An Vi Vietnamese Kitchen + Catering — Restaurant in Casselberry

Found my new favorite banh mi in the Orlando area!

We got the grilled pork banh mi, the fried egg/spring rolls, and grilled chicken skewers.

Starting with the chicken skewers - they had a nice caramelization with grill markings but were really still good and juicy. I'd definitely get them again, but not before I tried more of the menu.

The fried egg rolls were perfectly crisp on the outside as you'd expect from a typical "spring roll" you'd order somewhere - despite the name, these aren't the bubbly textured chewy wrapper you'd get at a chinese takeout. The inside was really surprising - they were juicy enough and not dry like some of the spring rolls I've had around town. There's a nice little bit of spice in the filling too, which has glass noodles and what looks like chunks of shiitake mushroom folded into it. 10/10 would get these again on my next visit.

And the star of this meal was the grilled pork banh mi. I'm definitely no expert in this category, but I know what I like. I very much dislike when places over-use pickled carrot/daikon or if it's really super funky fermented. This was not that. It was lightly pickled and had none of that super funk, so it played nicely with the rest of the fillings. The herbs were well proportioned to the sandwich also. The menu says it comes with a variety of toppings but I dropped the tomato because, well, tomato. The jalapenos were sliced and served on the side - not sure if that was for me, or if they're usually inside the sandwich. The bread was great! It was fluffy and able to be pressed around the fillings and not super bready, while the outside had a nice crackling crunch to it. Not too hard like you over-cooked it, and not too soft to where it didn't have any crunch either. Pretty much perfect for me. And the pork, oh the pork... Juicy, well grilled, and the flavor was really good - at least for my tastes. And there was what seemed to be this fun light sauce drizzle - either on the pork or on the top of the sandwich after it was dressed - that was a really fun thing. I'll probably butcher the description but the best I could say is if you tried to make your own combination of teriyaki and hoisin sauce? 11/10 will get this sandwich again, even if it's just to go because I decided to try other things on the menu (really wanting to go back to try the pho).

Other info: We went mid-March around 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. It wasn't crowded, we had great service, and everything was...

I think the only good thing about this place is the atmosphere. Beautifully decorated. Before I start my review, I'll say that I suspect all of the good reviews are from friends of the owners who have a wide network and a few other restaurants. So take that into consideration.

Now my review. I really wanted to like this place and took a few days to let my experience sink in... I'm Vietnamese and I've come to expect 2 types of Vietnamese restaurants: 1 that stays true to Vietnames flavors 2 that caters to American taste buds. It's known that American tastes tend to be in the sweeter side (compare a vanilla cake with frosting to a Vietnamese cake). Well, this place caters to the latter. A group of my friends and I ordered a few things to get a good idea of this place: shrimp summer rolls, tofu summer rolls, chicken pho, beef pho, grilled chicken vermicelli bowl, and chicken chow fun. Everything was sweet. The peanut sauce for the rolls were so sweet, I barely tasted peanut butter. The broth for the phos were so sweet, I barely tasted any of the spices that make pho broth, pho broth. And my grilled chicken in the vermicelli bowl was so sweet it tasted like it was glazed with sauce similar to general tso's rather than grilled like it was supposed to be. So no surprise that the nuoc mam (fish sauce) for the bowl barely had any fishy taste. The dishes were more in line with Chinese food than fresh, light Vietnamese food.

And no jabs at our waiter since he ultimately got the job done but he was up in the clouds. Right after he took our order and turned to leave we asked for something else and he didn't hear us. The restaurant was quiet and not busy.... not sure of he had a lot on his mind. But this happened several times throughout the night.

Let's just say, we'll spend our...

If you love Pho, this is a must stop! Whenever I was going to Crunch gym next door I would see the coming soon for this place and when I changed gyms before they opened I had kind of forgotten about it. Today I remembered to check it out and boy do I wish I had sooner.

The Pho here is excellent, I'd rate it a solid 8.2/10. The broth is the key component in Pho and a lot of care is out into the broth here, you can taste the handcrafted non store bought ingredients and time out into it. The noodles were good as well, not home made but very good and well appropriated with the rest of the ingredients. I got the beef with tendon and tripe which was all very fresh and full of flavor. Sometimes the tripe is old at other places and overcooked so it becomes rubbery, here it was perfect

My buddy got the chicken Bahn Mi which he devoured and said it was really good. I'll be trying that next time.

They have all the staple as well so stop in and check them out, I highly...