The Saigonville Restaurant

The Saigonville Restaurant is a charming family restaurant located on Hastings street. Featuring sit down service, the interior is inviting, and when I arrived it was packed with people eating lunch. How’s their bahn mi?

The Components

Bread

The bread was nothing special - neither bad nor great. It appeared to be brought in from an outside vendor. It was warm, but dry.

Veg

The veg was good! Pickled daikon and carrot, cucumber strips, fresh cilantro, and seasoned red chilis. I thought the swap of traditional Jalapeno for the red chilis was an excellent choice.

Spread

The spread was a bit of a let down. While mayo and pate appeared to be present, their flavor was completely underwhelming. Personally, I prefer the pate to be a bit more in your face with a bold flavor and smooth, not soggy, consistency. This is the most obvious area with room for improvement

Meat

I ordered the lemongrass chicken. The chicken was cooked to perfection and extremely juicy - perhaps overly so. The flavor was subtley sweet. I thought it was excellent.

Overall Impression

The Saigonville Restaurant does a mean bahn mi, but I strongly believe they could step up their game with a few tweaks to their spreads. That, coupled with a better baguette, could elevant this sandwich to S-tier.

Recommendation

Worth a shot if you’re in the area, but I wouldn’t go out of your way for this sandwich.