Alright, here comes our first take on something that, while trying it, already made me feel like I want to eat it every day. But that might just be my absolute craving for Vietnamese food.
Here in Ericeira, we don’t have a dedicated place where you can buy Vietnamese food. There are a few attempts at Asian fusion, but nothing that really did it for me. To be honest, I haven’t had any really good Asian food in Ericeira yet. There’s no shortage of places. I just feel like the dedication is sometimes missing.
So, as usual, I’m going to treat myself first and then feed you guys with what I can come up with.
This is the process of the first try.
Let’s start with the meat. I had a few options in mind, including picanha and maminha, but I wanted a piece with the grain running in one direction so I could cut consistently across it. I went with alcatra and sliced the raw meat into pieces about one millimetre thick.
The broth is made with chicken, beef and all my little secrets to get it tasty. The meat goes into the hot broth for just a few seconds and then straight onto the sandwich.
For the bread, I’m taking it colonial style and going with a baguette. Then a crema with lime and chillies, some fried rice noodles and coriander.
That’s our first try at bringing these Vietnamese flavours into a street food sandwich here in Ericeira.
A little side note: the first run as a Sunday special went well. We sold out fast and the customers were happy. One said, “That really tastes like phở. The beef is perfect.”
Hope to see you guys soon :)