Banh Mi 11 in Broadway Market – a destination sandwich establishment

It was rather cold when we set off for our trek across London to Broadway Market, our quest was for the highly recommended banh mi stand there. Banh Mi 11 delivered the goods in terms of excellent Vietnamese sandwiches even if they took a while to prepare.

[image image_id=”2095″ align=”left”]

Banh Mi 11 are part of the Ca Phe Vietnamese coffee stand, located in a little courtyard half way along Broadway Market. This gives them space for some seating. They start serving banh mi at 10am, but as we got there a bit early they gave us some Vietnamese green tea as we waited to keep us warm on the bitterly cold morning. Then we got our banh mi

First up was a quad meat special. The banh mi lady apologised that the bread was smaller than usual; apparently it was made that morning and it had been so cold the bread hadn’t risen properly. It didn’t matter as we found the bread to be crispy and flavoursome. All the usual goodies of pickled carrots and radish, cucumber batons, coriander and (not quite enough) chillies. It was powerfully meaty with a good pork liver character from the pate. Quite delicious, but (as I said) a bit lacking on the chilli front.[image image_id=”2097″ align=”right”]

Our second sandwich required an even longer wait as they cooked the pork to order; additionally it took a while for them to finish building and firing-up their barbecue. When it did finally arrive this Imperial BBQ banh mi was well up to standard. The pork was perfectly grilled and (this time) seasoned with a decent amount of chillies. Worth hooning across Town for, we thought.

[image image_id=”2099″ align=”left”]

In summary, very good banh mi were on offer at Banh Mi 11. The bread was in a league of its own, but the fillings were not quite up to the standard of [link2post id=”392″]Baguette and More in Greenwich[/link2post]. However, if Broadway Market is in range for you it would be a mistake not to go and try these, just don’t turn up too early on a cold morning. There are other foodie-tastic stands in the market as well.

As we have now tried the offerings from six banh mi establishments it is interesting to note the variety in the standard recipes. Banh mi 11 had red peppers and very little umami flavour, we like the umami character.

We were supposed to be going to Mon Me for lunch today, but (pleasingly) I have been asleep for the past twelve hours.

Find Banh Mi 11 on the web or really with-it people (like me) can follow them on Twitter.