Vancouver Banh Mi Roundup

I’m a little embarrassed to still be writing about our trip to Vancouver in May, but after forcing some friends to eat 5 banh mi sandwiches one afternoon, I feel like I have a duty to blog about it. Just to clarify for any new readers, hubby and I currently live in New Jersey but our main dining town is New York City. We love to travel, so I've been blogging about Vancouver for the last couple months. We also just got back from Ireland so expect to see some Dublin stuff intermingled with my last few Vancouver posts in the upcoming weeks. And you might also see some New Jersey, Manhattan, and Long Island stuff thrown in occasionally. Yup - clear as mud.

Vancouver Banh Mi Roundup

This banh mi roundup took place on May 18th, 2009. Shout-out to fellow food blogger Justin from Justcook nyc who recently conducted his own banh mi roundup (in NYC and in San Francisco). His fun blog post reminded me that I needed to get my act together and finally blog about my own Vancouver banh mi experience.

Banh mi (aka Vietnamese sandwich) is one of my must-have items whenever I'm in Vancouver. Prior to this trip, I'd only tried banh mi from one place in Vancouver, Ba Le. Their sandwiches have always been good and cheap, so I never felt the need to go anywhere else. So what changed? Well, since I started blogging a few months ago, I've been following Vancouver foodie discussions and noticed a few Vietnamese sandwich shops being touted as being better than Ba Le. And just like all of my food obsessions, I just HAD to see which one was best.

So what makes a good banh mi? First of all, the bread (French baguette) should be very fresh. The yummy fillings, consisting of Vietnamese cold cuts, pickled carrots/daikon, fresh cilantro, and a generous schmear of pâté and mayo, should be well balanced and work in harmony with each other.

I recruited hubby Kris and our good friends Joyce and Brian to help 'judge'.

We picked up banh mi from 5 different sandwich shops (4 in Vancouver and 1 in Richmond). Since there are several types of Vietnamese sandwiches offered, we chose to order "the Special" at each location (except for the Richmond location where Brian picked up a ‘Vietnamese sub with pork’). You usually have the option of spicy (with slices of hot green chili peppers) or not spicy, so we chose the spicy version at every location (the hot peppers are easy to remove if you don’t want them). And similar to my other roundups, our scoring method was highly subjective and totally unscientific - we just divided each sandwich into 4 pieces and marked them out of 10 based on overall yumminess.

All sandwich prices are stated in Canadian dollars and are quoted as of May 18th, 2009, although I highly doubt any of the prices have changed - Ba Le's prices have only gone up a dollar or so since I was in high school (a looooong time ago). And we were all impressed that every sandwich we tried that day was made with really fresh bread (the secret is to go early when the bread has been freshly baked).

Au Petit Cafe Special sandwich (or No. 1) $4.50
Au Petit Café’s banh mi have become so popular that they usually sellout by early afternoon. Best to call ahead and reserve a sandwich (don’t be like me, I didn’t call ahead and then had to wait for 25 minutes in a busy restaurant). This was the most expensive sandwich of the bunch so I had high expectations. I was a little concerned that their ‘special’ sandwich (or ‘No.1’ - homemade ham, house meatball, vegetables and hot peppers) didn’t contain one of my favorite banh mi ingredients, pâté. But the house meatballs were so moist and flavorful I didn’t even miss the pâté. High scores across the board, except for Hubby Kris who said he was “starting the scores low so he could leave room for the others” (what is this, a figure skating competition?)

Au Petit Café
4851 Main Street
Vancouver, BC V5V 3R9
Tel: 604-873-3328
website: http://www.aupetitcafe.com/
(closed on Wednesdays)


Ba Le (Kingsway location) Special sandwich $2.75
This was the type of banh mi I was was used to eating – traditional Vietnamese cold cuts, a good balance of pickled veggies vs meat, and the perfect amount of mayo and pâté. Overall, a solid sandwich (Ba Le has never let me down).

Ba Le
701 Kingsway #21
Vancouver, BC V5T 3K6
(604) 875-6322


Kingsway Deli Vietnamese Sub Special (Banh Mi Dac Biet) $3.00
This sandwich was impressive to look at, piled high with meat, pickled veggies and cilantro. Joyce liked the pâté while Brian thought it was way too salty. Hubby and I thought the overall flavor was bland and boring (but I would still eat it if I didn’t have any other options).

Kingsway Deli
1188 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC V5V 3C8
(604) 873-6666


Tung Hing (Tiem Banh Dong Khanh) House Special Sandwich $2.75
Was a bit confused by this place because when you walk in it looks like a traditional Chinese bakery. It’s also conveniently located next door to Kingsway Deli, so I made up some time from having to wait at Au Petit Café for so long. We were a bit thrown off by the giant slice of cucumber on top of the sandwich, but it was well seasoned and complimented the other ingredients nicely. We all really enjoyed this banh mi - it had a good balance of ingredients with a generous amount of tasty cold cuts and delicious pâté.

Tung Hing Bakery
1196 Kingsway
Vancouver, BC V5V 3C8
(604) 875-3394
website: http://tunghingbakery.ca/


An Nam Restaurant
Vietnamese Sub with Pork $3.50

Our friends suggested that we include this Vietnamese restaurant located in nearby Richmond. I’d never heard of it before but I thought it’d be fun to see what Richmond had to offer (Richmond’s known for having great Asian food afterall). The sandwich had too much black pepper, the quantity of pickled veggies overwhelmed the rest of the sandwich, and the pâté had an intense liver flavor (both Brian and I commented on the strange aftertaste). Kris' portion contained a tiny piece of fatty meat. Despite our negative reviews, it’s interesting to note that our friend Joyce loved the strong liver flavor of the pâté and also enjoyed the generous amount of pickled daikon and carrot (this was her favorite sandwich overall).

An Nam Restaurant
8280 Granville Ave
Richmond, BC V6Y 1P3
(604) 279-9097
website: http://www.annamrestaurant.ca/

And the winner of this banh mi battle is...Tung Hing! We celebrated by eating some banana fried buns from Tung Hing’s bakery:


Final Rankings:
1. Tung Hing (good balance of ingredients, yummy cold cuts and pâté)

2. Au Petit Café (delicious house made meat balls)
3. Ba Le, Kingsway location (good traditional banh mi)
4. Kingsway Deli (boring flavor but I would eat it if I had no other options)
5. An Nam (strong flavored pâté, too many pickled veggies)

A big thank you to our friends Joyce and Brian for participating in the banh mi roundup!

And check out this cool site devoted exclusively to banh mi, Battle of the Banh Mi, created by food bloggers White on Rice Couple. You’ll learn everything you’ve ever wanted to know about banh mi, including how to make them yourself (vegetarian recipes too!). There’s also a great directory of locations where you can get banh mi throughout the US.

So where’s your favorite place to get banh mi? Leave me a comment below!

Vancouver Banh Mi Roundup