Since we are closer to Vietnam now, I thought I would find many more Vietnamese food.
Surprisingly, that doesn’t seem like the case.
There are a few Vietnamese restaurants in Bangkok, but not as many as I expected.
I was craving for banh mi sandwich, and luckily, I happened to have all the ingredients needed.
The only thing missing was the bread.
I couldn’t find any Vietnamese bakery where they sell banh mi bread.
I thought about getting a regular French baguette from a French bakery, but at the last minute I decided to make bread myself.
I found some authentic banh mi bread recipes (posted by Vietnamese), but quickly I learned that they require some unique ingredients, tools, and techniques, which discouraged me.
So, I followed a banh mi bread recipe that I found on one of the largest Japanese recipe sites, Cookpad.
I did not follow even her instructions strictly because of a lack of a tool or simply me being lazy(!), but my bread still turned out well.
It was crunchy outside and light, soft inside.
I used soy meat for the “meat” part.
Pickles were ready.
Plus, homemade vegan mayo, cucumber, and cilantro.
Yum!
The next day with the leftover “meat” and veggies I prepared lunch.
Banh Mi Sushi Rolls!
I was planning to drizzle my homemade mayo.
But I used coconut oil (because I was out of olive oil) for this batch, and it became firm in the fridge.
So I scraped and sprinkled small pieces on top.
It does become creamy quite quickly at the room temperature.
Initially I panicked, but we actually enjoyed this mayo “crumbles”.