More reasons to hate food blogging (Bánh Mì Saigon)

Remember a while ago when I talked about how much I hate food bloggers? I bet you probably thought my 24 pack of Haterade™ had run dry, but you'd be wrong. This shit is real, this shit is happening - I'm making an addendum to my somewhat exhaustive list. Reason number - er... whatever it is, I lost count - to hate food bloggers: they're fickle-ass motherfuckers. Equipped with memory capacities only slightly better than those of common goldfish, a lot of bloggers drive food trends for a couple of months, writing fervently about a single dish or cuisine as if it were truly the apex of culinary innovation, before quickly switching to a new "golden topic" of the day. Remember when cupcakes were all the rage? Then people decided that they wanted artisan pies? Which was followed by a sudden "renaissance age" of doughnuts? Well that shit is stupid. It's not like cupcakes suddenly started tasting like stale bread frosted with crap or that pies became second-rate desserts, it's really just that people tend to have a sheep-like tendency to do the popular thing. Not me though. I'm a shark. Sharks are winners, and they don't look back because they have no necks. Necks are for sheep.

Just like bánh mì. Two years ago, there wasn't a single person who wouldn't shut up about bánh mì. Then slowly, everyone made a mass exodus to some other hot issue in the very important world of food blogging. Probably something stupid like ramps.



Now I'll be straight with you upfront - I really don't know jack shit about Vietnamese food and I really don't know that much about bánh mì... so I'm not gonna tell you some nonsense like where to go for the best one (let's be honest, everyone knows how much bs those lists are anyway). What I will do, is tell you that Bánh Mì Saigon (located in the back of a jewelry store) makes some bombin' sandwiches in general. Also they're cheap. That's always a plus in my book.



That would be $4.25 worth of sandwich. Their most popular sandwich is probably the bbq pork one. It's pretty simple really, just a plain baguette that balances a nice crispness with compliance that's sliced and stuffed. The filling is fairly... subtle. The roast pork is a loose ground meat mix that's semi-sweet, semi-savory, and relatively tender while possessing an unexpected crusting from the cooking process. Combined with cucumbers, radishes, cilantro, carrots, and all the standard accouterments (don't ask me what else goes inside)... this is a pretty damn tasty sandwich. With the cucumber slivers, daikon, and cilantro there's a certain refreshing lightness to the taste profile, and with the roast pork, pate, and mayo-ish sauce there's definitely a contrasting dense part to the equation. When added together and put on fresh bread? It's like seeing baby unicorns prancing across rainbow bridges suspended on puffy clouds - goddamn magical.

In closing, I'm actually gonna throw some more salt in your game by giving you a bonus reason to hate food bloggers. They steal shit. All the time. Ideas, content, photos... you name it. I wasn't actually gonna write this post for a few weeks, but you know what spurred me on? When I found out some asshat on Tumblr jacked my photo. My copyrighted photo. That little 'c' in a circle on Flickr? That means you should probably ask my permission before posting my shit on your demented blog. Just because you posted my Flickr username doesn't mean you credited me, it just means you just have the slightest bit of moral sense to admit that you didn't take the photo yourself. You're probably thinking, "bro you should chill out, you download shit all the time... what's one photo in the grand scheme of things?" Well first of all, it's not exactly an isolated incident. People take my photos all the time without asking. It's the fact that they don't even respect my content enough to at least ask to paste it all over the internet. What really boils my britches though, is the fact that the photo in question now has 2400+ pageviews. Pageviews that asswipe-content-stealer got that should've been going to me. Fuck this. I don't take pictures so other people get praised for shit. I do that for me. Frustrating.

Right. So in case you didn't feel like reading all that jazz (don't know why anyone would skip my Pulitzer-caliber writing...) tl;dr - a lot of food bloggers are like sheep because they have necks. There's a tendency to follow a retarded mob mentality and to forget that newer doesn't exactly = better. Also, some food bloggers are assholes and jack content like there's no tomorrow, stealin' mah pageviews... and stuff. Finally, Bánh Mì Saigon makes really good sandwiches that all cost less than $5. It is awesome. Also you can shop for jewelry while you wait for your order.

Bánh Mì Saigon
198 Grand St, New York, NY 10013
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Korean-Vietnamese tacos and sandwiches (Tyson Bees)

When someone first suggested I go to Tyson Bees food truck for some Korean tacos, I was really confused. The first thing I think of when someone says the name Tyson is usually Mike... or the chicken company. After purging my brain of the idea of Mike Tyson taking my order, handcrafting Korean tacos, and then taking a bite out of my ear... I did some research on this truck. As it turns out, a former Iron Chef contestant by the name of Tyson Wong Ophaso decided to try his hand at a food truck based on Asian-fusion. Korean-Vietnamese-Mexican flavors. Can't get more serious than that. I mean... the flavor combinations can definitely work together (bulgogi cheesesteak anyone?), but it's also been screwed up a lot. Color me skeptical.



First things first... their truck. It is baller as fuck (hey that rhymes!). I'm not entirely sure where Tyson came up with the whole bee theme, but whatever. It's his truck. He can do whatever he wants with it. If I made a truck, it would be plastered with action shots of Kevin Durant and Godzilla. It would also be awesome, but that's not the point. The point is, when all the other trucks go rolling around the Penn campus looking all crappy and the like, Tyson is ridin' dirty in his flamboyantly fluorescent truck plastered with cute bees and hearts. Also, that blue thing looks like it's licking someone's butt. Like a boss.



I actually did not get tacos. Korean tacos has gotten so played out over the past few months that it's not even fresh anymore. Everyone and their grandmother is in the Korean taco game. Instead, I tried their "Grilled BBQ Lemongrass Pork Banh Mi." At $5, it's more expensive than most of the banh mi you could get in Manhattan's Chinatown, but goddamn was it tasty. Sweet bbq pork is accented with the crisp flavor of cilantro and just a hint of lemongrass. My only gripe would be that they give you too much pork and not enough bun since the bread kind of falls apart. Seriously though, that's not much of a complaint... I would never tell a food truck to give me less meat. That's just stupid.



I also got a Korean kalbi and kimchi burrito, because my ass... it is not fat enough yet. Yeah I took a bite of it to take a picture, what of it? Anyway, it is what it is. It is stuffed with marinated beef short ribs (and yes, they are juicy and flavorful), kimchi, lettuce, and rice. Super simple construction, but the final product definitely surpasses the sum of its parts. Not too spicy, which was somewhat disappointing, but pungent indeed. Also costing $5, I would get it again. At first I thought it was a tad expensive for the size, since I was left wanting, but I realized that somethings are worth the price. This is one of those things.
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