I Left {A Bit Of} My Heart On Story Road

When we lived in the Bay Area, the kids and I would frequently visit Happy Hollow Zoo with our friends, the Cohens.

Each time I would exit the 101 onto Story Road, I would quickly notice it was littered with {Vietnamese Baguette} shops. I never really gave much thought to it other than the fact that there were so many.

I recently came across this post on Not Without Salt. Ahhhhh, Banh Mi! It immediately clicked that this was the baguette sandwich pictured in these store windows. I knew I had to make it…just by reading the ingredients alone, I could tell that this sandwich was right up my alley.

Sriracha. Cilantro. Basil. Garlic. Meatballs. Baguette.

I chose to do more of a slider version and picked up these rolls…

The only changes I made to the recipe were substitute the fish sauce with soy sauce, use jarred jalapeños, and didn’t sear the meatballs in oil first ~ I just baked them from the get-go…about 22 minutes to be safe. Also, I made 11 meatballs instead of a dozen.

I slathered on the Sriracha mayo then halved one meatball and put both halves on one roll.

Added the colorful toppings…

…took a bite and almost died.

This sandwich was beyond amazing…the soft rolls soaked up the juices from the meat and the rice vinegar and literally molded the bread to the meatball. The carrot and radish provided crunch. A million things came together in this meal and if I knew then what I know now, I most certainly would have pulled off at one of these little Vietnamese eateries, ordered a banh mi and enjoyed it in the shade of a tree with my good friend, Nancy, while the kiddos ran around and played in the HH park {or watched the weird puppet show as we occasionally did while eating our lunch}.

Story Road took me to and from Happy Hollow many times. The memories of these visits with Nancy are some of the happiest days of our time in the San Jose area. The kids would run free, see all five animals at the mini zoo, ride old rusty rides, freak us out and disappear in the maze for a minute, laugh and play while Nancy and I chatted about this and that.

Nancy, I miss you terribly and would love it if we could share a banh mi and get caught up sometime soon!

XOXO