Recent banh mi excursions

I was recently sent this link from Carla B, who has been quiet on the sandwich front, but still sends her sandwich love every now and again.

The link to a Travel Story pondering if the banh mi is the world's best sandwich made me wonder why I have never visited Vietnam. Seriously, why have I not made this trek? The answer I knew was a Yes without reading the article, but the correspondent's story arc made me miss a classic banh mi, and not what I've been eating for the last while.

Take this for example: a tofu banh mi from the Banh Mi Boys, a very popular place on Queen St. West. Always busy, but never that good, I think it's popular because it's just filling and not Subway. I sometimes find myself feeling bad for Quizno's, but I just don't know who their sandwiches are for.

Then there's this little number from Ginger's further East on Queen West. I popped in there during a recent festival when I grew tired of eating pizza and popcorn as my only meals. I had a subpar papaya salad (would have been better without beef) and grabbed this chicken banh mi to go. The bread was decent, and the chicken was flattened also and mildly marinated and tender. Not much to go on here, and not really a worthy banh mi except that it's meat in a baguette.

Banh mi's from Nguyen Huong's on Spadina is the closest I've come to what I'm craving. Their baguettes are not as crisp and crunchy as I like, but the fillings are the right proportions of pickled vegetables to pate and deli meats. After all these years and all these sandwiches, Van Loc in Edmonton still stands as the best. Sadly, very sadly, during my recent trip to Edmonton, they were closed for two weeks, and my heart broke ever so slightly at not knowing when I'll ever have one of their sandwiches again.

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