Bullseye Banh Mi — Restaurant in Melbourne

This place was recommended to me so I needed to give this a try and i need somewhere to get my bahn mi fix. I wanted to try a few things so I ordered the ginger and prawn dumplings, the pork and prawn cold rolls and the crispy pork bahn mi. The service was very good and the food came out quickly. The prawn and ginger dumplings were 1st. Steamed well and piping hot with a tasty black vinegar dipping sauce. I also asked for a chilli oil to accompany these bad boys. The dumpling themselves lacked any real prawn flavour and the ginger wasn't really noticeable either. While they weren't bad there isn't any need for me to order them again. 4 pieces were $8. Next came 2 of the biggest cold rolls I'd ever seen. Pork and prawn was the choice for the day. The rolls themselves were packed full of lettuce, carrot and herbs and a bit of vermicelli noodles. This was refreshing as normally places fill the rice paper with the noodles and just a bit of salad/herbs. The disappointing part was the prawn part of the roll. Usually you'd get 1 prawn cut lengthways and half place at either end of the roll. Here 1 full prawn was placed at 1 end of the roll and then the rest was roast pork. The peanut dipping sauce was very tasty but I'd like the addition of a chilli oil or fresh chillies added to give it a kick. Overall the rolls were good and I'll get them again. 2 rolls will set you back $9 but they are massive. Then came out the main event. The crackling pork. Now this thing was fully loaded. Intact it was overloaded, for $12 it looked like value for money. Unfortunately the crackling pork wasn't pork belly, just a rolled roast pork. While it was hot and fresh I feel a crackling pork bahn mi needs to be pork belly. There was also a lot of mayo on the roll and the chilli was almost non existent. If you are a chilli lover you need to ask for me as the amount was poor but also what was there had no kick to it and i also believe lettuce doesn't belong on a bahn mi, so you might want to ask for no lettuce. I was unaware they put lettuce on their rolls, but will certainlybe asking for no lettuce next time. The positives, lots of carrot, diakon, coriander and the taste was good. Value for money this place has it, the flavour could be improved by using pork belly but this will satisfy the craving if you are...

Worst banh mi I have ever eaten. The sauce is too sweet, the roast pork is burnt black, the banh mi is too full and when you buy it to go it looks like a mess with the sauce all over it. Overall it is terrible and it is not a traditional Vietnamese banh mi. The spring rolls are too big but only have 1 shrimp because they try to stuff vegetables and noodles, the rolls are not tight and do not look nice and when you put them in your mouth it is very difficult to bite, the food will fall out of the roll very messy. The price is quite high compared to the general level, banh mi is 12$ and 1 spring roll is 6$. They can charge high prices but make their food worth it. Instead of trying to make 2 really big rolls they should make it more compact and beautiful with 4 rolls and 4 shrimp like other places do, it looks very neat, very convenient to eat. I can't understand the 5 star reviews that tricked me to come here. I bought 3 banh mi and 2 spring rolls but it was so bad, I couldn't swallow half of the banh mi or half of the spring roll, all went into the trash and cost $48. A very bad experience, a waste of money and time because even though the restaurant wasn't crowded, they worked very slowly, waited 40 minutes for only 3 banh mi and 2 spring rolls. Other places only took 5 -15 minutes because dishes that can be pre-made like spring rolls, sticky rice or dumplings should be made in advance. I usually don't review on gg and will ignore places that aren't good, I'm not a person with a difficult palate but because the experience here was really bad, I have to write here hoping they will take...

Update: It was a scary moment watching her stuff such a huge amount of iceberg lettuce into such a thinly coated pate-and-mayo-smeared roll. But she knew what she was doing, because the punchline made my jaw drop, as she piled on at least two ordinary banh mi’s worth of roast pork. I’m not one who greatly cares about value for money, and I see the massive sized banh mis like at Luke’s Moonee Ponds and just hope it will taste nice - but this $12 beast was DELICIOUS. The pork! Omg I’ve had some very meaty crackling pork belly banh mis and I don’t think any of them were as nice as this when eaten straight, with no added sauce. And then add the sweet hoisin in a well-balanced amount and you get to enjoy a spectrum of flavours with each bite. So big that I went from a bite of salad, then a bite of meat and so on, to get the perfect combinations. So, so good. DO NOT ORDER THE MEATBALL - this crackling pork was SENSATIONAL, with or without the gimmick of the fork.

Original review: Underwhelming. Probably got the wrong one as a first try but I’m a sucker for meatball in tomato sauce, a $9 special of the day. On the sweet side, the mayo a little heavy and no pate. Is there normally pate on a banh mi xiu mai? Not sure but it needed more umami. Decent bread. Gimmicky presentation with the fork but actually used it to chop my meatballs in half to make it easier to eat. Was going to follow this up with a crispy pork roll but … I’ve lost the faith (and ok maybe...