Valley Sandwiches doesn't serve your typical American style sandwiches. They serve a French-Vietnamese sandwich called Banh Mi.
Vietnam was part of colonial French Indochina until the 1950's so baguettes & French Charcuterie/"cold cuts" were introduced. The Vietnamese kept the bread largely unchanged but did modify Charcuterie using their own traditional preserved meat style.
I'm not into Banh Mi since usually there's too much bread and not enough meat although Valley is more generous with its fillings. Usually not a fanatical carboholic unless it's some exquisite hand made pasta with Parmigiano Reggiano di Vache Rosse & Tartufo Bianco d'Alba which is only available for about one month out of the year.
Valley Sandwich is not just a one trick pony so I opted for many favorite items common in most Socal Vietnamese eateries:
1) Cha Gio/"Imperial Rolls" or fried egg rolls are short & fatter here. The thin wheat based wrapper was golden brown & the crispiest I've had in a while.
Filling is finely ground pork, dark cloud ear mushroom, carrots, onions, Saifun/mung bean glass noodles. Nice smokey black pepper piquancy, touch of garlic.
However, I didn't sense a really meaty, Nuoc Mam/fish sauce laden Umami & more elevated garlickiness as well as having this meat mixture cooked with a bit of chicken broth to enhance the meat flavours.
Nuoc Cham is sweetened Nuoc Mam, bit of vinegar gastric & red chile flakes, and used as a dipping sauce. Julienned cucumber, carrots, Daikon radish pickled in sweet vinegar are palate cleansing enhancements to the Cha Gio.
My Cha Gio standard is based on the wonderfully delicious Cha Gio from Cordon Bleu, Pho Quang Trung, & Golden Deli. All of which have rice wrappers which fry up to an almost teeth shattering crispness. However, they're about $16 while Valley Sandwich is $10.50 so this may be an unfair comparison.
2) Banh Cuon Cha Lua Nem Nuong Special:
Flat rice pasta is translucent, shiny, flexible, moist, pliable with a slight "snap" shaped into a roll filled with something similar to the meat mixture in the Cha Gio but somehow a bit more satisfyingly meaty with larger pieces of the cloud ear.
The meaty accompaniments were Cha Lua which is a steamed very finely ground delicately spiced pork terrine. Nem Nuong is a fried spiced, salty, porky rough ground pork "sausage".
Sprinkled with fried sweet sightly funky onion flakes. Eaten using Nuoc Cham & refreshing garnishes of spear mint, sliced cucumber, blanched bean sprouts. Very tasty version of Banh Cuon.
3) Mi Quang: chewy fettuccine wide al dente rice noodles. Rich, roasted chicken scented fatty soup & piquant red chile purée. Meat includes char broiled fatty porkbelly, pork, pork rib, chicken all moist & meaty. Steamed plump Shrimp.
Fresh spearmint, bean sprouts, crispy, refreshingly watery hearts of Romaine. Garnishes of roasted peanuts, chopped green onions; fried, toasty onions, cilantro. Deep flavoured, roasted Chicken broth w/ piquant red chile purée.
4) Banh Mi Nem Nuong Toasted French bread, Porky, salty, fatty, ground oblong patty. Julienned cucumber, carrots, Daikon radish, piquant Jalapeño, chopped Cilantro. Better than most other Banh Mi since the Nem Nuong was flavourful.
5) Bun Mang Vit in the style of north Vietnam: Hot chicken broth similar to the soup for Mi Quang with skein of chewy, lightly fermented, soy sauce braised bamboo shoots. Thin rice Vermicelli.
Toppings in another bowl include:
a) lightly gamey, meaty, roasted, bone in duck
b) fried, sautéed green onon stalk
c) sliced raw bulb onion
d) diced raw red bell peppers
e) green cilantro
f) finely minced, warm spicy ginger & possibly aromatic lemon grass
All of the above is underlain by refreshing shredded, raw cabbage
Sauce is Nuoc Cham with pieces of red chile pepper & what looks like garlic.
Overall Valley Sandwich has a well rounded Vietnamese menu that creates deeply flavoured food that hits the Vietnamese culinary mark.
Unfortunately, no dining area to immediately eat especially the hot soups which come in plastic containers. I keep hearing how hot foods can cause bad chemicals in plastic to leach out and contaminate hot foods.
Nonetheless, the food here is the best Vietnamese that I've had in the San Fernando Valley. 4+ stars
BTW, If you feel lucky, you can also buy Lotto, Mega, Power lottery tickets. Also closes very early around 4pm. read more