Eric Banh sure loves a party, so when he opened a second outpost, in Fremont, of his wildly popular Baguette Box, what a celebration! The traditional Vietnamese roasted piggie had a great time as well, getting hacked into a million pieces, stuffed into slices of French bread.
Now, those cheap Vietnamese sandwiches called Banh Mi are just a step up from ramen noodles as a slacker staple. But the fare at the original Baguette Box, on Capitol Hill, is legendary: iconic fries, late-night orgies of finger-licking pleasure.
Whose bread, you ask? It's Le Panier in the Market. Not my fave; personally don't find their baguettes sufficiently crunchy or all that tasty. But the bread in Banh's sandwiches is structural, not stand-alone, and it's the relative softness and blandness of the bread that lets those fillings shine, be they chickie, fishy, moo-cow, meatball or even piggy.
Baguette Box, 626 N. 34th, Seattle, 206-632-1511
Posted by Ronald Holden at February 6, 2007 10:35 PM