- 1 day ago
Bon Appétit spends a day on the line with Chef Nhu Ton, Executive Chef and co-owner of Bánh Anh Em, the Manhattan spot serving what many call NYC’s best bánh mì. Inspired by her travels across Vietnam, Chef Nhu brings authentic Vietnamese flavors to New York through hand-baked bread, house-made hot sauce, and crispy roasted pork, resulting in one of the city’s most hyped sandwiches.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:01Banh Anh Em, we try our best to showcase the beauty of Vietnamese craftsmanship.
00:06I want to showcase different types of banh mi in Vietnam.
00:10It could be from the south, like the OG,
00:13or it could be from the north, like Banh Mi Pate Hai Phong.
00:16Anh Em, it means brotherhood and sisterhood.
00:19When I came to America when I had nothing,
00:21and I wouldn't be who I am today and where I am today
00:26without all the brothers and sisters that I met along the way.
00:31Hi, this is Chef Nhiu. Welcome to Banh Anh Em.
00:34This is 9.30. We have a lot of things to do. Come on in.
00:40This is our upstairs kitchen.
00:43That is the bread oven that we bake bread every day.
00:46So we have different types of banh mi.
00:49We have OG banh mi pate Hai Phong, barbecue pork, rib eye, and chicken.
00:54And we also offer vegan sandwiches.
00:56We're gonna start to go downstairs to check on the dough
00:59and we're gonna start to make our banh mi. Let's go.
01:08This is our prep kitchen. We make a lot of bread here.
01:11But first thing first, I need to double check the dough
01:14to make sure that the quality of the dough is good.
01:17In Vietnam, the weather is really hot.
01:19Normally, it takes only a couple of hours.
01:21But for me, it's important for the flavor of banh mi to develop.
01:25So we make it and let the dough rest in the walk-in overnight.
01:29In order to check the dough, you see like how smooth it is.
01:33It will determine how the bread turns out.
01:37Like when you pull it, you don't see any like gluten structure great.
01:41The banh mi itself, it had to be like very pluffy.
01:45So it expands rapidly inside the oven.
01:49And we need the gluten structure strong.
01:51Otherwise, it will collapse.
01:53And it won't be airy.
01:55The outside won't be crispy.
01:57The dough looks really good already.
01:59This is our undie, the bread baker.
02:01It took me over two years to come up with this recipe.
02:05I took a motorcycle from Saigon all the way to Hanoi and tried different kind of banh mi.
02:13I went back five times.
02:15After I came back from Vietnam, I worked on my recipe for over two years.
02:19The other side of it is like it takes a lot of time.
02:23There's so many nights that if we bake a lot more bread, then I stay at the ration and sleep at the ration.
02:29But again, the ration is just so small.
02:31So I just brought like very small blankets so I could sleep here.
02:35I don't have pillow or anything.
02:37So we're gonna put the flowers and ice in here.
02:41So while we wait for the dough to get ready, I gonna start shaping the bread.
02:46Butter to the tray.
02:48Later on, after everything is done, it's easier to remove the bread.
02:52We're gonna do three bread here and two here to make sure the air could go evenly.
02:57It's really important to have enough room, especially with our OG banh mi.
03:02They come with our homemade pate, which is the star of that sandwich.
03:07We also do different kinds of Vietnamese cold cut in-house.
03:10And it's also come with pork floss, pork skin, which we marinate and mix with roasted brown rice.
03:18In order to create the fluffy, super airy inside, we gotta create some layer inside of the bread.
03:25That's why we have to roll it.
03:28We pinch it over here in order to like seal it.
03:32If you don't seal it and the banh mi is rapidly expand inside the oven, this one, it could open.
03:39And it will destroy the shape.
03:41We're shaping 600 bread by hand today.
03:45Sometimes like I sleep at night and I have nightmare that I over-proofed the banh mi.
03:52We still have a lot of bread to make, but I'm gonna let auntie do it.
03:57I'm gonna move on to making roasted pork banh mi.
04:00So it's now 10.45.
04:05We're gonna grab some pork from the walk-in.
04:08So this one we're gonna prepare for hair white, which is the roasted pork sandwich.
04:13One of our best-selling items.
04:15The skin is crispy and the meat has to be really moist.
04:19As you could see here, the belly part.
04:22So you want it a little bit fat.
04:25It's also lean, but you don't want it too much meat either.
04:29So it's like very specific kind of cut that I'm looking for.
04:33That's why the entire pork, a whole big pieces.
04:37Sometimes we get only one piece for roasted pork.
04:39Sometimes luckily we have two.
04:41It's like gambling.
04:42You don't know.
04:43Sometimes you spend so much money and you get only like two pieces like this.
04:47So with the crispy pork, it's very important to prep the skin.
04:53This is my tool.
04:54I want this area together.
04:56And with the metal tool, I can adjust it.
04:59So this one, it just worked for me.
05:02You have to poke this one to create holes that later on it will help.
05:06So for the skin to help and create the crispiness.
05:10So we want to use like younger peat.
05:12The skin is softer and it's easier to puff.
05:16So I'm going to start to marinate the pork belly.
05:19I will cut it in a way that I don't touch the skin.
05:24Because if you touch the skin, it will create a gap right here.
05:28And this part, it won't be crispy.
05:31It's important that the meat itself is have flavor.
05:34And we create our own rough here that have five spice salt, garlic powder, black peppers.
05:42And I even have customer from Saigon.
05:44You know, she say that it tastes like the one that she had in Saigon, which means a lot to us.
05:50The food from Saigon, which is southern of Vietnam, it's always a little bit more sweet.
05:56The central Vietnam, which where my family from, the flavor is really bold.
06:01It's spicy.
06:02It's strong.
06:03It's salty.
06:04I really massage it to make sure that the seasoning really go inside the pork.
06:10This one, it sits overnight already.
06:14I'm going to start putting salt on top the skin.
06:17This one, it have nothing to do with the flavor.
06:20Just make the skin as dry as possible.
06:23I'm going to put inside the oven for 30 minutes to remove the moisture from the skin.
06:29Then we start to roast it.
06:31Going to move to the next step, making pate.
06:38So now it's 11.30, we're going to move to making pate.
06:43It's a combination of liver, ground pork, and with Vietnamese pate, we add crispy onions in it too.
06:50So it creates a thick paste that we spread it on our bánh mì.
06:55It's called bánh mì pate Hải Phong that we serve at our rations.
06:59The ingredients super simple.
07:00The bread is very small, pate, and then the crispy pork floss.
07:05We're going to use the old bread and soak it in heavy cream.
07:09The purpose of doing this one, it makes the pate a lot more moist.
07:14What's different from Vietnamese pate and French pate is we use crispy onion, crispy shallot, and we use fish sauce to add more umami flavor to it.
07:25And I think the process of making pate, like traditionally, Vietnamese pate is also very different.
07:31We slow cook it.
07:32For example, I learned how to make pate from a grandma in the north of Vietnam.
07:37The process of making pate takes her generally like eight hours.
07:41The pate is the key ingredient for all the flavor.
07:46I'm going to bring this upstairs and we will continue with the process.
07:50It's noon now.
07:52In order to make pate, I normally grill the liver over chocolate.
07:58I like that smoky flavor and it's also like to kill the smell from pork liver.
08:04I think working with chocolate, it could be a little bit tricky.
08:07We use the Japanese chocolate because it holds the heat a lot better.
08:11So we want like the heat as consistent as possible.
08:16While we waiting for the chocolate to heat up, I'm going to talk about crispy onion.
08:21We go through probably around like 200 pounds of onions every week.
08:26Every batch like this, it will take probably like 20, 30 minutes.
08:30Some places when they make pate, they would use just regular onions.
08:35But to me, the flavor of fried onions is very different.
08:39So this is the final product.
08:42We don't fry a lot of onions at the same time because there's so much water inside oil.
08:48It won't create crispy onions.
08:51So this is the pork liver that we're going to grill it over chocolate for our pate.
08:59I'm going to put all the ingredients inside the pot.
09:01And then the next step, I'm going to add chicken liver and then bake it in the combi oven for two, three hours.
09:08It become like super soft.
09:10We finished with the pate.
09:12Then now we're going to go downstairs to make hot sauce.
09:19So it's 2.15.
09:20We're going to start to making hot sauce.
09:22My staff already hope me to peel some already, but this process, it takes so much time.
09:27Most of the time, my staff doesn't want to do it.
09:31This is the bird eye chili.
09:33This is the ingredient to make tung ốc bak, which is the hot sauce that we make to pair with our soup.
09:40Particularly, it's used with our phở.
09:44Each batch of hot sauce, normally it takes for us six to eight months.
09:48We really struggle to find spaces.
09:51The ranch in Manhattan is not cheap, but we sacrifice the ranch for our hot sauce, for our pickling that also takes a lot of time.
10:01So the next step, I'm going to blend it in hot water.
10:05A lot of people ask us why we put so much time into making hot sauce.
10:09But in Vietnam, we pair different dishes with different types of hot sauce.
10:14I'm really surprised that when I came to America, then I saw only sriracha.
10:19For this hot sauce, it comes with salt, tomato, garlic, and a little bit sugar to help with the fermentation process.
10:28But we don't use anything else that is very simple.
10:31So this is all cooking right now.
10:33We have some time.
10:34So I'm going to move making nem chu bar.
10:41The cute beef ham that we're going to use for the rice roll towel.
10:45The rice sheet towel is originally from my hometown.
10:49It's like a fun dish wrap and roll with grilled pork, and we grill it over charcoal.
10:54So we have some beef here.
10:56It's really lean.
10:57With this dish, you got to make sure everything dry.
11:00I have the garlic powder and black pepper.
11:04So when I mix it well, it creates like the chewy texture for the nem chua.
11:10So this dish, it comes with the steamed rice roll.
11:14It have a lot of component in this dish.
11:16So with the bánh ước trồng, you want something like umami, you know, great grilled flavor.
11:22That's why we use pork cháo.
11:24It's juicy.
11:25And you also want some sourness, you know.
11:29So we have green mango.
11:30We have mustard green pickle.
11:32But it's all come together and balance everything out.
11:36It's just so many components.
11:38So I have to debate with myself that should I put it on the menu or not?
11:43Because I know that the amount of dishes that my dishwasher had to go through every day is such a nightmare.
11:50And there's a lot of time, especially during weekend, my dishwasher had to stay here until like 5 in the morning to really finish everything.
11:58And I feel bad.
12:02So this is fish sauce and sugar and garlic.
12:06So the very last step, I'm gonna add pork skin to it.
12:10It creates very nice chewy texture.
12:13We're gonna move it here.
12:15And you have to press it really hard.
12:18Otherwise, there's a gap between the hem and it will get broken.
12:23So after we're done with everything, I'm gonna weigh this down.
12:28I'm gonna put this away and then we're gonna move it to the next task.
12:36I want to introduce you to another component for us.
12:40This is called peanut uang sà sông in Vietnamese.
12:44I partnered with a family in Quảng Ninh.
12:47They really go out there and then harvest this one.
12:51It creates very nice, deep umami flavor.
12:54But it's also like a natural ingredient as MSG that it balances everything out.
13:01A lot of russians, they don't want to use this one because it's a little bit expensive.
13:06It takes time to ship from Vietnam.
13:08But this key ingredient, it makes our broth so much different as from any other russians.
13:17It has a lot of sand, so we have to wash it really carefully.
13:21So I'm gonna add some water in here.
13:23You just have to massage it so all the sand can just go out of the wand.
13:28I would let it soak for 10-15 minutes.
13:31And then I'm gonna come back and wash it again.
13:34So the wand have been soaking for around like 30 minutes.
13:38It's like normally I would wash it for like six to eight times.
13:42It's have a lot of sand here.
13:44We don't want any sand that get into the soup.
13:47When the water starts to get really clear, then this one is ready.
13:52So this one you can just put it inside the soup.
13:55I just need to season the stock 30 minutes before we open and it's ready for the service.
14:02So it's five o'clock.
14:07I'm gonna start to score the bread.
14:09So this is the bread that we shipped this morning and we proof it for four hours.
14:15The process of scoring the bread, it makes the bread expand a lot better.
14:20I have to like calculate the time to make sure that we bake the bread right before we open and we have fresh bread throughout the night.
14:30I'm gonna put this one in the oven.
14:32I put the hotel pan with hot water at the bottom and provide a lot of moisture to help the dough to expand as much as possible.
14:41In order to achieve the thin crust and the fluffy inside, then I bake very high heat.
14:48I bake at 500 Fahrenheit and it would bake for around like 20 minutes and it's ready for service.
14:54Every time we make around 30 bread, after you take it out the oven, you will start to hear the sound of crackling.
15:02And that's a good sign of really great banh mi.
15:09So it's 5.55.
15:10We only have five more minutes to open for service.
15:13We don't take reservations.
15:14There's already a live in front of the restaurants.
15:17We don't take reservations because I grew up, you know, there was no reservation such so ever in Vietnam.
15:25So no reservation.
15:26So it depends on the day, but normally I gonna stand up at expo station to control the food quality.
15:32I'll double check all the food before it's sent out.
15:35If any problem in the kitchen that I jump in the kitchen, you know, to help the staff.
15:40And I also look like how the staff like plate in everything, make sure all the food is hot.
15:46If it's cold, then it has, it should be at the right temperature.
15:50I normally will jump on the line every day to make sure, you know, everything is done properly whenever I work.
16:00Now it's six o'clock, it's show time.
16:06I need one salted cup to go, okay?
16:08I need four more sandwiches, Gita.
16:10Four more.
16:11Four more.
16:12I need one noodle, okay?
16:14I need a noodle first.
16:19Hector, please.
16:20For B3, I need two potatoes, okay?
16:24Thank you for spending a day with me.
16:26But the restaurant is really busy right now.
16:29You guys should go.
16:30Hello, here, here.
16:31You guys want, see?
16:32Come here.
16:33Eat sugar.
16:34Membership you should go.
16:35So I eat sugar every day from michi andomezz always wings.
16:36Tags which I want so much fun for you to share links and tag.
16:37You guys can still touch my video and watch videos?
16:42Let's call him something.
16:43Some people.
16:44Others can taste a lot of comfort.
16:45And each of her wants me to share the dimension.
16:46Good duck because a lot of food is available.
16:49It's always loved.
16:50We have Aid family.
16:51Number 8, we have!!
16:52We also haveacularividades I need a drink until you and you can see my chicken.
16:55It's 35 percent.
16:57The food is healthy.
16:58Funky.
16:59Sugar.
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