Bánh Mì Huynh Hoa — Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City

Quick take: If you're looking to try this famous place for the taste, don't bother. If you want to try it to say you have, go ahead and be disappointed.

This spot is the infamous Bánh Mì Huynh Hoa. There was a line when I got there on a weekday early afternoon but it moved very quickly. The line consisted of almost all foreigners from Koreans, Germans, and Chinese. As you arrive, there is a nice security guard who directs you to the front counter to order. There's only one choice so don't bother trying to figure out which type of sandwich you want. Just tell them how many you want. Expect to pay over 70k for 1 sandwich. Yes, it is expensive but the sandwich itself is huge. Huge is actually an understatement.

Sandwiches are prefilled with the basic stuffings like paté and butter. Once you move along the line to the pick up counter, you hand over your order number and the staff starts to stuff it with the various Vietnamese Ham slices and gives you a couple baggies of veggies, sour carrots, and cucumbers as well as a pair of gloves. Gloves? Huh? Yes...gloves...

There is no sitting room so prepare to eat on the streets or bring it home. I brought it back to my hotel and started to unpack and fill the sandwich with the extra stuffings.

Holy moly, this sandwich is huge. It is easily 2-3x bigger than your average bánh mì so if you're comparing prices, it makes perfect sense it's 70k+. They loaded this bánh mì up with paté and butter.

I did not wear the provided gloves but after the first bite I found out why it was needed. There was so much butter that as soon as I bit down, the butter and paté mixture just squirted everywhere. I mean, splatter splatter. I got 3-4 bites in and it was just overwhelming with the paté and butter. Now, don't get me wrong, I love paté and can easily just spoon paté from the pack and eat it but this was overkill. There's a saying that too much of a good thing can become a bad thing and it definitely is the case here. I mean, if you like taking a stick of butter and just chewing on it for fun, go ahead. But my mouth, and my stomach, just felt nasty and sick afterwards.

I was struggling after 4-5 bites and gave up half way. Yes, it was filling but also absolutely disgusting having all that melted fat mixture slush around my mouth.

My advice is that if you really want to try this spot because you've seen the videos and have heard about how it's famous, share 1 with amongst 2-3 people or else you won't finish it or be sick to the core if you force yourself to like it to fit in with the public's perception that more is good.

Is it worth 70k+? Absolutely. Will I ever come back because it "tastes good"?...

Had to try this bánh mì. The line I show was at 6:25 am Sun. I was a little confused at the ordering queue, but it got clearer when the worker told people that paid to move to the left line (there became a line after I paid) and everyone who had yet to order should be in the right line (closer to the register).

It seemed like everyone was paying in cash, so I did, but I saw another foreigner come up and pay by transfer. 68K/$2.70 per sandwich, which makes this one of the more expensive ones (general coffeeshop/cafe ones are around 40-45K/$1.60-1.75 and most street carts are 15-20K/$0.60-0.80, from my experience being in Vietnam for one year).

I only had to wait around 10-12 minutes (it felt longer).

According to another reviewer, we're supposed to avoid this place and try "the two other shops next to it" (something like that). Originally, I wasn't going to, but I decided to try picking up another bánh mì.

I went to the one closest to Huynh Hoa and was told by the workers to go to Huynh Hoa (he didn't speak English, but he was pointing and indicating I couldn't order anything) - I had thought it was a different shop, but it may be the baking place for their bread.

I ended up trying Bánh Mì Xanh, which is a vegetarian bánh mì place (franchise maybe?). I'll leave a review for that at its marker. There's a clear difference in size between the two sandwiches.

This is the largest bánh mì I've ever had, yet it's clearly not the best. Looking at other reviews from my time period, perhaps we just had a bad day. I was expecting layers and layers of meat. Mine had relatively little meat. When I ate it, the end I started at, I could mostly only taste pâté. The other end did have much more meat, yet nothing like the photos I saw on Google with tons of meat.

Adding the veggies made the taste a lot better, but it really is just a process meat taste overall.

I will say, in general, I don't love bánh mìs. When I get one, I usually get an egg bánh mì and those are my preferred ones. One of the better ones I've had was in D9. I custom ordered an egg one with a side of bacon to add to it.

This one is nice to try...

With the international fame this place has, my review probably won't hold much weight but Huynh Hoa was my go to place when I lived in Ho Chi Minh City between 2017 to 2020. It was phenomenal. Amazing flavours, balanced and extremely popular.

How things change over 5 years. I was hanging out to get an amazing Banh Mi. Unfortunately and sad to say, my experience was well below what was expected but still the popularity is there thanks to countless influencers trying to boost views on their channels.

The bread overbaked, chewy and not crispy. Back 5 years, it was fresh and at times warm straight out of the oven.

It was so overfilled with pate and floss that it was overpowering. There was also a chemical after taste from what I think was the pate. The vegetables are now prepackaged so you actually have to build your own Banh Mi. The cucumber was dry and not fresh. The herbs and spring onion chopped to an inch of its life.

I ordered as I did back 5 years ago with chilli and extra pate but these days there is no customisation. Unfortunately, the team members don't have the English skills to explain this and look exhausted from no doubt serving thousands of Banh Mi from 6am.

All of this has taken away the traditional and delicate balance of flavours from what once was the best Banh Mi in Saigon.

One thing to add, I overheard customers in the line asking what they are queuing for. "Some kind of sandwich!"

Imagine now, one of Vietnam's most well known food exports is being handed out to tourists who have no idea how it is meant to taste. Such a shame!

Change is only good when it advances, educates and grows the brand through quality and consistency. The Huynh Hoa brand has grown but the focus is revenue and...