Kingsway Deli - Vân Mi Long

Vân Mi Long is in a bit of a funny location, since they’re located almost directly beside a different bánh mì restaurants (Banh Mi Thai Hang 2, which I’ve been to but have yet to review). The inside is clean, and the workers (an old lady and younger boy) were very friendly.

The Components

Bread

The bread was pretty standard, by my estimation. Good crunchy outside, soft-enough inside. Passing marks.

Veg

The veg was quite good! Again, they had batons of carrot and daikon (one piece of daikon was egregiously big). However, this was made up for by the fact they seemed to have mastered perfectly seasoning their pickling solution. Tender-crispy and tasty.

Cilantro was indeed present, fresh, and in good quantity. Same with the jalapeno.

Spread

The mayo was good. I wasn’t paying enough attention to discern if it was homemade or not, but there was enough of it to keep the sandwich well lubed.

Disappointingly, they didn’t include pate on my #8 BBQ pork. This was made up for in full though, as I will explain next.

Meat

The meat. My god, the meat. I got the BBQ pork sandwich, and it was amazing. The classic teasing of toppings from the top view of the sandwich quickly gave way to mountains of meat as soon as I took the first bite. It was salty, savory, umami, well sauced - an outstanding performance altogether. This is the reason why I’ll be going back.

Overall Impression

Vân Mi Long would have been just another standard bánh mì restaurants with better-than-average cleanliness and service, had it not been for their outstanding BBQ pork performance. I’m looking forward to going back and trying other flavors to see if they hold up.

Recommendation

Two thumbs up.