Katie wrote:

G Wiv wrote:

turkob wrote:When I bought pho at Nhu Lan they said 15-minute wait, which was fine. When I received the pho it was hot, also fine. It then occurred to me that I just waited 15-minutes for pho to be heated when I was not eating it for 4-5 hours and planned on heating it up anyway. Nhu Lan pho is take-out only, if you are not going to eat it right away save yourself the 15-minute wait time and ask them not to heat it.

I really have not idea, but I'm just wondering, do the health codes allow this, or does it have to have been brought up to boiling temperature within a certain amount of time before being served?

I also am not up on the specifics of the health codes. If this standard were true, it would be ironic given I have taken out pho from Nhu Lan on multiple occasions, and the broth was hot and the meat was raw (as ordered, and btw, wrapped separately in plastic; the noodles are also packaged separately, not in the broth. It's not environmentally-friendly packaging but does wonders for maintaining the integrity of the pho on the two-block walk home). I would think raw meat would be a larger concern than cold broth.

Nhu Lan Bakery Opens Uptown Location

4810 N. Sheridan Rd.
Chicago, IL
http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2014/ ... cation.php

The Lincoln Square location is now closed on Tuesday while the Uptown location is closed on Monday according to signs in the windows in Lincoln Square store.

Thread bump to report a very pleasant sight on my walk home from Harvest Time yesterday: Beautiful roast ducks and other meats hanging in the window of Nhu Lan! It was too crowded for me to step inside to take a good picture, and I had too many groceries to buy more meat, but suspect I will be trying some of these items soon. I took a bad pic at an angle through the window to check the menu, so with apologies if this is not 100% accurate, I believe the offerings, by the pound or as part of combo platters include: BBQ pork, BBQ ribs, roasted pork, duck, soy chicken, and steamed chicken. This was in Lincoln Square; I haven't checked if Uptown has the same menu. Also, Nhu Lan Lincoln Square is now open seven days a week.

Smassey wrote:Thread bump to report a very pleasant sight on my walk home from Harvest Time yesterday: Beautiful roast ducks and other meats hanging in the window of Nhu Lan! It was too crowded for me to step inside to take a good picture, and I had too many groceries to buy more meat, but suspect I will be trying some of these items soon. I took a bad pic at an angle through the window to check the menu, so with apologies if this is not 100% accurate, I believe the offerings, by the pound or as part of combo platters include: BBQ pork, BBQ ribs, roasted pork, duck, soy chicken, and steamed chicken. This was in Lincoln Square; I haven't checked if Uptown has the same menu. Also, Nhu Lan Lincoln Square is now open seven days a week.

thanks for the report: this is great news. and after years of showing up when they were closed on tuesdays, it's wonderful to know they're open 7 days a week. a trip to harvesttime and nhu lan is a great combo...

I got two sandwiches from Nhu Lan a few days ago, a #1 special and a #3 lemongrass chicken, to go. As soon as I lifted the wrapped sandwiches out of the bag at home, I knew the #1 sandwich bread was very stale. The #3 sandwich bread was fresh. The #1 bread was so hard to eat that I felt the money spent on the sandwich was wasted. I should add this was on a weekday at about 1 pm, not an off-peak hour, and there was a cart full of bread loaves visible.

I asked for extra cilantro on both, not necessarily to ensure fresh sandwiches; I love all the cilantro I can get. But I suppose it's fairly easy to add cilantro to a sandwich that's been made previously, or jalapeño, for that matter. Maybe if you want to ensure your sandwich is freshly made, you need to ask for something additional that's harder to add later, such as mayonnaise or paté.

I wonder if the #1 special sells so much more than the other sandwich choices on the menu that it's more likely to be premade and for the bread to be stale.

Katie wrote:I got two sandwiches from Nhu Lan a few days ago, a #1 special and a #3 lemongrass chicken, to go. As soon as I lifted the wrapped sandwiches out of the bag at home, I knew the #1 sandwich bread was very stale. The #3 sandwich bread was fresh. The #1 bread was so hard to eat that I felt the money spent on the sandwich was wasted. I should this add was on a weekday at about 1 pm, not an off-peak hour, and there was a cart full of bread loaves visible.

I asked for extra cilantro on both, not necessarily to ensure fresh sandwiches; I love all the cilantro I can get. But I suppose it's fairly easy to add cilantro to a sandwich that's been made previously, or jalapeño, for that matter. Maybe if you want to ensure your sandwich is freshly made, you need to ask for something additional that's harder to add later, such as mayonnaise or paté.

I wonder if the #1 special sells so much more than the other sandwich choices on the menu that it's more likely to be premade and for the bread to be stale.

That's odd. I've never noticed them making sandwiches in advance so I'm guessing you just got some stale bread. They make so much bread that I guess it wouldn't be shocking to get bread that's a little stale, but I just haven't experienced that myself. I've actually been there a couple of times in the last week-and-a-half and have not experienced similar issues, so I hope your experience with the one sandwich was just an aberration.

The days of getting a ridiculously cheap banh mi at Nhu' Lan are over. Now it's just cheap. It used to be $3.50 for all (or most) of their banh mi, but now the prices are $5.50, or in the case of my lemongrass tofu (and a couple of others I think), $6.50. This must be a recent development too since the online menu says that the lemongrass tofu banh mi is $4.95.

These are still very fair prices in my opinion, though I'd say they were a little off their game the other day as my sandwich featured slightly too soft bread and very little pickled vegetables. I'll be curious to see if some of my other favorite local spots (Co Co Vietnamese near Lawrence & Ashland and Little Saigon Baguette on Broadway just north of Foster) follow suit. Right now, those spots are just a little cheaper. But I'm an equal opportunity banh mi guy and will keep visiting all of them.

BR wrote:. . . though I'd say they were a little off their game the other day . . .

I was excited to be in the neighborhood a couple of weeks ago so I could conveniently pick up a few sandwiches for the family to share. But all in all, we were disappointed, relative to our many positive experiences in the past. This place has been, for many years, a serious go-to for us -- the benchmark for banh mi. Maybe, as you say, we just experienced an off day but these sandwiches possessed none of the magic that they've had in the past. I wish I could quantify it in some way other than to say they were bland and skimpy; less than the sum of their parts. If it had been my first visit to Nhu Lan, I wouldn't have understood what all the fuss was about.

=R=

Nhu Lan prices have risen, even since I've been last. Though $6.50 for the Original, fresh delicious, crispy fresh bread, extra jalapenos n/c, $4.95 rice cakes w/mung bean and and a .89c soda still hard to beat.

Add in two freshly made take-a-way three-packs of plump packed fresh shrimp spring rolls for $6.75 each, an extraordinary deal, and I'm a happy LTHer.

BBQ duck looked delicious and they were doing a booming business in bubble tea smoothies. Steady stream of customers on Lawrence Ave for a late afternoon Sunday.




Nhu Lan, count me a Fan!

G Wiv wrote:Steady stream of customers on Lawrence Ave for a late afternoon Sunday.

There was a steady stream of customers yesterday, Sunday morning about 9:30am when I was there.

Mrs Willie loves the original, I usually order the meatball but yesterday enjoyed the betel leaf wrapped beef banh mi and a pork pie