Time Out Melbourne never writes starred reviews from hosted experiences – Time Out covers restaurant and bar bills for reviews so that readers can trust our critique.
Bánh mì might be one of the best sandwiches ever invented. And thanks to our local Vietnamese community, we’ve got an excellent list of purveyors to choose from, especially out in certain ‘burbs southeast and west of the city.
It hasn’t always been so easy to source a mind-bendingly good one in the CBD, so when Banh Mi Stand first sprung onto the scene last year, I was careful about getting my hopes up. Yet the Flinders Lane hole-in-the-wall has garnered some serious hype that’s long outlived its initial post-debut shine.
And so when I show up with a hungry friend on our lunch break, a cloud of customers swarming the counter is no less encouraging. Save for some tiny plastic stools and milk crates on the pavement, it’s very much a grab-and-go deal.
The sign is an artsy line-drawing of a baguette, a dead giveaway – along with some flashy royal blue branding – that this bánh mì shop is a more modern operation than what you’d find in Footscray, Richmond or Springvale. But hardcore traditionalists be damned; the eats here turn out to blow our hunger-addled, carb-craving minds.
From the short list of six menu options, we’ve opted for the globally adored crispy pork roll and the Hanoi cha, a more traditional style of roll with cold cuts of pork loaf. Judging from the queue and the fact the bánh mì are freshly made, we know our lunch won’t be ready in seconds flat. So we decide to grab a watermelon-flavoured Jarritos soda and a Viet salt coffee from the fridge while we wait.
For the latter, I’m encouraged to mix in the salted whipped mascarpone cheese floating atop my sweet coffee. Given how busy the staff are in prepping and doling out everyone’s lunch orders (through a small square in the wall, I can see it’s like a hyper-efficient factory back there), it’s kind that the server takes time to share the suggestion.
The experience of said drink is a rapturous rush – salty-sweet cream fused with the maltiness of roasted coffee. Our trance is broken only by the calling out of our number.
The moment of truth arrives. And in cardboard boxes, too, to catch all the crumbs.
Let’s start with the Hanoi cha. It’s perfect. Warm, light, airy and crisp, the bread is everything it ought to be. A smoosh of butter and pâté on the bread provides a rich backbone to the bright salad essentials: coriander leaves, pickled carrots and daikon radishes. And the fragrant, clean-smelling pork loaf is lent depth and dimension, thanks to a generous scattering of pork floss.
All up, it’s a multi-faceted stack of freshness and flavour.
The crispy pork is just as delightful, a clearly taste-tested balancing act in dynamic textures and ingredients.The deep savouriness of the meat in this one is reminiscent of old-school Cantonese siu yuk. Sweet fried shallots pop with flavour in every bite.
We’re barely even finished before we start planning our next visit to try the other fillings, too: confit duck, braised pork belly, and whatever else the team decides to put out. The menu tends to rotate based on availability, popularity and creativity.
It’s not a sandwich you’ll want to inhale in a hurry; it’s a complete meal that you’ll rather want to savour and prolong. Just as the Vietnamese took the French baguette and made it their own, Banh Mi Stand has taken the bánh mì and evolved it into something experimental and uniquely Melbourne.
For a mere $16 and all this considered, Banh Mi Stand makes for a dang fine cheap eat well worth the CBD pilgrimage. For anyone still stuck in 2011 protesting that a bánh mì costs more than the $5.50 of yore, this might not be their bag.
Me? If I could give it six stars, I would.