Num Pang… Cambodian sandwiches, similar to banh mi. Yes, more hype. I don’t know about $7.50 a sandwich here, but I’ve heard good things, so I was game.
HB and I came here after a couple of drinks to sate our hunger. We decided to split two sandwiches, the pulled pork and
the five spice glazed pork belly! Mmm, fatty pork belly.
I decided to snag a root beer to go with our sandwiches. She got the Blood Orange Lemonade, which she said didn’t taste very blood-orange-y and she wasn’t too happy with because she doesn’t like lemonade and was hoping it tasted more like blood oranges, which she likes. Boo. My root beer was fine.
Our two sandwiches in all their glory!
Here is the pulled pork sandwich.
I found the pulled pork itself to be a bit bland, but the overall sandwich was dripping chili mayo and a LOT spicier than I prefer. HB had the same issue, telling me it wasn’t this spicy the last time she’d eaten the sandwich – and she can eat spicier foods than I can… boo…
Here’s the special pork belly sandwich! Hmm, lots of chili mayo there…
Cutting into it. See that ring of fat peeking out?
Hmmm… looks a bit oily.
Don’t believe me? Look at the bottom of the sandwich. Bread is not meant to be shiny like that. Oh dear…
What is this a picture of? Oh, it’s the sandwich I left to be thrown out. You know how much I HATE wasting food. And it isn’t even THAT much food, so normally I’d force myself to finish anyway. No. It was that fatty and oily and just greasy-gross. I was seriously unable to choke down a bit more fat. How terribly sad for me. I was very sad to waste expensive Cambodian sandwich. I didn’t taste much meat, per se, but instead felt fat squishing around in my mouth. I <3 fat, but this was just not right. I even opened up the sandwich to see if I could scoop out the meat and just eat that, ripping some of the fat off, but that didn’t work as I couldn’t find any meat from which to rip the fat. FAIL.
There was also a piece of bone or something in the pulled pork that jarred my teeth when I bit into it. I took a picture but you can’t see what it is and that’s just gross, I don’t think I’ll start posting random things I pull out of my mouth while eating that shouldn’t have been in my food… there’s probably a website for that already.
Yvo says: The sandwiches were pretty small for the price, but I guess if no one had ever compared them to banh mi, I’d think the prices were fine. The ingredients and the location warrant the higher price, so I’m not going to complain about that. I’m going to complain that it didn’t taste good and wasn’t worth any amount of money to me. I’ve been told the catfish sandwich is really good, so maybe one day I’ll go back and try that, but in the foreseeable future, I won’t be returning.
NOT recommended
maggie says
I wasn’t super wild about the pork belly sandwich either, but I liked the catfish one, and I LOVED the shrimp one. I urge you to give their shrimp sandwich a try.
Jacuqie says
I didn’t have either of the ones you had but on the one trip I had took there last year, I had the catfish, skirt steak, and meatball sandwiches and liked them all a lot. That being said, we’ve already discussed the price:value thing compared to banh mis which is why I haven’t been back. But if I was judging on flavor alone, I’d definitely say I enjoyed them.
FRESH LOCAL AND BEST says
Oh this looks so good! It makes me think of all the sandwiches I ate growing up. I love all the picked veggies and bright flavors!
Aimee S. says
That sucks. It looked good to start! Seriously disappointed for you!!!!
Max says
Wow, that’s really expensive for what’s very similar to banh mi. And check out all that grease! No thank you. 🙂
Nicholas says
“Wow, that’s really expensive for what’s very similar to banh mi. And check out all that grease! Yes please! :-)”
ftfy.
Elliott Back says
You’re so quotable! “I don’t think I’ll start posting random things I pull out of my mouth while eating that shouldn’t have been in my food.” Love the complexity of the noun phrase 🙂