I’m not a foodie, but I love food, and I love stories that revolve around food even more. That’s why I couldn’t wait to read A Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen. The story combines two of my favorite things: girls falling in love, and finding connection through food!
A Bánh Mì for Two is about Vivi, a Vietnamese-American girl who lies to her immigrant parents and spends her summer studying abroad in Sài Gòn, even though they think she’s in Singapore. Told in dual perspectives, the other half of the pair is Lan, a young woman still mourning the loss of her father four years after his death. She and her mother run a bánh mì stall, but Lan’s real passion is her popular blog and Instagram account, A Bánh Mì for Two. Vivi is a loyal follower of Lan’s work, though she has no idea the young woman from the bánh mì stall across from her dorm is the same person who inspired her to travel all the way to Vietnam in the first place.
An encounter away from the stall leads Vivi to learn Lan’s true identity, and a chance meeting leads the girls to make a deal: Lan will help Vivi find out more about her mother’s life in Vietnam before she immigrated to America, and in return, Vivi will help Lan overcome her “writer’s block,” and enter a food writing contest. Food and the magic of the city of Sài Gòn create the perfect backdrop for the two girls to fall in love.
It has been a long time since a book made me so hungry! The way Nguyen describes food in A Bánh Mì for Two makes your mouth water. It has made me want to drag my wife to Little Saigon and have a feast. It’s clear from the way she writes that Nguyen has a love for food, but it’s seen not only in the way Lan describes food for her Instagram account, but the way Vivi describes eating as well.
In recent years, I’ve taken more of an interest in the ways food and culture intersect. Food is a great connector — think about how many of the best experiences revolve around a meal. Though Vivi is first bonded to Lan through Lan’s Instagram and blog, food becomes the thing that connects them IRL. Whether it’s at Lan’s family bánh mì stall or the egg coffee shop where they make their deal to help each other, food is their commonality.
As the American-born child of Vietnamese immigrants, food is the one thing that Vivi has to connect her to the country she knows nothing about. Her mother, who immigrated as a young adult, refuses to tell Vivi stories of her home country. And while she will shut down any talk of home, she finds another key way to share it with her daughter: food. Vietnamese food is as common to Vivi as a hamburger, but experiencing it in the place where it comes from, where her mother learned to cook it through time-honored tradition, just makes it taste different. However, there are some foods she refuses to eat simply because her mother’s version is so good. Something about that felt so real.
While food is the way Lan and Vivi first connect and the thing that drives the story forward, their sense of familial obligation is also a big part of their bond. Since Lan’s beloved Ba died, she has felt the weight of obligation: to her mother, to her family’s bánh mì stall, to the city of Sài Gòn itself. These burdens drag her down every day. But she’s afraid to remove any of those weights. As her parents’ only child, she knows that if she doesn’t pick up the slack, no one else will. But really, the obligation is a mask for fear: fear of the unknown, fear of living, of losing her memories of Ba.
It’s a different kind of only child obligation for Vivi. Her parents have taught her nothing about their homeland, and she knows that she’ll never learn about her heritage if she doesn’t do it herself. Knowing more about the place her mother fled from will answer every question Vivi has — she believes that spending time in Sài Gòn will give her the sense of belonging she desperately wishes for. But that desire constantly rubs up against the obligation she has to not break her mother’s broken heart more. Clearly, the pull to “disobey” her mother’s wishes wins, and while she certainly feels guilty, she knows that her trip is the thing to heal their relationship.
As an only child myself, I felt those parts of the book the deepest. Nguyen absolutely nails that constant internal fight we have between being our own person and being a “good” daughter. So often, society talks about the oldest daughter and her obligations to her family — it was really nice to see only daughters and their struggles highlighted.
Another thing I absolutely love in fiction is when the setting is a character, and A Bánh Mì for Two absolutely has that in spades. I will admit that my knowledge of Vietnam, and more specifically Sài Gòn, is extremely limited. But the way Nguyen writes about it, it’s clear that Sài Gòn has a big part of her heart. This book would never work anywhere but in the city; she expertly puts you directly there from the first page. It’s easy to see why Vivi is instantly smitten despite knowing next to nothing about it. The city has a pulse, and you can feel its heart beating with every page you turn. I could feel the heat of the crowded night markets, the characters pushing through a throng of people to get the next delicious dish. The smells of the street food wafted right out of Nguyen’s words and straight into my nostrils. When the girls get caught in a monsoon, I felt like I needed a poncho. I could perfectly see the waterlogged streets, Lan’s motorbike floating down the road. The city hums and thrums, and it creates a rhythm you feel from start to finish.
If you’re looking for a story that will make you hungry, swoony, and full of wanderlust, look no further than A Bánh Mì for Two. It is a great summer read; throw it in your beach bag, or enjoy it on a sunny day under a tree. Just make sure you have a snack on hand while you read!
A Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen is out now.
