The thing about banh mi – those Vietnamese sandwiches of grilled prok or chicken or tofu with shredded vegetables and cilantro and mayo (sometimes) and pâté (sometimes) and chiles (sometimes) on French baguettes or baguette-style rolls – is that even the mediocre ones are pretty tasty.
Ernest and I were walking home from school yesterday and for the millionth and third time in my life we went by a deli at 23rd and San Bruno. We lived around the corner from this Chinese/Vietnamese deli for 10 years. I walked by it almost everyday – sometimes more than once, sometimes even more than twice. I always thought: hey, I should check that out sometime. And yet I never did. In my defence I was often going by while on a walk or run and wouldn’t have nay money on me. Or, I’d be on my way to or from the train station and it would be closed. But, let’s be honest, I must have walked by dozens if not hundreds of times when it was open and I had a couple of bucks on me.
The name – Tweety Bird Deli – both fascinated and repelled me. It’s across the street from San Francisco General* and seemed to exist mainly to serve lunch to hospital workers, which is a fine mission but not one that speaks particularly highly of the cuisine. It closes at 6, which means they start cleaning up and generally looking fairly closed by 5, so we never tried it for dinner take-out.
But now Ernest and I walk by it to and from school. It’s also under new ownership, looks cleaned up a bit, and the name is now Uli Deli. So last night we stopped in. I thought a fun Friday treat would be some spring rolls to take home as snack. They were out of spring rolls, but some salmon filets on a bed of lettuce caught Ernest’s eye. Why not? I ordered a banh mi for myself and dinner was served the minute we got home.
It was mediocre – oddly sweet with no fresh chile slices. But, as I mentioned above, even mediocre banh mi can really hit the spot.
* In our family we have a strict rule: Do not go to General unless you have a gun shot wound, in which case definitely go to General.
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