This week brings a road trip of sorts. I visited seventeen places east of the Willamette to begin a two-part journey and ask a question whose answer should be worth considerable bragging rights: Who makes the best banh mi in Portland? Sure, it’s a subjective issue, but before long it’s clear that some are points of pride, and some are just made to keep 82nd Avenue dreamers glued to the video poker machines.
The banh mi is a simple, fairly standardized, and inexpensive Vietnamese sandwich, where a couple key ingredients need to shine. The baguette should be light and airy, with a thin, crisp, shattering crust—the outside like a saltine, the inside like cotton candy. The meat shouldn’t taste like it was sliced from a basement-ripened grandmother. If used, the pâté should enhance the richness like fish sauce in a nuoc cham, and not be overly distinctive. Pickled carrots and daikon, jalapeño, occasional Kewpie mayonnaise, and cilantro—always cilantro—are the rest.
After quality of ingredients, they’re distinguished by balance. The most common shortcoming is too much bread to filling, or a smothering of vegetables.
There are also restaurants and counters that create relatively gourmet versions that spare no expense, in fundamental contrast to the cheap street-food nature of the original. It’s unfair to compare the $10 sandwich to the $3 one—though they can technically share the same name and ingredient list. These are typically set apart by the meats: delicious roast spiced duck (Double Dragon), liver-enriched seared crepinettes (Smallwares), and top-notch housemade charcuterie (Tails & Trotters). Therefore, these go in a separate judging category.
Who was the best on the east side? Top honors go to @Pho.com (7901 SE Powell), a bright, clean, and slightly upscale restaurant whose name seems to be missing only a hashtag and an interrobang. At $5.95 and slightly oversized, this barely fit into the “traditional” category, but strictly traditional ingredients and value for size kept it there. A thin, tender, marinated and char-grilled escalope of pork was irresistibly fragrant, and in perfect balance with the cool, refreshing vegetables. The subtle pâté blended seamlessly with the mayonnaise for a rich and binding sauce. It was the only sandwich I couldn’t help but finish after trying that day’s field of nine, if that says anything.
- Infograph by Chris Onstad
Next week brings a full tour of west side banh mi, with a more detailed master chart, addresses, and, for perspective, a few local experts’ favorites.
Note: Best Baguette is a chain and not all of the Best Baguettes out there are good. The Beaverton by Cedar Crossing shopping center serves their banh mi with stinky gristly meat and the place itself is kinda meh.
Not sure you reviewed the Viet joint by Rose City golf course in NE. Best Banh Mi sands i have had in the area.
Chris,
You recommended Binh Minh Sandwiches, which is on SE Powell, but I didn’t see a mention of Binh Minh Bakery, on NE Broadway. Are they connected businesses?
Thank you for the note, I’mrightyerwrong. I have had a couple of banh mi at the Best Baguette in Beaverton and they suck, though they seem to get plenty of business.
^^then go to Tan Tan which is right down the street and much better. And cheaper
The one on Powell is excellent, though.
Binh Minh Sandwiches & the Binh Minh Bakery on Broadway are indeed the same owners. I think the Broadway location is MUCH better & slightly cheaper. I believe their daughter also owns a Vietnamese restaurant in NW with higher quality ingredients & price.
Chris, nice work. This should be a model starting point for future surveys, especially by the higher paid, but for some reason lazier, print media in town.
That said, I think there are some serious weaknesses:
1) You note that it’s unfair to compare a $3 sandwich to a $10 sandwich, but with balance of ingredients playing such a large part in your rankings, it’s probably unfair to compare a $3 sandwich with a $6 sandwich, too. Note that you can at most banh mi joints ask for “double meat”. You’ll pay more, maybe bringing a sandwich up to $4.50 or $5, but you’ll get the proportions you’re looking for more often, I suspect.
2) I have a feeling you weren’t always comparing apples to apples on the fillings. You don’t really say, but it sounds like you were mostly comparing dac biets, #1 on many banh mi menus, and generally a mixed meat “special”. However, places sometimes use different meats for this. They pretty much all have a pate (which may or may not be made in-house and it’s a question worth asking), but after that it can be a range of meats. So one may just fit your palate better. But some of the place mentioned don’t have this. And some places won’t even have a thit nuong or if they do, they’ll be very different styles.)
3) Finally, the various banh mi joints have different things they do well, in my experience. eg, you don’t recommend An Xuyen, but they actually make a pretty darn good xiu mai (meatball) banh mi and have some of the better bread in town. (For future reports, I’d recommend you ask where they get the bread because while some make it in-house, most get it from somewhere else which can be a leading indicator, as with the pate.) You don’t indicate if you ate more than one sandwich per place and you don’t indicate which filling you actually chose.
btw, just as an aside, Meat Cheese Bread has had a banh mi on their board for a while now. I haven’t tried it, though. If you ever want to do a follow-up for a blog post or whatever, hit me up.
Surely Tails & Trotters does not serve beef, perhaps you should check on that and amend the article.
All totally excellent points from @extramsg.
I was so-so on the MCB banh mi — that bread was tough (/mouth-destroying) and the Nueske’s bacon was too smoky for my personal taste.
Don’t agree with your An Xuyen eval. The Best Baguette in Beaverton does a totally serviceable banh mi (and it was my first, which probably counts for some nostalgia) — and it’s one of the cheapest, quickest, tastiest things you can get around there. Tan Tan is also great though — just a bit more of a traditional sit-down Vietnamese place.
Ooh. Meat Cheese Bread’s banh mi is shitty. Everything about it is wrong.
10 dollars for a bahn mi is a bit silly and kind of misses the point to me anyway
Would it have killed you to put restaurant addresses on the scorecard?
Chris, did you try Luc Lac? You shouldn’t forget about them. The place is mouthwatering!
I surprise people when I say Best Baguette on 82nd and Powell is my favorite restaurant in Portland (considering price, quality, consistency, etc… not saying it’s “better” than something upscale like Le Pigeon). But what can I say, their meatball banh mi and sardine banh mi are consistently great for the price.