If you’re walking east on Cedar Street, you have to resist maybe a dozen other lunch cart temptations to get to Bánh Mì.
I finally completed that gauntlet earlier this week, and my reward is a new go-to. Open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Bánh Mì serves eight different versions of its namesake, the popular but not yet common sandwich famously wedding French and Vietnamese cuisines. Served as a wide-load 10-inch baguette stuffed with a protein preparation of my choice and a standardized but modifiable selection of other fixings—quartered spears of fresh cucumber, house-pickled sticks of carrot and daikon, thin slices of fresh jalapeño, leafy tendrils of fresh cilantro and butter and mayo painting the fluffy interior canvas of the bread—my sandwich delivered an enormous amount of food that could have justified its $12 price tag even if it hadn’t been quite so delicious.
For my protein, I ordered the crispy tofu (more chewy than crispy after the walk back home), which was finished in a salty, garlicky brown sauce. Clusters of cooked-down and concentrated bits of garlic, ginger and lemongrass could be seen and heard. Perfect fresh cucumber was tucked into the crook of the crusty bread and mingled joyfully with the egg-free mayo and dairy-free butter substitutions I had brought, an admittedly bold move owner/operator Danae Bauder and her sous chefs, Steven Diaz and Nadia Alvarado, graciously embraced. Medallions of jalapeño, one of them eating more like the surface of the sun than a winter hearth fire, were artfully slender and carefully spaced. A sweetly funky lattice of the pickled carrot and daikon rested up top and down below, with a tangle of bright cilantro a most welcome and functional garnish on this hearty blend of so many vivid flavors and textures.
Bánh Mì also has a “not bánh mì” menu of “favorite childhood recipes passed down from my mother,” which remixes and augments many of the sandwich ingredients. I tried the Kapow! ($10), whose noodles (rice was also an option) reminded me of pad see ew: wide, stretchy ribbons lightly sautéed or maybe tossed in brown sauce. They were the base of a beautiful but less familiar flavor set best enjoyed all together: savory and vegetal notes with the slightest suggestion of heat from cooked basil leaves and delicate strands of red and green pepper; flash-cooked crescent onion moons that were still crisp and retained their lovely natural acid; and more of that salty/garlicky tofu, pickled daikon/carrot and fresh cilantro. The one thing missing was the “kapow!”—the implied potent spice heat—but I think that may have stemmed from a miscommunication. Bauder had asked me at one point if I wanted something to be spicy, and, thinking she meant extra spicy, I declined. At any rate, the advertised chili ingredient seemed to be missing in spirit if not fact, though it didn’t prevent me from enjoying the dish.
I finished with a choice that doesn’t sound like it fits into the French-Vietnamese matrix: Asada Fried Rice ($10). Marinated in cumin, laced with black pepper and studded with an all-American blend of peas, carrots, green beans and corn, the fried rice was a comforting but also gourmet delight, with an almost grilled-meaty quality that could explain the “asada” association. The tofu was smothered with the same salty-garlicky sauce, which shone even more brightly against a tighter cast (despite the repeated and, in this case, probably superfluous garnish of daikon/carrot). An important new player here was the cilantro lime mayo, a rich, creamy, funky finishing touch.
With all three dishes being generously portioned, I left my lunch feeling stuffed but with plenty of leftovers. Which leads to the most telling testament of all as to how much I enjoyed Bánh Mì: Those leftovers only lasted until the end of my dinner.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Image 2 features, from left in the cart, Nadia Alvarado, Danae Bauder and Steven Diaz.
