My Bánh mì odyssey

Kim Chau Deli @ 707 Kingsway
Tung Hing Bakery @ 1198 Kingsway

Or mini-odyssey, if you will. In which I discover a new world.

For the past two days I've been eating Vietnamese subs at almost every meal. You know how excited you are when you discover some new type of food that's awesome and inexpensive and like the dawning of a whole new world you never knew existed? Well that's what I'm experiencing right now with Vietnamese subs. And it's funny because I've known about Vietnamese subs forever, but never tried them.

It all began with this post on Tung Hing Bakery over at Chowtimes. It got me really excited about the idea of trying some Vietnamese subs, which I'd ignorantly jilted over the years for its more beautiful cousin Pho. Rue the wrath of a scorned banh mi, for it is indeed a delectable little item that is greater than the sum of its parts. One taste and you will find yourself addicted to its sensuous pleasures, caught in a downward spiral of completely unwarranted thirty minute drives way out to Kingsway just to get a $3 sandwich for lunch.

It's funny because I go to this neighborhood all the time. I've been to The Roc (decent dim sum) directly across the street from Kim Chau three times, and I've been to House of Dosas on the same side of the street a minute away from Kim Chau probably close to a dozen times over the years. They've got the best dosas.

This stretch of Kingsway running from Broadway to Metrotown is packed with dozens of tiny little Vietnamese places with unpronouncable Vietnamese names, and if you're lucky an English translation. From the outside they don't look appealing, but often the crummiest looking appearance can conceal very authentic cooking. I've always wanted to try out more of the Vietnamese restaurants here, suspecting hidden treasures to be buried therein. I tried one such Pho place, one on Kingsway closer towards Broadway whose name I can't recall, but despite the authenticity of the low-key homeyness of the decor (=shabbiness), the pho itself wasn't that great. That kind of dissuaded me. But after trying Kim Chau and Tung Hing, the fire is rekindled and I want to explore this patch of unexplored territory.

Anyway, this is the banh mi counter in Tung Hing Bakery:


It's very orderly. You can see all the ingredients that will go into your sandwich right there. On one side of the store there is a bakery, with confections presented behind glass. On the other is the counter for ordering subs. A small menu indicates five or six choices of subs. The subs are all about $3. Behind the counter, prominently in view, are the machines they use to bake their own bread - they have to be at hand because they're in such high demand. The lady behind the counter spilled out a tray of hot new buns onto the counter while I was waiting.

In Kim Chau, on the other hand, when you walk in, it feels like you've wandered into some confections factory. All of the equipment is right there in view. I wasn't sure where to go to place my order at first. Again, there's a little counter where you can order your subs, with a little menu of five or six items, though the items aren't on display like in Tung Hing. The girl who took my order was very nice and informative about banh mi when I explained I was a banh mi virgin, telling me about how they're made with lots more ingredients in Vietnam like eggs, but they can't do that here because they're not street food like in Vietnam, and people apparently wouldn't be willing to wait around to have an egg cooked for their sandwich. So the banh mi has taken a different form overseas. I'd love to try an authentic banh mi in Vietnam sometime. She also explained how in Vietnam they usually use a cut of meat they call "bacon" but that actually consists of a thin strip of meat with a huge slab of fat attached.

Preparation takes 30 seconds tops:


The final product:


I tasted Kim Chau's banh mi yesterday, and Tung Hing's today. I won't say one is better than the other, because they're both awesome and clearly good at what they do.

The basic ingredients are cucumber, pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro, a smattering of special sauces, jalapenos, and a smattering of different meat ingredients. The sub I got at Kim Chau was the house special - it included three different kinds of special meat. I got two subs at Tung Hing today - one with pate that I had for lunch whose pate tasted very much like a relic of French colonial times (i.e. awesomely good), and one with a thick slice of so-called "garlic sausage", which I haven't tasted yet but looks amazing.

At Kim Chau the girl preparing my sandwich sprayed on at least three different sauces of mysterious provenance that went a long way towards making the sub so rich in flavor. She emphasized that when it comes to banh mi, it's all about the sauce.

And the bread. The bread is so good - soft and fresh.

Kim Chau has their bread shipped in on special order from a bakery, while Tung Hing bakes their own. The bread at both places was excellent. I personally grew up in France, so I know what a baguette is supposed to taste like, and it's pretty much impossible to find a baguette in Vancouver that tastes the right way. The baguettes they use at Kim Chau and Tung Hing are among the closer to the authentic French baguette that I've tasted in Vancouver. Usually a baguette you buy in a supermarket is either rubbery or the skin is way too hard. You practically break your teeth trying to bite into them. The baguettes they use for the banh mi at Kim Chau and Tung Hing are very soft, and way better than they look at first glance.

Everything is wonderfully fresh. And it needs to be, because they have a heavy throughput. I was speaking with the nice girl at the counter at Kim Chau about the art of banh mi, and she was telling me how they often get people coming in and placing huge orders of dozens of banh mi at a time, so it was a pleasure getting someone like me ordering only one! She had literally gotten an order of 60 banh mi that day. Wow. Apparently Vietnamese families buy them in bulk for home consumption.

There are many other banh mi places along Kingsway and elsewhere in Vancouver, so in the future I won't hesitate to grab a banh mi for lunch if I run across a banh mi joint.