I bite into my KFC bánh mì, and there is silence. No crunch, no crackle. My teeth sink into a bread roll that is neither crusty nor flaky. There is a slaw of cabbage, carrot and cucumber, a whisper of coriander, a fillet of fried chicken, a splodge of mayonnaise and a slightly spicy, barbecue-adjacent “supercharged” sauce. There is no pate, no pickled daikon, no lineup of industrious sandwich-making Vietnamese aunties asking if I want chilli. The only thing it has in common with a bánh mì is the presence of a bread roll, an undemanding prerequisite given “bánh mì” means bread. The KFC bánh mì is bánh mì by name but not nature. It is the Dannii Minogue of chicken sandwiches.
After a trial in Newcastle, KFC rolled out its Zinger bánh mì around Australia in early November, and will end its inglorious chicken run in December. National bánh mì appreciation has reached the point where the Vietnamese sandwich is wrapped and ready for multinational corporate exploitation. The life cycle of food in Australia is thus: migrants bring it; an ever widening circle of diners eat it; chefs, cooks and recipe developers adapt it and sell it (sometimes without the bread); and eventually Big Chicken ruins it for themselves. See also: the KFC kebab. Is this the dissonance of being mainstreamed, or does it just taste funny? And who exactly is the KFC bánh mì for?
