The Vietnamese sandwich, a crisp, airy baguette split and filled with pate, cold cuts or grilled meat, then loaded with pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber, coriander, chili and a slick of mayonnaise and soy or Maggi seasoning.

Banh mi is the clearest edible record of Saigon's French century. The colonists brought the baguette; Vietnamese bakers lightened it with rice flour into a thinner, crackly loaf, and by the 1950s Saigon vendors were splitting it and filling it with local pate, cha lua sausage, pickles and herbs. The result is a portable, self-contained meal sold from carts and shopfronts across the city, and its most famous purveyors, from Huynh Hoa to Bay Ho, guard their pate recipes closely. The word banh mi simply means bread; the sandwich took the name of the loaf it is built on.

3 editor picks for Banh mi in Ho Chi Minh City, ranked by editorial score. All Ho Chi Minh City signature dishes · Banh mi across every city.