Banh mi in Oz

[Rach3]

"Fast food" is getting very expensive everywhere,From NYT Australian Newsletter today, in part:

"...Banh mi is already a fusion food, incorporating the bread-making techniques brought by French colonists with more traditional Vietnamese fillings. It demonstrates a Vietnamese “willingness to acculturate and to accept colonial heritage,” Dr. Nguyen Austen said. “Banh mi is very diplomatic.”

“We’ll make the best of it here,” she added, of Vietnamese approaches to life in Australia. “And they can call it a pork roll.”

For Australian consumers not from a Vietnamese background, banh mi was easy to accept. It was delicious — sweet, salty, spicy, crunchy and chewy — and it played on already established workday traditions of picking up a sandwich, or a “sanger,” for lunch from a local “milk bar” or corner store.


These days, banh mi shops are under new pressures. Australians are accustomed to not paying much for a banh mi, and they associate them with the country’s proud egalitarianism. The price of bread in Australia may have risen 24 percent since 2021, but a slipper-sized “pork roll” still usually costs around 10 Australian dollars, or about $6.50, even while other comparable deli sandwiches may be 17 Australian dollars or more.

For many banh mi retailers, who face razor-thin margins, “it’s pretty much on a knife’s edge,” said Mr. Lu, who now focuses on promoting Vietnamese home cooking. “Not just one thing — it’s just the whole model itself.” At his own Master Roll in South Yarra, a crispy pork roll is now a comparatively high 13.50 Australian dollars.

Some mom-and-pop shops have avoided putting up prices, worried that they may alienate consumers. But there is evidence that Australians do value a good banh mi enough to pay its true cost.

Ca Com Banh Mi Bar is a high-end banh mi shop in Richmond, a historically Vietnamese neighborhood in Melbourne, run by Thi Le, a Vietnamese Australian chef who grew up in Sydney and who was last year a finalist for the country’s Chef of the Year award. There, a banh mi costs around 17 Australian dollars.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, the line was out the door, and some of the most popular fillings, including crispy pork, had already sold out, despite the banh mi there being among the most expensive in the neighborhood.

“She’s fighting the good fight,” Mr. Lu said about Ms. Le."