Best Vietnamese sandwich?
***update: The sandwich is good. Couple of things about the state of Vietnamese sandwich. There's the, what I call original style that is serve using a single loaf of french bread. This is what I grew up eating...so to me, that's the original style. Then there's the newer style popularized by the likes of Lee's Sandwich chain of stores that is served using longer baguette that is cut into smaller section and removes the ends. I like both bread just fine, but my friend Ham thinks the original french bread loaf is the way to go.
Houng Lan uses french bread with most of the soft inner bread removed to maximize the crunchiness of the sandwich and also to allow for more room for the meat and veggie. Ham said this deviates from tradition, but I personally don't mind either way. One Yelp reviewer said that he as been going to Houng Lan for over two decades and the sandwich are still the best. Albeit he's not quite as happy with the apparent price increase from $1 to $2.50. However he conceded that the price increase does not match inflation.
Houng Lan's bread taste pretty fresh, at least the somewhat light crunch suggest that the bread is relatively fresh. However, like all baked product, if you ask them to toast the buns till it's hot, you will be rewarded with bread like it's meant to be eaten. Traditionally, I remember Vietnamese sandwiches with a dash of soy sauce. This was missing from my first sandwich, but was easily remedied by asking them to add it. Some places put the soy sauce directly onto the bread and pate, but before putting in all the meat and vegetable. Houng Lan does it right by adding the soy over the meat. That way, the soy sauce doesn't just soak into the bread.
The only thing that puzzled me when I came in and looked at the menu was the absence of the Banh Mi dac biet So #1. That's usually the first item on the menu in the odd days. It translate to The #1 special sandwich. This includes both the traditional nuong meat and the cha lua meat. Number 1 at Houng Lan was the sandwich with just the nuong meat. Number 2 was the sandwich with the cha lua meat. So if you want the special style sandwich, simply order a number 1 and add the cha lua meat for an additional 50cents. I did it this way instead of ordering a number 2 and adding the nuong meat because I wasn't sure how to pronounce "nuong" properly. ;) Odd thing is, though the "dac biet" is not on the menu. The minute you add the cha lua, the reciept shows that you added the extra meat for 50 cent and refer to this as "dac biet." Not sure why they didn't choose to include this popular sandwich directly on the menu itself at the number 1 location where it belong.
Anways, having Houng Lan warm the bread till it's hot. Adding the soy sauce (if that fits your taste. Even without it, the soy smell and flavor is missing, but the taste was still good). Having them cut it in half. And finally, adding the extra meat took me back to the sandwich of my childhood. It was a good sandwich and I recommend this if you are in the area and crave a Vietnamese style sandwich.
