It's banh mi time! You'll find I am Pho, or Vietnamese Pho, or whatever it's called (this isn't really clear), on George Street in Chinatown. It's a basement café, next door but one to the 'Long Legs full strip lapdancing club' whatever on earth that might be.
It appears to be everything a good Vietnamese caff should be. Basic but clean, a fine selection of condiments on the wipe clean tables and a short menu of lovely sounding stuff, pride of place going to the pho. But I wasn't here for the pho this time, I was after a banh mi, the splendiferous Vietnamese sandwich.
A single filling banh mi costs a very reasonable £2.99, and it's 50p more for each extra filling. The best thing to do is just order one with every type of pork in it. That'll be roast pork, Vietnamese pork sausage (a bit like luncheon meat, but in a good way) and pork liver paté. You might think that sounds like a lot of pork, and you'd be right.
It was stuffed to the rafters with pork. Livery pork and slightly chewy pork and tender roast pork. The standard accompaniments were all present and correct with the notable exception of chilli: coriander, cucumber and lightly pickled cucumber and daikon. It really did miss that kick of heat from the chilli though, being just slightly unbalanced towards the rich and meaty side of things. Of course you could argue that's entirely my fault for ordering triple pork, and had I eaten in rather than taken away the problem would easily have been rectified.
The only slight downer was the bread; a fresh and perfectly acceptable regular baguette, but not the lighter, crisper rice flour baguette like they use in Vietnam itself. Lighter bread and a chilli hit and this would have been an outstandingly good sandwich.
The folks in there were absolutely lovely too, they fetched me a cup of tea to sip while I waited. A great new addition, I'll be back to try the pho.
7/10
44 George Street
Chinatown
Manchester
M1 4HF
It appears to be everything a good Vietnamese caff should be. Basic but clean, a fine selection of condiments on the wipe clean tables and a short menu of lovely sounding stuff, pride of place going to the pho. But I wasn't here for the pho this time, I was after a banh mi, the splendiferous Vietnamese sandwich.
A single filling banh mi costs a very reasonable £2.99, and it's 50p more for each extra filling. The best thing to do is just order one with every type of pork in it. That'll be roast pork, Vietnamese pork sausage (a bit like luncheon meat, but in a good way) and pork liver paté. You might think that sounds like a lot of pork, and you'd be right.
It was stuffed to the rafters with pork. Livery pork and slightly chewy pork and tender roast pork. The standard accompaniments were all present and correct with the notable exception of chilli: coriander, cucumber and lightly pickled cucumber and daikon. It really did miss that kick of heat from the chilli though, being just slightly unbalanced towards the rich and meaty side of things. Of course you could argue that's entirely my fault for ordering triple pork, and had I eaten in rather than taken away the problem would easily have been rectified.
The only slight downer was the bread; a fresh and perfectly acceptable regular baguette, but not the lighter, crisper rice flour baguette like they use in Vietnam itself. Lighter bread and a chilli hit and this would have been an outstandingly good sandwich.
The folks in there were absolutely lovely too, they fetched me a cup of tea to sip while I waited. A great new addition, I'll be back to try the pho.
7/10
44 George Street
Chinatown
Manchester
M1 4HF
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