Vietnamese -

by Emily

Food Porn of the Day: The Porkiest Belly

Pork belly is definitely a thing these days. So much of a thing that I’m almost… dare I say… over it. (Gasp!) Every menu in Austin, and probably in the country, is full of the stuff. It takes a veeeery special pork belly to catch my eye these days. All that being said, the pork belly at Odd Duck in Austin does it. “It” being “catches my eye and makes me care about pig again.”

The above is Odd Duck’s pork belly banh mi buns, which I devoured at lunch a week-ish ago. The meat is perfectly prepared and intensely flavorful. Chewy, yet somehow also melts in your mouth. By the way, next time you’re in Austin? Go to Odd Duck. You won’t regret it.

by Emily

Cocktail O’ Clock: Tropical Vietnamese Cocktail

Summer! It’s time to bust out the festive tropical flavors. Austin Vietnamese restaurant PhoNatic is taking this idea to a whole new level with their Vietnamese tropical fruit cocktail, using unique ingredients like lychee, longan, and jackfruit. While these might sound exotic and hard to find at first, they’re really not – just check out your local Asian market.

While this isn’t our traditional cocktail – it’s a fruit cocktail, not a booze cocktail – you could easily spike it with a couple shots of light rum to get the party started. ES recommends this, of course.

Vietnamese Tropical Fruit Cocktail

America’s Best New Sandwiches — 2012

You want sandwiches? We got sandwiches. Last year, Endless Simmer’s post on America’s Top 10 New Sandwiches was our most-read story of 2011, and even helped turn The New Luther into a bit of a sell-out phenomenon. But America’s sandwich artisans haven’t stopped innovating, and we haven’t stopped salivating. So here we go, for your drooling-at-work pleasure, this year’s list of America’s top 10 craziest, loveliest, cheesiest, most creative new sandwiches.

10. The Noble Pig — Noble Pig Sandwiches, Austin

Texas may be best known for its beef, but perhaps not for long, if chefs John Bates and Brandon Martinez have anything to say about it. Their year-and-a-half-old Noble Pig serves up a namesake sandwich that somehow combines everything that is beautiful about pork products on one truly outstanding sandwich. Tender pulled pork, spicy slivers of ham, and crispy bits of bacon are all mixed together, topped with provolone cheese, and served on toasted, house-baked bread, for a porky trifecta that hits all of the spots. (Photo: Marshall Wright)

9. Pane et Panelle — Bar Stuzzichini, New York

Chickpeas may get typecast as functioning only in falafel form, but it turns out balls aren’t all they can do. Panelle is actually an old Sicilian street food snack—chickpeas and flour formed into light, airy strips and fried in olive oil. Stuzzichini‘s sandwich revives that classic and perfects it, layering crispy strips of panelle on a sesame-studded bun, in between levels of soft ricotta and caciocavallo cheeses. The result is a light-but-addictive sandwich that will make you curse every overly dense falafel wrap that has crossed your lips.

8. Chicharrones Banh Mi — Ink Sack, Los Angeles

There are a million banh mis in American nowadays, but we were most swept away by this version from Top Chef champ Michael Voltaggio. At his new Ink Sack sandwich shop, tender slices of pork belly and pork butt are topped with pickled vegetables, plus the kicker — crispy chicharróne fried pork rinds, creating one incredible multi-culti pork bomb.

New Food Words in the Dictionary

(Photo: Leo Reynolds)

OMG, did you hear? The Oxford English Dictionary has revised its latest edition to include new “words” such as FYI, BFF and LOL. Yes, let’s all take a moment and ROFL at that for a moment. What you might not know is the esteemed book also included some new food words. Some of them are under-the-radar food phrases, while many are probably already in your daily vernacular, which makes me wonder why they weren’t already in the dictionary, I mean WTF.

Keep reading to see some of our favorite food terms that are now officially legit, in alphabetical order.

ES Local: Midtown Momofuku Madness in NYC

If you’ve been keeping up with the New York food blogerati over the past few days, then you know there’s been only one pressing recent world event. Clearly I’m not talking about water on the moon or health care passing the house, but Momofuku’s inevitable march into midtown. On Thursday, David Chang’s much, much, much talked about mini-chain soft opened Ma Peche, its first non-East Village location, inside the trendy Chambers Hotel. The Manhattan food world is basically treating it as a live-blog-worthy breaking news event. Here are a few of the first thoughts:

Midtown Lunch:

“The three terrine banh mi…is out of control good.”

Eater:

“I think it’s safe to say we have a new banh mi king in town”

Hotel Chatter:

“Even if you’re not into the rest of the food, you could order the cookie and a glass of milk and still have a smidgeon of the Momofuku experience. In fact, that’s what we recommend.”

Sorry, TVFF – sounds like the bahn mi trend isn’t dead quite yet.

Since it’s safe to say Ma Peche will be packed to the brim every lunch hour for the next, oh, five years or so, over at Oyster we’re looking at a few alternative spots to grab lunch in this just-south-of-Central-Park slice of Midtown.

(Photo: Food in Mouth)

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