#498: How I Learned to Love the Bahn

July 3rd, 2015

I would now like to review the headcheese bahn mi from Bon Bon Vietnamese Sandwiches in West Town, Chicago.

It’s not entirely headcheese, which is a cold cut made from the meat parts of the head of a pig. There was also Vietnamese ham, pâté, something called “pork roll” and the regular bahn mi fixins — carrot/daikon slaw, cilantro, cucumber, jalapeños and mayo on a baguette (the latter a product of French colonialism).

It’s a damn tasty sandwich, and my friend Tommy and I decided to get the one made of pig head.

Back, forth, back, forth. No, headcheese. No, ginger chicken. No, headcheese and a ginger chicken as fallback in case it’s horrible. Headcheese and some fries, so at least we have fries?

Soon, sanity, face meat and the fact a nearby pizza place could serve as backup prevailed.

“At worst, it’s $5 to get a couple slices,” Tommy pointed out.

I couldn’t get a 100-percent verdict online, but it generally appears the brain is not part of headcheese, which meant we freaked out Colleen for no reason.

That’s what headcheese is?” she kept repeating. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

We unwrapped our feast. Colleen blanched. I thought about how much I like Bon Bon’s ginger chicken. We bit in.

It tasted like a ham sandwich. In the bites where pâté was involved, it just tasted like pâté.

It was delicious, don’t get me wrong. And the fact we were still under the impression it contained brain added to the fun a bit. But it was just a delightful spicy sammich.

I guess I should close with a point, some wonderful life lesson about trying new things, some Green Eggs and Face Meat analogy about expanding horizons.

But instead, I’m going to simply wish you all a wonderful July 4 weekend. I want your day to be filled with laughter, joy, new experiences, friends, family, food and as much relaxation as you can muster.

Whether you grill up some ground cow muscle or your intestine-encased sausage of choice, I hope your stomach is full and your family happy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to brush my teeth until I can’t taste pig.

In which I eat tripe with an old Romanian woman

In which I don’t eat tripe with a fake prostitute from a confidence game

In which a woman works two jobs on July 4

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