My revisit to Banh Mi Express had me wondering how Paris Sandwiches was doing, after all it had been almost a year since my last visit. So, I drove on over for an early lunch.
What I quickly noticed as I walked toward the shop was that there weren't any "old timers" having coffee outside. This was when I first noticed the sign for Saigon Corner, which has seemed to taken over that duty in this strip mall, at least on a couple visits I made.
I kind of consider Paris Sandwiches to be like Banh Mi Express as a "tweener" banh mi shop; attempting to please a varied customer base. Looking at the posted menu; English descriptions, though the Vietnamese names are displayed below. The place was doing some steady business on this day.
I got the Cha Lua (Pork Roll on the menu – $7.05). The two women working the line were super fast and my banh mi was ready in less than five minutes.
This is what it looked like unwrapped.
I've always enjoyed the bread from Paris Bakery and this is basically the same. Nice and light; "crackley", slightly yeasty. The Cha Lua was sliced fairly thin and layered nicely. Not much pate. Also light on the mayo which suited me well.
Not enough pickled veggies on this visit and of course the cucumber was MIA. I had to make some "adjustments" to the fillings as all the jalapenos were piled in the middle and a lot of the cilantro leaves were yellowed; which I removed. Kind of sloppy in my opinion.
While this was an ok banh mi; I felt that the proportion was a bit off and it was kind of sloppily put together. On the good side; this led me to wonder about couple of other banh mi shops that I hadn't been to in a while!
Paris Sandwiches
10606 Camino Ruiz
San Diego, CA 92126
Current Hours:
Mon – Sat 730am – 630pm
Closed on Sunday