You Say Sandwich, We Say Yeah!

Many a baguette and salad did I consume from EAT, the cheap on the go food store whose eponymous name I never really saw until it was pointed out to me. After dipping into a restaurant near the Southbank on a chilly rainy afternoon, and inquiring about any soup specials, the haughty maitre'd suggested I try EAT, which was just a stone's throw away, as they do soups on the daily. His haughty-ness paid off, as while they had sold out soup by then, their baguettes like this solid chicken, avocado and bacon satiated me daily during a nearby film festival. Never soggy a baguette, which is an impressive feat given it plastic wrapping, and substantial fillings, I was really sad to leave the EAT at Heathrow not knowing when I shall return again. 

Desperate for some morning grease after a late night of who knows what, a couple of us from the conference wandered the extra block to get the good coffee at Les Brulerie Saint Roch . This sausage sandwich matin was nothing to write home about, nor was the service despite ordering en francais, but it was piping hot and held me over for a few hours, which is all it's suppose to do. And I needed to be held over as the conference lunch bags were filled with these ultra skinny sandwiches literally smeared with a bit of (tuna/veg pate/chicken salad). After eating one, I kept wondering where the rest of my lunch would arrive. It never did. This sad BELT was ordered and consumed at Gare du Palais,  Quebec City's wee train station. Taking an early train out, I held the mayo.

Here it is, the toasted baguette banh mi, which has been sorely missed in this town so far. Baguette & Co. has been on my radar, if not because people keep telling me how they keep trying to go for a sandwich, but they always sell out. A sign of fresh bread! Having an early meeting nearby one day, my co-worker and I stopped in for a sit down lunch. She got the tofu and I got the chicken, and we ended up splitting half and half. The bread is what I remember, as the crunch is so essential to what I consider a banh mi. The owner agreed, and she went on a rant about the colonial history of the banh mi by the French and the necessity of toasting a fresh baguette to make it an actual banh mi. I was into it. 

Just an update, I've been back to Cafe Phin a few times since a little recon work a month back, and I'm slowly making my way down the menu after a strong start. The pho and stews are all right, but I'm just here for the baguettes. If the laws of deductive reasoning are put into play, the sandwiches will increasingly get more amazing as pork belly was superior to the assorted meats, and this lemongrass chicken banh mi is so far the best. Perfectly grilled juicy and tender chicken inside of the toasted baguettes makes me want one RIGHT NOW, but my quandary is do I double down? Do I continue down the baguette menu to dare their lemongrass tofu and meatball to be even better, or do I simply revisit the chicken, whose flavours I think about at night? I think the choice has kept me away, but I will sooner or later have to make this decision.

I was literally lying awake yesterday morning, thinking, reminiscing abut a good banh mi. The best one in Vancouver, Truong Giang, has been sold to new owners, and the sandwiches are now a bitter disappointment. I thought about heading over to Kingsway or Victoria Drive which would take up the better part of my afternoon, but I wasn't going to cross town for a sandwich, not today, as I had too many errands to run. The pho places around here had okay sandwiches (Angkor Express to a degree, and Pho Goodness does have a good baguette), but I feel those places privilege the pho, and the sandwich is just an after thought. I pulled it together and headed out the door, but before I could even hit my first of five stops, a "Grand Opening" sign caught my eye. A tasteful sandwich board had words like "aroma" and "Vietnam" and "flavours" and looking up into the window, also had banh mi. I walked in like a zombie to Cafe Phin and ordered their tradi...