Since moving to the Soho/surrounding area with work, I've been trying to find somewhere that does Banh Mi. Good Bahn Mi. Bahn Mi that doesn't require queuing for several hours or mortgaging the house. I don't even have a house...
That was in November 2013 and I had given up hope. Yelp returning nothing within walking distance, and Google just kept sending me back to City Caphe near our old workplace in the City of London. No good at all. But then, my colleague alerted me to Keu.. which has a location in Old Street with a favourable looking menu, and which apparently opened in Poland Street, right under my nose, without warning. I absolutely had to try it.
Now I am in serious danger of spending all my wages in 2015 on Banh Mi. Not because it's so good I can't stop eating it, but simply because it's there. It IS good though... I've only tried the classic but it was everything I expected: tasty pickled goodness on a pate and meat baguette. Crucially, as with all of the best sandwiches, the bread is key and the baguettes here are deliciously soft on the inside and crunchy outside. Warmed to perfection. At £6 a sandwich it's not the cheapest thing in the area but the goods are worth it: you find yourself wanting more but I think it's due to the savoury goodness rather than the amount of filling. One criticism of the taste I can give is the lack of "punch" in the sandwich: friends prefer a lot of heat throughout the sandwich, but here it's tame unless you grab a mouthful of seeds along with the raw chilies they include - at which point it's near deadly! But I enjoy the danger..
Frankly, it's been so long since I was at City Caphe so I cannot quite remember their sandwiches to compare, but I'm more than satisfied with the Vietnamese classic here at Keu. When the novelty of simply having Banh Mi for lunch wares off, I will branch out to some of their other sandwich varieties on the menu; the BBQ pork and the duck versions sound lovely, and the aforementioned colleague is a big fan of the pork buns. They do ramen & other soup-type dishes too, and the restaurant has that new, fresh feel should I ever want to sit in. Service is swift - if you're after takeaway go straight to the counter - but at peak lunch times you'll have a little wait. I've found that avoiding 12.30-1.30 is best.
So: tasty vietnamese food, especially the sandwiches, for the price of anything else going in the area, but vastly superior in taste. I may well upgrade to 5-stars once I've tried more of their menu! read more