Ba Chi Canteen: Pork Belly Canteen Indeed

side note: all store fronts in NOLA are the cutest

As its namesake suggests, Ba Chi Canteen is a Vietnamese restaurant in New Orleans, LA that specializes in pork belly. Well, that and a whole host of generally delicious asian, fusion-y food. Can you tell that I don't actually know anything about food writing? Self deprecation aside, this was the very first place we went to eat after landing in New Orleans during "Dead Week," aka post-finals, pre-senior week, pre-pre-commencement (cue tears). While others may have sought warm beaches and cheap booze, we flew out in search of good eats, jazz, and swamps for our post-college relaxation break. It would be amusing if I counted the number of times the phrases "hashtag NOLA hashtag notmyrtle" were repeated every time we ate or saw something spectacular.

apologies for the slight blur. sometimes I get too excited about actually consuming food for nonsense like focusing

One of our friends who came with us was in New Orleans the previous summer and is planning on moving back there post-graduation, so she made sure to give us all the deets on the best food places, bars, second-hand stores, and all the other things that revolve around a 20-year-old's life. I'm so glad we had her around or else we probably would have never made it to Ba Chi Canteen, let alone started our trip there with a dish of kimchi fries. To be honest, I still am mildly confused about exactly what kimchi is, though a quick google search would easily remedy that. Regardless, asides from animal style-fries a la In-N-Out, I'm not really a huge fries person (years of conditioning to hate potatoes from the mother). But if you lather then with gooey cheese and savory meats and pickled things, even I'm a convert.

And honestly, just look at these pork belly spring rolls. My NOLA friend really hyped these up for us, and while normally hype just leads to disappointment, these definitely lived up to the hype. Not only are they just really gorgeous and wrapped SO well (in general, translucent things are fascinating), but the rich, warm fat of the pork belly mixed with peanut sauce and crunchy vegetables inside made each bite a perfect mix of flavors and textures.

For our entree at this meal, we all essentially ordered the same thing--a pork/pork belly banh mi. In retrospect, these sandwiches were really too huge and could have easily been shared. I mean just look at that terrible bread:filling ratio. However, French bread rolls are classic it seems when it comes to banh mi slash po boys down South, so maybe I need to expand my tolerance level of different bread:filling ratios (you've already heard me rant about the egg cheese sandwich ratio anyways, so I'll spare the details). Regardless, even with the abnormal bread:filling ratio, the banh mi was really quite divine. When I was young, I was certain that I hated pickled vegetables, but as this sandwich reinforced, pickled vegetables are a great way to reinforce or add flavor it seems. I only managed to get through half of a sandwich, and proceeded to pick out the fillings of the second half, which may have been slightly blasphemous. But if you don't deconstruct your food, or play with it even just a little, are you really eating for yourself? Or just the convention of how your should be eating things?