A Banh Mi
The crust is shattering-fresh, quickly giving way to the thick stack of carefully-assembled fillings. On a lesser roll this sandwich would still be good, on the Phong bun it is magnificent.
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