La Banh Mi Hung Phat [Pictures]

LTH,

Stopped the other day at La Banh Mi Hung Phat for a couple of Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) Zim style. Zim style is where you ask for extra jalapeno so they custom make your sandwich, occasionally they have a stack of premade sandwiches. Not only that, but you get extra jalapeno.



Last time I was at La Banh Mi Michelle, who has an undeserved reputation for being grouchy, was kind enough to go next door to the grocery for jalapeno as she just run out. She even packed extra jalapeno for me to take home.


Actually, I think Michelle was in a particularly good mood that day as she was quite interactive, even to the point of loaning me a food and travel video on Vietnam. YMMV.

To get to La Banh Mi Hung Phat you must pass through Vinh Phat, a Chinese BBQ place, which, as far as I know, is a totally unrelated business. I've had mixed experience with Vinh Phat, but the roast duck I last bought was excellent.


Banh Mi and roast duck make for an excellent lunch.


Enjoy,
Gary

La Banh Mi Hung Phat
4940 North Sheridan Road
Chicago, IL 60640
773-878-8688

Vinh Phat
4940 North Sheridan Road
Chicago, IL 60640

Great pics, that last photo is like a Busby Berkeley dance number, the ducks pieces dancing in front of the slowly rising banh mi. "A pretty girl is like a fresh banh mi..."

Wanted to give a follow up on the roast duck from Vin Phat. With the move of Tank to the western edge of the Argyle strip, my NFL halftime tradition had to change if I did not want to miss any football. Headed to perfectly located (proximity to DirecTV friend's apt) Vin Phat and ordered a whole roast duck.

For $11 they pull the critter off the hook, lop off its head and cut it into the nice pieces you see in GWiv's excellent photos above. They splash a little sweetened sauce on it before they close up the packaging. The flesh is rich, delicate and sweet, quite tasty. With a little hot sauce, I think I've found a new halftime meal for Sunday's. They have french bread rolls next to the counter, next time I think I'll pick a couple of those up and make duck sandwiches.

I'm gonna have to try one of their roast chickens as well...

uhm.

WHERE IS THE CILANTRO IN THAT BANH MI??? $#^%#$^&#^*&%^(%^Q@$

TonyC wrote:uhm.

WHERE IS THE CILANTRO IN THAT BANH MI??? $#^%#$^&#^*&%^(%^Q@$

ab wrote:For $11 they pull the critter off the hook, lop off its head

You don't know how I struggle for them to pack the head in my take-out order. They never believe me. Now, I don't really eat it but I do pinch off all the crisp skin. I have had friends who will eat the bird's brain, which I have never really tried.

What I have had absolutely no success is keeping the beak. As quickly as I remind them the beak stays, it is lobbed off and tossed into the garbage.

We will buy flour tortillas, there is one brand where I can split apart the tortilla into two rounds. I finely juilienne green onions and get some hoisin sauce. We eat this duck as if it were Peking Duck: steamed doily (tortilla) with hoisin sauce spread, some green onions and duck. I especially like the pai pai duck, which is cut along the back bone and splayed, for the higher ratio of crispy surface.

Good eating!

I wondered to myself if the cheeks on a duck were worth of saving, but then I saw some of the hanging ducks and chickens staring at me with BBQ'd eyes and decided it was best to leave the noggin behind.

What can you do with the beak?

ab wrote:What can you do with the beak?

Not much more than gross out the kids.

I thought it would be nice sometime to compose a platter where the fully intact duck's head was present, but then they always lob off the beak! In the couple dozen ducks bought over the years, with the same instructions, the beak is always missing. I guess it is simply a challenge now to get the duck's head with beak intact.

Yes, the beak is a pointless exercise though one I enjoy.

I was once served duck tongue when eating dim sum. It wasn't bad, but didn't very interesting, either.

Hi,

I had duck tongue for the very first time a few weeks ago at Triple Crown. The duck tongue did have a small, hard boney bit, which you had to quietly park on your plate after eating the meatier part. Something I am better at doing with a fork than with a chopstick.

I have not yet had duck feet though.

What mean "had to" park on plate, Kimosabi. It all went down the hatch

What mean "had to" park on plate, Kimosabi. It all went down the hatch

I will bite off, chew and easily swallow shrimp heads. I will eat crispy fish fins. I will eat the 3rd joint of a chicken wing, when it is crisply cooked. I just don't enjoy swallowing bones I cannot chew into oblivion. Chewing those duck tongues was like chewing meat surrounding a toothpick, not very pleasant at least for me. Now roasted crickets, that is something to relish!

what exactly is on that sandwich?

GWIV - you have a future as a food stylist.

Cathy - as a kid, we used to run around with a duck (or chicken) head mounted on a chopstick to scare the non-Asian kids on my block.

Shirley

Cathy2 wrote:I have had friends who will eat the bird's brain, which I have never really tried.

When I was in LA recently for my grandma's 89th bday, we went to a Shanghainese restaurant where my relatives had ordered a special 10-course meal.

One of the dishes (and the best in my opinion) was a whole roast duck w/ sticky rice stuffing. One of my aunts took the head off, gave the beak w/ the tongue to her dad, then dug in for the brain. She said it tastes pretty much like foie gras. My sister tried it and agreed. That's the best I can tell of it.

Hammer wrote:Cathy - as a kid, we used to run around with a duck (or chicken) head mounted on a chopstick to scare the non-Asian kids on my block.

Shirley

I attended a Chinese wedding banquet once where whole steamed chicken was served w/ the heads on. Seeing that on the table was bad enough for all the non-Asians there, but they were totally shocked when the Asians started to play a game of sticking the heads on wine bottles and making the bride and groom retrieve it w/ their mouths. :)

Janet C. wrote: Seeing that on the table was bad enough for all the non-Asians there, but they were totally shocked when the Asians started to play a game of sticking the heads on wine bottles and making the bride and groom retrieve it w/ their mouths.

Oddly enough, I just read in Erik Larson's 'The Devil in the White City,' that turn of the century Chicagoans (and presumably, other Americans of european descent) used to display the heads of meat entrees in order to demonstrate freshness.

When my great aunts were slaughtering chickens, we would try to swipe a few chicken feet and take them to school. There is nothing like the reaction of a teacher when they open their desk and find chicken feet.

Unfortunately, they knew the culprit ...

o man... that Hung Phat banh mi joint should be SHUT DOWN. went on a Saturday afternoon, and the bread tasted like drywall....

heck it even LOOKS like dry wall
http://havok.supremor.com/albums/album2 ... .sized.jpg

granted the dac biet had plenty of filling, but that bread.. is unforgivable, asked for extra peppers, still got a pre-made sandwich. the gf had the roast pork which was excellent as it came fresh from the neighbor BBQ shop. skin was incredibly crispy and the meat moist+tender. but again, the baguette wrecked the entire sandwich.

so i promptly drove to Ba Le (which is a transliteration of "Paris" in Vietnamese/Chinese. ) and get myself Pate Cha. the pate was excellent, the baguette was excellent...

Ba Le 1 : Hang Phat 0

TonyC wrote:o man... that Hung Phat banh mi joint should be SHUT DOWN. went on a Saturday afternoon, and the bread tasted like drywall....

Tony,

I'm beginning to think you and I simply have different tastes in things. Either that or you, occasionally, have bad ordering/timing luck. La Banh Mi Hung Phat bakes Baguettes on premises, light, flaky, crackly, with just enough structural density to support the various filling.

These beauties, as far as I can tell, are made in traditional Vietnamese fashion, which is to say French style with the addition of rice flour for lightness and flavor. Light and airy, not drywall.

I'd suggest a return visit, but, please, do no settle for a premade sandwich, which very well might taste like doughy goo. Best yet, try to time your visit when the baguettes are cooling on a bakers rack in back.

One Sunday morning I ate a couple of freshly made, just out of the oven, banh mi beauties leaning against my car, listening to birds chirp, and watching the going to church crowd walk by. A very pleasant experience.

Enjoy,
Gary

It's all about timing at La Banh Mi Hung Phat. They may not do not the volume that Ba Le does, but a goodly portion of their banh mi and baguettes go out to groceries and video stores--sometimes they run out of bread. More than once the gruff but lovable Michele refused to sell me banh mi that had been sitting around for a few hours, instead advising me to to show up EARLIER next time, before lunch. When I followed her instructions, the banh mi were always fresher and more delectable, in my opinion, to comparable ones at Ba Le.

1 more reason not to visit vin phat (and hence hung phat)?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1415 ... 19.article

Vinh Phat BBQ at 4940 N. Sheridan was found to have 12 critical violations, including rodent infestation and prepared duck and pork kept at lower than safe food temperatures. Improperly labeled prepared-food containers sold in Wisconsin were traced here by Chicago inspectors. The restaurant was closed for two weeks in July. Owners would not comment.

VP BBQ made the 12 dirtiest restaurant list of 7/05-7/06.

I'm sorry. Did you say something Tony? I'm still drooling over Gary's photos.

I had two fantastic premade sammiches there on Monday. Great fresh crusty baguette, not quite warm from the oven but still good. It was a fine lunch.