"It'll be eight dollars."
Without really thinking about it, I pulled a ten from my wallet and handed it to the mousy looking cashier. It was only after grabbing a seat that I realized how much my meal cost.
Eight dollars, really? I thought to myself. Eight?!
Of course, an eight dollar meal is rather a steal in New York, a city where bars have the balls to charge you that much for a beer. But I didn't order a fancy microbrew or anything fancy-- I got bahn mi!
For the folks who never got to try the dish, bahn mi, or Vietnamese sandwich, is a baguette sliced lengthwise and stuffed with some sort of meat and ribbons of pickled carrots, daikon, cilantro, onion, and jalapeno. Bahn mis are not only absolutely delicious, but they're also usually really cheap, something like $4 or less for a sandwich (I really like Saigon in Little Italy-- $3.75!). In fact, my love for bahn mis began in high school, because I realized that the local Vietnamese place sold sandwiches that were half the price of Subway subs but infinitely more edible.
In disbelief, I checked the Hanco's menu-- $5.75 for pork bahn mi, $2.25 for Vietnamese iced coffee. This better be damn good, I thought.
Hanco's is a tiny, but busy Vietnamese shop on Bergen Street and Smith. When my friend and I visited on a cold January afternoon, we were first met with a long line. Oh no, I thought, I'd hate to be without tables and be forced to eat outside in the cold. Luckily for us, most of the people in line were ordering to-go, and after ordering, my friend and I were able to snag a small wooden table in the rather crowded dining space.
Looking at the growing line, I began to imagine that maybe Hanco's charged $2 more than I expected because their sandwiches are that much more delicious. Hanco's already had a strike in my book for being expensive, but that could easily be remedied by an exceptional sandwich.
So we waited. And waited.
And waited.
Bahn mis, like your deli sub, usually take no more than 10 minutes to be made. At Hancos, my friend and I waited an excruciatingly long 30 minutes as we sat in the overheated shop listening to three 13 year old girls talk about boys. I winced every 30 seconds realizing I used to say the same exact things.
When the food finally arrived, both my friend and I dove for the hot sandwiches. Just as I was about to take a bite, my friend commented, "aren't these things suppose to be on a baguette?"
While there isn't a cardinal rule that states bahn mis have to be on a baguette, the hero-roll type bread that the sandwich was made with was a inferior substitution. Not only was it smaller (less food), but it didn't offer as many texture variation as a baguette (who am I kidding? I, like every other girl raised in America, love a good baguette. End of story).
I hated the sandwich from Hanco's. It wasn't just the bread-- it was everything! While the grilled pork was well cooked, it had that distinctive Chinese food flavor to it that I couldn't shake off. While I'm not a stickler for authenticity, I hated that this flavor ran foul with the cilantro. And unfortunately, because their bahn mi spread used way too much mayo, I couldn't even taste the vegetables other than the cilantro and the jalapeno.
This already made a really bad sandwich, but what I really hated was their "spicy" sauce which was just Sriracha sauce. Had I known that their spicy sauce was just that, I would have gotten the regular and added the sauce myself, instead of being forced to eat a sandwich in which the hot sauce was indiscriminately poured on.
And here we come to the embarrassing point in the story. I came here while my lip piercings were still somewhat fresh... and I got Sriracha sauce in.
I almost cried.
Hanco's-- bad expensive sandwiches that makes girls cry. read more