The ‘Bánh Mì 25’ is a typical Vietnamese sandwich eatery, located at 25 Hàng Cá Street in the northwest of the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Any Google search for the best banh mi in Hanoi will result this address, there’s no doubte it’s one of the city’s most visited places by locals, foreigners and tourists. And it happens to be our preferred baguette spot, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
For those who are walking past, Banh Mi 25, nested modestly at the door step of a decrepit shop house with a handful of cute chairs spilling onto the pavement out front, will catch their eyes. Its first booth opened in 2014 and has since expanded to 2 more places on the same street, adding more seating for customers to take in the bustle of Hanoi while munching on this local classic.
In Vietnam we often pick a place for a meal because it has many people waiting for the service, Banh Mi 25 is a place like that. As you arrive, you are welcomed by both the happy owner – Phương and his wife, taking the time to say hello with very good English, and showing willingness to jot down orders – right on the edge of the street. Like most local family-run business, reservation is not required.
The address has both takeaway and a quaint dining spot across the street, if you prefer to relax and dine in. Just note that the setting is completely open, so don’t expect to escape the heat of Hanoi here. But if you choose to sit down to enjoy the food with a cold drink, a few fans around the restaurant will help to keep you comfortable.
The menu offers variants of a Vietnamese sandwich, including 2 pork options, 3 chickens, 2 beefs and 4 vegetarians. You can also completely customize your banh mi by adding more egg, savory pâté, barbecued pork, honey grilled chicken, tofu, or mushroom floss for an extra cost.
Proficiently, they’ll always confirm ahead of time that you want all of the accompanying vegetables – like cucumber and coriander included on your sandwich, which is ideal for any cilantro-haters like many of our clients.
Our barbecued pork with liver pâté was more of a traditional meaty one (inspired by the French,who brought the baguette here), and it’s our favorite. They were crispy with mouth watering fillings, including a juicy mix of BBQ pork, home-made liver pâté, and topped off with an assortment of shredded carrot, cucumber, cilantro, and a tempting sauce extracted from the cooking juices off the barbecued pork.
Every bite of it was a delightful inpired flavor. The bread was nicely baked making it nicely crispy crust and fragrant, the pork was well marinated bringing in a good balance, and the fresh cilantro brought in a booming aroma. We would say that it was a real banh mi, a real Vietnamese food.
The whole process of preparing the baguette was in an open kitchen, and we could see the products were fresh and the dishes had the warmth of home-made food, the young couple and their staffs took great care in selecting the best quality ingredients, as well as crafting them into the narrow loaf of the French bread.
To accompany your sandwich, Banh Mi 25 offers several fresh juices and smoothies as well as cold Hanoi beer, and of cause, yummy coffee concoctions at totally reasonable prices. On warm days, it’s ideal to try one of their frozen delights: gorgeous craft popsicles in an array of frozen fruit and yogurt flavors.
Baguettes at Banh Mi 25 range in price from 30,000 dong – 40,000 dong (so all under 2 dollars) and the add-ons are 5,000 dong – 15,000 dong. Its special bread with combo pan – sauteed beef with pâté & sunny-side-up egg, costs 65.000 dong (3 dollars). Juices and smoothies range from 20,000 dong – 40,000 dong and you can get a delicious sweeten condensed milk coffee with for 25,000 dong.
A notice with this local eatery is that, it’s getting too popular on the internet as most websites and travel blogs, if not saying all of them, recommend readers looking for a banh mi to find their way there. Consequently, the busy queues mean sometimes there is a short wait of up to 10 minutes.
Thankfully the owner, his wife and their staffs, were always around with a smile willing to exchange some kind of words and be very helpful with all their customers. Service was efficient, friendly, and food came well-presented.
Lets us state surreptitiously that, we occasionally call them 10 minutes ahead of arriving time to avoid waiting for the time to bake the banh mi, as good food takes time to prepare and deliver. We then stop by with our motorbike engine still working, pay for the bill, recieve our banh mi and keep on driving.
Bottom line, despite the potential queue of eaters during high tourist season, we were happy with their banh mi as well the service. The staffs were always ready to help, the premises were extremely clean for a local place, the atmosphere was lovely and inviting, and the food was both fresh and tasty.
For that being said, Flavors of Hanoi would rate banh mi 25 a “5 star”, and we highly recommend Hanoi visitors, hungers, travelers, and street food lovers to try a Vietnamese baguette at Banh Mi 25, you won’t regret it.
- Bánh Mì 25
- 25 Hang Ca Street, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi
- 097 766 8895
- 7h00 – 21h00
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