Revisiting Bahn Mi recently, I found good information describing them historically  here and here. Making  "Bahn Mi" meatballs with a heady mix of cilantro, ginger and garlic, I added fish sauce, too,  inspired by a favorite Vietnamese salad eaten at New York's Nha Trang restaurant on Baxter Street. Named "French salad," it is uncannily American, combining iceberg lettuce and tomatoes with gnuoc-nam sauce, fried shallots and some sprigs of cilantro. So  divine. Anyway, I also got a hankering for  Vietnamese style baguettes for Bahn Mi, thinking of Alberto Adria's  version. Without having his modernist cuisine tools or intellect, I used a bamboo mini steamer (think of David Chang steamed buns), and finished them off in my mini oven at high heat till golden.