As a countdown to the Best Of Broward/Palm Beach 2012, coming in June, Clean Plate Charlie is serving up 100 of our favorite dishes in South Florida. Send your own nominations here.
No. 28: Banh Mi From Basilic Vietnamese Grill
Nothing sums up Vietnamese food better than the banh mi. Here you have, in sandwich form, an encapsulation of the food of a southeast Asian country that was once a French colony. The base is a purely French baguette, but stuffed inside is all Vietnamese: fresh
vegetables, cilantro, hot peppers, a sweet fish sauce to garnish, and if you choose, meat. Pictured here is the pork meatball, flavored with garlic and lemongrass. Order one of those and the country pork, because that salt-dried and then slow-cooked meat provides a great contrast to the crisp bread. It's French-meets-Vietnamese, and few do it better than Basilic. Complaints? Only that they don't serve it at dinner.
Click here for an archive of the previous 100 Favorite Dishes.
Eric Barton is editor of New Times Broward-Palm Beach. Email him here, or click here to follow him on Facebook.
