Baguette sandwich, Lao-style
A big fan of Vietnamese bahn mi, I was super excited to try the baguette sandwiches of Laos. There are some interesting ingredients in it, in particular pork floss, or rou song in Chinese. I think of rou song as a condiment for rice porridge, so when I see it "out of context," e.g. baked inside of a bun in a Hong Kong bakery, or in these sandwiches, I'm intrigued!
At our sandwich maker's stall in the food court of Talat Sao Mall in Vientiane, our sandwich started out sliced open, then filled with mayonnaise and pate spread. I'd read that Lao-style sandwiches have a pate that's actually more like luncheon meat, but we definitely had pate that's French or Vietnamese style. Then the bread was placed on a grill.
While the nascent sandwich was toasting away, our sandwich maker prepared the other ingredients. This included slicing up the luncheon-meat ingredient, which comes from the large rolls wrapped in banana leaf you see in front. Other ingredients were pork rimmed with red dye (did not taste like Chinese cha shao if you're wondering), and julienned vegetables. These weren't pickled, like banh mi vegetables often are. You can also see the brown rou song in the bowl in the middle.
The final product. A toasty, tasty snacky food that powered a half day more of sightseeing!
