Giang Pham
Google
"A unique bánh mì," they said. Sure, on paper it is. But if you were to blindfold me and ask me to tell a difference between this and any other cold-cut bánh mì, I wouldn't be able to tell.
I went early morning to grab one for breakfast so there was no wait. The prices seem to have gone up slightly for everything. The small is now 38K & the large is 59K. Honestly, the prices are not bad for how big the portion sizes are. The small is bigger than the average bánh mì you'd find in most street stalls & is more than enough (or even a little too much) for the average Vietnamese' appetite.
Taste-wise, however, it was a bit of a letdown. Was it bad by any means? No. In fact, I found it quite solid... as any other solid cold-cut bánh mì you'd find out there in HCMC (which are plenty). Its one advertised unique aspect, the cốm butter, absolutely did not come through at all, not even a hint, when eaten together with everything else as a whole sandwich. The pate was the dominant flavor. When I tried the cốm butter on its own, it tasted like the pork floss that was directly placed on top of it instead. Speaking of which, their pork floss was really good & apparently they have 2 kinds, a regular and a fried-shallots one which you have to specifically request since they don't tell you about it lol
Now, I ordered the regular bánh mì without adding anything extra so I thought maybe the problem would be solved if you ordered extra cốm butter. However, someone I know ordered theirs with extra butter and they still had the exact same experience except they could actually taste the nice cốm flavor when they tried just the butter on its own. What I'm gathering from that is that maybe the best way to experience this unique cốm butter on a bánh mì is to just get it separately on its own and put it on a plain bánh mì and enjoy.
For the price and the portion size, I wasn't mad at what I got. I would probably revisit just to do the hack I mentioned. But if you're hoping to experience a cool gimmicky bánh mì like me, this isn't worth it. Again, it's not bad, just nothing special.
