Nope, not having banh mi this time. We were initially looking for a particular bit tet (steak) place as recommended by a fellow foodie but couldn’t find it at its original address anymore. Just as we were about to walk away from the area to find something new to eat, we stumbled upon Banh My Pho Co just across from where we were. And there was bit tet on their menu. ?
No empty table so we stood around to wait. One of the young ladies tending the shop saw us waiting and set up table and chairs for us right outside.
Banh My Pho Co
38 Dinh Liet
Hoan Kiem, Hanoi
Vietnam
Tel: +84 93 791 19 90
Opening hours: 7.00am to 10.00pm daily
Facebook page
Pretty good selection of banh mi sandwiches.
But it was this page that we were interested in.
Took quite some time for our orders to come as each dish that we had ordered required the preparation of several elements and only one person was doing it while still assembling banh mi sandwiches for other customers.
This was the first thing that was ready. Loved the sizzling sound underneath, haha.
And here was our brunch feast that came with 2 baguettes (inclusive with order of mains) as well.
The Bit Tet Op La or Sunny Steak (60,000 VND) came in a hotplate consisting of 2 small pieces of beef steak, pate, potatoes and eggs. This was the Vietnamese version of a Western steak meal. The beef was quite chewy but we loved how saucy this whole thing was so we could just use the bread to mop up all that savoury sauce. Potatoes were tender and the pate had a really rich flavour that could get one feeling sickly pretty quick. And runny egg yolks – who could resist that?
By the way, the baguette was really good and fresh. Crispy on the outside, light and airy on the inside. ??
This was the Banh My Chao or Sandwich Pan (35,000 VND), which reminded me of a full English breakfast that was flooded with sauce. The sausage tasted kinda weird – it was like Taiwan sausage but it was quite sweet. There were also pate, fatty pork (literally just the fat layers as you could see from the pic above) and a sunny side up. The sauce was more on the tomatoey side and was quite sweet and cloying too. Preferred the Bit Tet better than this.
For breakfast or brunch, this meal was definitely a rich and filling one. But I guess we just weren’t used to having that much pate or pork fats in a meal as that gave us a really porky aftertaste which was a bit too overwhelming. Wouldn’t mind having both dishes again but we would look for another restaurant next time just to compare the standards.