Tag Archives: banh mi

Banh Mi, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Upper West Side, Vietnamese

BONMi

December 6, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

BONMi is a Vietnamese-ish soup, sandwich and breakfast joint that opened about nine months ago on 62nd between Columbus and Amsterdam.

The menu is simple, fresh and straight-forward:

Unlike traditional pho, the soup here has very thin, rounded noodles, as opposed to wider, flat noodles. The broth is beef or veggie stock, and you can add a variety of meats as toppings. We went with 18-hour beef in beef stock, with a lemongrass sauce and everything but carrots on top. It was pretty good! Just don’t expect that robust pho flavor. This is more like a standard noodle soup than pho.

The sandwich, however, keeps it pretty real to banh mi. The flavor profile is similar, though not with exactitude, and the bread is good quality, crunchy, fresh French baguette style:

It is a bit short on length for the price point, but it is packed to the gills with meat and toppings. This is the pork belly filling:

The joint also serves pre-made salads, summer rolls and other Vietnamese items, like this fresh brewed coffee:

For all three items it was just over $22. Not bad, considering the quality was acceptable to me, and even passed muster with my wife (her heritage is Vietnamese, so she is naturally picky when it comes to anything claiming to be remotely Vietnamese). Give it a shot!

BONMI
150 W. 62nd St.
New York, NY 10023

Banh Mi, Hawaii, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Ba Le

October 16, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Ba Le – at the Cannery Mall in Maui, Hawaii.

This is fast casual Vietnamese food, which I think needs more of a presence throughout the country. Vietnamese food is generally pretty healthy and fresh, and the staple items like summer rolls, pho and banh mi are so fucking delicious. I already have a concept in mind for a chain that I think would kill… Anyway, we sampled the pho and a classic banh mi. The flavors were spot on, correct to how these items should taste.

The price for the pho was a little higher than normal, at around $9, but the portion size was big.

American, Banh Mi, Burgers, Hawaii, Restaurant Reviews

Cow Pig Bun

October 16, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Cow Pig Bun

What a fucking weird location for a reataurant. I can understand the brewery being there, as this area is an office park or business park. I suppose people hit this joint for lunch while they’re at work nearby.

The place is like something out of Williamsburg Brooklyn. The decor is corrugated metal, reclaimed wood, filament bulb lighting and industrial meat facility chic.

The food is great. It’s a small menu, essentially a burger joint with fancy apps and lots of different whiskey and bourbon to sample.

We tried a flight of flavored whiskey – one was just a blend, then coconut, chocolate macadamia nut, and coffee flavored whiskeys followed. Macadamia nut was my favorite. Sweet and strong.

We also sampled some of their mixology style cocktails. My wife had an awesome tequila and pho broth based drink, called “Cannibalistic,” and I had a pineapple, lime and Maker’s called “Butcher Town.” Good shit.

I ordered the bacon jam burger. This was a potent and powerful burger. The blue cheese didn’t overpower the meat, nor did the bacon, but altogether it was super heavy. I liked it, but I could only put down half (I ate the rest a few days later).

My wife had a poorly worded sandwich that was called banh mi, but was really more like a pulled pork sandwich. It had pork belly, pulled pork and really nice fois gras butter, but none of the pickled veggies, fish sauce or fresh leafy cilantro that you usually associate with the banh mi flavor profile. In short, it was still good, but not banh mi.

Along with the drinks, I think the best part of this place is the pork rind chicharones that come with each entree instead of French fries. These morsels were real pig skin fried up to warm, golden, crispy goodness. Amazing.

Banh Mi, Fusion, Midtown East, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Num Pang

April 1, 2015 Johnny Prime 4 Comments

My wife recently “brought home the bacon” a few times with some delicious sandwiches from this joint.

First was the special Ad Rock (from the Beastie Boys) sandwich, which had pastrami and all the typical SE Asian sandwich fixings. This was pretty awesome, and came with cream soda and a bag of chips:

Then she came home tonight with a trio of hard, pipe-hittin’ niggaz that would bring even Marsellus Wallace to his knees:

Catfish: my favorite of the three, I think. Oddly enough. This was light, flavorful and really well balanced between spicy, sweet, hot, cold, soft and crunchy.

Pork belly: my second favorite. Deliciously soft thick-cut pork belly that was braised to a jerk worthy flavor level. I took three pics of this bitch.

Brisket: my least favorite of the three, probably because it had too much western style BBQ flavor going on. Otherwise this was a killer sandwich as well. LOTS of meat here too.

These ain’t your typical banh mi sandwiches, but they are fucking awesome.

NUM PANG
148 W 48th St
New York, NY 10036

Banh Mi, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Pho Vietnam

February 7, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This little spot is currently my new favorite Vietnamese food joint. It’s nice and clean inside, new-looking, and the food is really tasty. My wife and I tried a few items as a base level test run to decide if we would come back.

The pho: very flavorful, a good size, fresh ingredients. In fact they keep a jar of sliced jalapeños right there on the table next to the chopsticks, spoons, napkins, hoisin and sri racha.

The banh mi sandwich: nice and traditional, great bread, lots of filling and at least a foot long.

Next, one of my wife’s favorites: banh cuon. Really good quality shit here. Nicely cooked noodles, ample filling inside, and good slices meats and herbs.

Last was my noodle dish that had cut up spring rolls and sliced lemongrass BBQ pork chop on top. Simple and delicious.

We will definitely be coming back for more. Sit tight until then, when I can supplement the review with more deliciousness.

Okay so here’s the update as of 2/7/15:

Unfortunately this trip was not as good as the last. The avocado shake was less avocado-et, the banh cuon had grainy noodles.

The other two dishes we ordered contained meat that was a bit chewy.

I grabbed the bun bo hue, wanting to sample the more authentic flavors of this dish as opposed to the more fusion style of Obao.

For $7.50 you get a shitload of food. The bowl is huge:

The unfortunate thing about my order, however, was that the noodles were too soft (perhaps overcooked) and most of the meat was very chewy. For a stewed type dish I was hopping for softer meats.

I had the same issue with the pork casserole, or clay pot pork. The meat was pretty chewy, but the flavor was good.

Egg rolls are decent.

The avocado shake was not as sweet or rich/flavorful as other times I’ve had it:

But my wife had a decent cup of Vietnamese coffee:

PHO VIETNAM
87 Chrystie St.
New York, NY 10002

Banh Mi, New Jersey, Pho, Vietnamese

Phu Khang’s

January 2, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I dropped into this joint on our way to Philly, so this isn’t a NYC joint. We were shocked to see an Asian market and two Vietnamese restaurants right in the same strip mall. We had to try the basics.

The soup was great, better than most NYC places for damn sure. Its unfortunate how bad NYC is with Viet food.

The sandwich was kickass too. The bread was correct, and they used a good ratio of the various meats inside.

And my favorite dessert of all time: the avocado shake. Delicious.

Banh Mi, Midtown West, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

CoBa 53

December 23, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS JOINT IS NOW CLOSED

My wife and I came to this joint to try some of the Vietnamese basics. We started with some drinks. I had “33,” which is a beer from Vietnam, and my wife had a lemonade mixed drink.

The first staple item to order is the spring rolls. These were not a hit for us. They were a little bland.

Next, the banh mi sandwich. This had good flavor, but the bread was all wrong (it needs to be a French baguette), and it needed more pate and another layer of meats to really fill it out. I would have liked some more slices of jalepenos and also less cilantro stems and more leaves.

The next big item to get is the pho. I liked the broth. It needed just a slight more oomph, but otherwise it was pretty enjoyable. It had sliced eye round as well as brisket. I added beef balls for an extra $2.

This next items isn’t necessarily a staple item to order, but my wife and I are fond of clay pot dishes. We got the pork belly version and it was really great. It was packed with lots of great porky and fatty meat, a boiled egg, fried tofu, squash and lemongrass.

For dessert we had the coconut lemongrass ice cream. It was a little gummy in texture, but otherwise was an interesting flavor.

Here’s the Willy:

COBA 53
401 W. 53rd St.
New York, NY 10019

Banh Mi, East Village, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Sao Mai

December 3, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I stopped in here for some banh mi sandwiches after eating some pizza at Motorino around the corner. We tried a classic sandwich, and a pho sandwich (sliced beef and the toppings you usually get with pho, like bean sprouts, etc). Both were pretty good, but I think I liked the pho sandwich better. Both were pretty spicy without having to ask for it, which I like. Check out the pics:

SAO MAI
203 1st Ave.
New York, NY 10003

Banh Mi, Brooklyn, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Hanoi Vietnamese Kitchen

November 25, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Stopped off in this place to test out their banh mi sandwich – classic style, of course. The bread was toasty and warm, and the veggies and herbs were all nice and fresh. Not my favorite, but it was okay for a much needed fix.

The pho here is pretty good as well. Nice robust flavor. I’ve had better for cheaper, but the quality of the ingredients here seemed to be a little better.

HANOI VIETNAMESE KITCHEN
448 9th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11215

Banh Mi, Brooklyn, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Hanco

November 25, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Walked past this little banh mi and pho shop on the way home from Talde and picked up a classic style sandwich to try. It was a little pricey for the size, but it was tasty nonetheless. I’ve had better at other places, but this place is okay if you’r win a bind and need a Vietnamese banh mi fix. Here it is: