Vietnamese Baguette @ Obanhmi, Damansara Uptown

The girl’s love for bread and coffee never ends. When she found out Obanhmi, she is more than eager to try out, and the reaction from the boy is as usual :”What’s that?”. So what is actually Obanhmi? It is a small little shop newly opened in Damansara Uptown, selling ‘banh mi”, or Vietnamese Baguette.

We are so used to French baguette, the long shaped bread with crunchy outside, dense chewy inside texture. We always seen it together with mushroom soup, breakfast set, bruschetta, etc. Whilst Vietnamese baguette is rarely seen in Malaysia, very much like French baguette but comes in single size serving, shorter, delivering a thinner crispy crust and more airy fluffy texture comparing to the Western counterpart. It is often associated with sandwich, stuffing with vegetables and meat.

The influence of having this bread as staple food for Vietnamese is due to the introduction of baguette to them during French colonial period. Althogh this meat-filled sandwich on banh mi is found everywhere in Vietnam, this common local street food turns out to be something new and exciting to us. This is also part of the reason why the the owners of Obanhmi, Daniel, Chris and Ann want to bring them here.

According to Chris, Malaysia is a food heaven, we have all kinds of cuisines around and Malaysians like trying out new things. There’s no border for choices of food, from Asian food to European food, and yet more to come. We have so many meals a day from breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner to supper. We never get bored with food, and we seem like ‘live to eat’. This really surprise him, as he said that this doesn’t happen in Vietnam. Vietnamese don’t eat SIX meals a day.

The three young entrepeneurs see the market in Malaysia, so they started humbly by choosing the best local street food from Vietnam to share with Malaysian. Authentically stuffed with sunny side up, ham, chicken or pork, daikon, pickled carrot, vietnamese chilli sauce, housemade mayo and pate, the Vietnamese sandwich seems normal, but there’s actually more to learn behind, either the bun, filling or the sauce.

The bun itself is made fresh daily, holding on crisp “outside, fluffy inside” must have. They are reloaded at 8.00am, 12.30pm, 1pm and 6pm so mark your time to get the hottest and freshest roll of banh mi. The owners walked through a hard time in Vietnam looking for baguette making technique, as almost everyone refuse to share the recipe for banh mi. His persistence only paid off when his mum’s friend, who is also a banh mi supplier agreed to transfer the technique of making baguette to him.

The pate is made of pork meat and liver. In order to tone down the unpleasant flavour of liver, mayonaise comes in, not only to balance up the flavour, but also double up the creaminess. Pickle carrots and daikon also works well with the pate, adding zesty and crunchy sensation.

So the sandwich is built up with one layer of ingredients after another layer. When everything combines, the whole sandwich turns so huge, hearty and texture loaded. Our O School sandwich is the most authentic version, combining pates, mayonaise, pickled raddish and carrots, chilli, cilantro and lemon grass chicken. One is enough to fill up the tummy. For more plentiful ingredients, patrons can opt for O sunny, which is O school plus with a sunny side up.  Or you can add on sunny side up, ham slice or chicken at RM1.00.

O BBQ is a more interesting version with fresh baguette sandwiched with BBQ pork, sunny side-up egg, homemade mayonaise, Vietnamese chilli sauce, pickled carrots and daikon. Here, ham slices in O school is replacing with BBQ pork that gives extra smoky chew. Open the mouth big to stuff as many ingredients as you can in one go may be a difficult attempt, but you gotta try it. The feeling of having all texture and flavours in one mouthful is just so awesome.

Apart from that, we like the stew O, which is a tummy warming dish that has baguette serve with beef stew soup prepared in authentic Vietnamese style. The stew itself is thick and intense with flavours; while the beef chunks are so soft, almost melt in the mouth. Dip a piece of baguette and has it soaked up with great flavours, Simple can also be good, you don’t have to go luxury to be satisfied.

O Rolly (RM7.00)

Other than banh mi, we also tried out O Rolly, a Vietnamese Fried spring Roll aunthentically wrapped with minced pork, mushroom, shredded carrots and mung bean noodles in rice paper ans deep fried to golden brown. Crispy and full in texture, goes well with homemade dipping sauce for extra spicy kick.

List of beverage is limited, but the Vnmese Milk Coffee is a must try. This premium Vietnamese milk coffee renders a deliciously rich and creamy taste, but to be frank, we still need time to grow fond with it. For those who don’t take coffee, there’s also Vnmese Iced Lemon Tea and soft drinks to choose from.