If there is one thing that is universally true, it’s this: Sons are always trying to be half the man their old man was. Sometimes that formula gets tragically warped and a son spends his life trying to be twice the man his father was.

But this is really two sides of the same coin.

In my case I will have to settle for half the man.

Because my father is a doctor, and not just a doctor, but a children’s heart doctor. And as if that is not enough he also volunteers his time at his local Free Clinic caring for the many of us who have fallen between life’s ever widening cracks. He has even traveled to 3rd world countries where he meets and diagnoses kids with heart defects. Heart defects that would have otherwise gone on undetected and untreated.

People like my father with outsized talents (and undersized egos) are a rare breed. Sometimes being the son of a man like this is a little like climbing a ladder with uneven rungs. It’s hard to know how much progress you are making, and if it’s even worth the effort. But I guess that is part of being a son; to always wonder.

I have not bored you to tears much lately with the saga of my broken jaw. Well it’s mended, mostly. I still have some soreness, my teeth are slightly out of alignment, and I get weird headaches. But those problems are small and getting smaller everyday. In fact I predict a full recovery by the time you see me at the FoodBuzz Bloggers Festival. Did you nominate your favorite bloggers yet? There is still time.

Even though I have been unwired for quite sometime I have not been in fully functioning mouth mode. Today marks the day I go back to eating whatever I like (except: nuts, ice, corn tortilla chips, beef jerky, and hard candy, especially– pardon the expression, jaw breakers).

In honor of this great event I am making ribs. I have never made ribs before. But I was skulking around at Dash of Stash a while back. He made some lip smackin’ good lookin’ ribs. I commented about my fear of cooking ribs and he offered a challenge. He would cook “something from the sea” if I made ribs on the grill.

Sup! is up for most any challenge; especially challenges that expand my experience regarding food. So I accepted the challenge with the caveat that it would have to wait until I was mandibularly mobile enough to eat ribs.

I love the ambience of a good old-fashioned chophouse. Red leather booths, dark lighting, questionable martinis, and oh yeah, steak.

Usually damn good steak too. That’s because a good chophouse makes no apologies for its red-meat-centric position. So there is no need to hide behind any of the foodie pretensions of the moment.

Chophouses do meat. Several cuts, all of them grilled.

Chophouses were never simply restaurants. In another time, on another continent, the original English chophouses could easily be called the16th century gastro-pubs (to borrow an au currant foodie phrase) of their time.

The flavors of Viet Nam speak out loud and strong in this next burger. They were indeed the jumping off point for me in building this Asian influenced burger. You knew I had to do one, right?

After my love affair with the banh mi blossomed in San Francisco recently. I immediately began planning this burger. In fact it is where the whole idea of a week of burgers began. It was an excuse to make this burger. Hey! If Spud can do it with potatoes, then this is not such a far reach for Sup!

I used pork, which was an easy choice for me. I love pig in all forms. I also added several of the classic ingredients you find in banh mi. But that is where the similarities end.

While, I could have placed this burger onto a crunchy baguette, and called it a banh mi pork burger (and I thought about that). I decided to follow another Vietnamese food tradition and wrap this burger in a big lettuce leaf.

I also tucked in a salad-like mix of traditional banh mi toppings like: carrots, daikon, and cilantro. These were simply dressed with limejuice, fish-sauce, and coriander. I also used super hot Thai bird peppers (prik chi fa) instead of jalapeno because I had them handy.

I am home! I am home! I am HOME!

I hope you noticed that Sup has been a little bit AWOL this past week. I was traveling. I wish I could say it was a vacation, but it was really mostly work stuff.

When these plans were made I had great hopes of posting from the road.  But, well… one thing led to another BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. I am great at excuses aren’t I?

In case you didn’t know. I was in San Francisco. I met The Daily Spud there too. Spud is not just a fabulous blogger, but as I can now attest, a fabulous person as well.  We had a great lunch at Zuni Café. I also met all the cool kids at FoodBuzz. Talk about a plum job!

But most importantly, I also finally experienced a proper Vietnamese banh mi (pronounced BUN-mee) sandwich. I bought one for Spud too. Which is sorta funny because we had just had a long lunch but we could not help ourselves from stopping in at Saigon Sandwiches on the way back to our hotels. There’s nothing wrong with 2 lunches is there?