The BEST Vietnamese Sandwiches

The Chef: Colleen and Saigon Sandwich

The Menu: Toasted French rolls stuffed with marinated tofu, shredded carrots, cilantro, cucumbers, and jalapeno peppers—all drizzled with a bit of soy sauce.

The Goods: Vietnamese sandwiches, also known as banh mi, may be the perfect meal. Fresh, delicious, and, yes, cheap, these unique sandwiches always satisfy. There are a number of shops around San Francisco selling this popular meal, but my hands-down favorite is Saigon Sandwich in SF's Tenderloin district. For just $3.75 a pop, the baguette, sauce, tofu, and vegetables are always just right—and come together for the city's best Vietnamese 'wich. And luck was on our side today, as VN publisher Joseph Connelly surprised the entire staff with sandwiches for all. In other news, we just announced a scintillating cover contest: Whom do you think is on the cover of the next issue of VegNews? Check out all the possibilities here, and let us know your favorite! Also, I am guest blogging for Savvy Abby this week and share my Top 5 DIY Vegan Holiday Gifts. Enjoy, and happy crafting this weekend!

Friday Vietnamese Feast

The Chef: Colleen + Banh Wich

The Menu: A freshly made, toasted Vietnamese sandwich filled with baked tofu, shredded carrot, cucumber, and cilantro; sumptuous spring rolls with crisp greens, rice noodles, tofu, and mint leaves with a plum dipping sauce; and an organic green salad with avocado, tomato, and red onion tossed in a garlic-lemon vinaigrette.

The Goods: Today was a quintessential day at Café VegNews. The entire staff lingered over a lovely Vietnamese feast (see photo below) by local eatery, Banh Wich, and we got to enjoy the wonderful company of one of our columnists, Gena Hamshaw of "Raw Done Right." Although we didn't get to dine al fresco as originally planned (the sunshine just wouldn't cooperate), we still had a superb staff lunch with delicious food. We're working hard on preparing our new office for the big move (October 1!), and you can count on all sorts of fabulous culinary jaunts around San Francisco's Mission district in the coming months. Until then, have a relaxing holiday weekend, and we'll be back next week with more vegan eats. Oh, and a VERY big announcement that may have something to do with VegNews Vacations. Stay tuned!

Vietnamese-Style Tofu Heroes

The Chef: Elizabeth

The Menu: An interesting mixture of recipes inspired by The Conscious Cook! Today's recipes are "inspired by" as opposed to "made from" the book, since—in our typical Friday style—we were running slightly low on ingredients. So, we have the lovely Roasted Fingerling Potatoes, and the Vietnamese-style Tofu Heroes with Asian Slaw, and, finally, a big kale salad. Since we went with whole-wheat bread instead of the requisite baguettes, Elizabeth decided to serve our sammies open-faced, and with chopped basil instead of cilantro, which she pretty much can't stand.

The Goods: First, a big congrats to Debbie! Hers is the winning answer from yesterday's comments. Debbie, send us an email with your full name and mailing address, and we'll send your copy of The Conscious Cook right out. It's with great sadness that we come to the end of this week. It will definitely be difficult to go back to our steady diet of whatever's-in-the-fridge casserole and a-salad-is-like-a-meal-right? salad after totally feasting on the amazing recipes from our Book of the Year Veggie Award winner! So, for the last copy that we'll be giving away, tell us in the comments: Which recipe from this week are you dying to try?!

Celebration Extravaganza

The Chef: Banhwich

The Menu: Vietnamese sandwiches! And spring rolls! And exclamation points! Okay, so maybe we are a little excited, but more on that later. Let's just say that these sandwiches were quite possibly the freshest ones we've ever had. The bread was delicious, the tofu was perfectly marinated, and even the cilantro haters (okay, make that hater—there's only one) in the office found the fresh green delectable. Oh, and those spring rolls? Yeah, all we can say is that perhaps we ate more of them than was advisable. Yum! Since we are pulling out all the stops today, we also had a sweet treat in the form of an incredibly rich chocolate cake with thick, amazing peanut butter frosting from Sugar Beat Sweets,which you see pictured below and modeled by VN's resident hand model, Aurelia.

The Goods: Um, okay. Are you sitting down? Item number one: tomorrow is our fabulous editorial director/hand model's birthday, which would have been reason enough to celebrate on its own. Item two: today is the one-year anniversary of Café VegNews! That's right, our very first blog is officially a year old. Oh, but what's that you say? You're looking for more reasons to celebrate? Well maybe our brand-new, freaking gorgeous, extra-exciting website has finally launched! We've got a completely redesigned VegNews.com for your perusal. You just might want to go ahead and make sure that you don't have any plans for later, since you'll be flaking on them! Oh, did we mention that there are daily giveaways on the new site? And maybe we also have a little something we like to call the Tree Free edition—aka a completely digital version of the magazine—the first issue of which is free so you can decide just how much you love it! If anyone needs us, we will all be dead from excitement for the next 24 hours. Eeeek!

Vietnamese Sandwiches!

The Chef: Baguette Express, and Aurelia

The Menu: Vietnamese sandwiches, as we might have already said. These fluffy, crunchy rolls came stuffed with shredded carrots, sliced cucumber, cilantro, jalapeños, and saucy rice noodles. Aurelia made a delicious and vibrant marinated-kale salad, with steamed squash, chopped bell peppers, tomatoes, and avocado, which was a perfectly light companion to our bready subs.

The Goods: Since not everyone will be in the office tomorrow—her last official day—we celebrated Lisa's time as our editorial assistant extraordinaire today. She'd never tried a Vietnamese sandwich, so deciding what to serve for lunch was a snap. She's also mentioned, maybe once or twice, that she's kind of got a thing for tiramisu. Well, mention and ye shall receive around here. Check our incredible dessert from the Living Lights Culinary Arts Institute, and our lovely Lisa:

And, since it's a special occasion, here's a bonus shot of Lisa with the rest of the VN gang:

Happy Birthday Sandwiches!

The Chef: Banhwich

The Menu: Okay, on very special occasions, we let someone else do the cooking. Today was just such a lunch, as we were celebrating the birthday of our most dedicated volunteer, Ms. Frankie. Banhwich is a local Vietnamese restaurant, and they make some seriously wonderful sandwiches. Today we all got a big sandwich on a fresh, French roll stuffed with tofu, shredded carrots, cucumbers, cilantro, and special sweet tangy sauce. In case that wasn't treat enough, we also ate tofu, bean sprout, and lettuce spring rolls, complete with peanut dipping sauce.

The Goods: We freakin' love birthdays. Well, okay, maybe we love Frankie and the fact that birthdays give us the excuse to make specific lunchtime demands and eat more than we likely should. Either way, lunch today was amazing, and was made even more so by the appearance of a still-warm apple crisp courtesy of Colleen. Maybe it's a little bit difficult to get a photo of crisp that doesn't end up looking like a big, messy pile of gooey goodness, but, you know, around here we like gooey. It's totally appropriate to drool now: