Vietnam II
Earlier in the week Yelp thought I should know about a new hot restaurant in the area, Be’s Noodle & Banh Mi. Since I have other plans for the weekend this seemed like a perfect suggestion for a Friday lunch and a use of the blog scheduler.
This little restaurant is in a popular little shopping area off North Community House road in Ballantyne. I went during a less busy time of the day but there was still a bit of traffic in and out while I was there. The place is very new and clean and the staff was friendly and welcomed everyone that came in the door.
This is another order at the counter and they bring it to your table kind of place. They have a limited menu and it looks like pho is their star player followed by banh mi and some rice dishes. The pho looked good but that’s what I had at the last Vietnamese place and as much as I loved it I decided to try something else just to expand the experience. I went with their “original” banh mi sandwich and I got the grilled pork belly skewers appetizer just because. The appetizer actually came out just a few minutes behind the sandwich but close enough that I still started with it.
The first thing I noticed was they jammed those skewers pretty tight so there was a decent amount of pork belly on each one. The next was they did use real flame grilling as you can see from the little bit of char. So let me just say this is pork belly and if you don’t like fatty meats you need to bypass this. Don’t get me wrong it’s not all fat but hey, it’s pork belly. Now that we’ve gotten past the caution, on to the taste test. It passed. There was a mild sweetness added to the flavor of the grilled pork and the sauce it came with added a little bit more smoky taste plus some spicy heat. Nice start to the meal.
The banh mi I got was the original cold cut version and had three types of pork; pork roll, ham and pork pâté. Along with those we had some cucumber, carrot, daikon radish, jalapenos and cilantro all on a 10″ baguette. As far as I’m concerned they could have put just about anything in that baguette and it would have been good. It was wonderfully crusty on the outside and properly soft and slightly chewy inside. The sandwich as a whole was good. The meats weren’t outstanding but the pâté was interesting, in a good way. I think I’ll try them again for the pho at some point in the future but I’m not rush to have this sandwich again. Overall I think this is a good addition to the area and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it for a quick bite.