Sandwich Hag is the Spot For Sammies

You know it by the funky mural you glimpse on your left as you cruise down Lamar. Once you’ve parked and walked up, there is the equally funky music playing in the outdoor seating area, and then Reyna Duong’s funky tattoos, a whole sleeve in bold red-highlighted designs that match her round, red-framed glasses as she leans on the ledge of the window she’s opened to take your order and bring you into her world of Vietnamese street food at The Cedar’s newcomer Sandwich Hag. I’ve long wondered why we don’t see more riffs on this cuisine, so bright, so fresh, so vibrant. Bánh mi, the Vietnamese sandwich on a baguette, has always been one of my favorites. I recently sang the praises of the humble but fabulous sandwiches at Bánh Mi # 1 at Garland’s Cali Saigon mall. I have on my desk an entire book on the bánh mi by Andrea Nguyen, who has also written a wonderful book on pho. At Mot Hai Ba (which, if you’ve picked up your Best of Big D issue, you’ll noticed we’ve again voted best Vietnamese), Peja Krstic is doing tremendous things in the elevated new-Vietnamese vein. Where are his compatriots amongst the young and the fresh and downtown-ish? Enter the energetic Duong, who has operated on a pop-up basis, but now has a place to call her own. The menu at her spot in the Cedars includes bánh mi filled with Vietnamese pork sausage, lemongrass pork, ginger tofu or chicken; salads and spring rolls filled with the same; Vietnamese curries (these will come in September, served with baguette for dipping); boba fruit teas made with real fruit and tea–lychee lemongrass, strawberry hibiscus with chia seeds; and strong Vietnamese coffee spooled with condensed milk or coconut milk. On a stormy late morning over the weekend, I stopped in for bánh mi, comfort on a day that dawned grey with displacements. And comfort it was. The bread was perfect–a delicate, thin crust, soft and chewy inside–and the sandwich bursts, as it should, with fresh things: cucumber, cilantro, and the smooth, cool crunch of nicely pickled carrot batons and daikon. What might be mayo and Maggi seasoning, or soy sauce and butter, in other versions of the sandwich is here replaced with an umami-giving smear of house-made roasted garlic aioli. And the ensemble might have been completed by the house-made Vietnamese pork sausage, generous in its ratio of fat, creamy almost, and well-seasoned, a rather prize-winning sausage. I opted instead for the long-marinated, pressed, firm but creamy ginger-soy tofu, which I found to be good, but this side of too salty. A neighbor’s lemongrass pork had the same flaw. But the Vietnamese sausage was perfect in an order of spring rolls,packed with crunchy Romaine, bean sprouts, and mint and served with house-made peanut sauce. And it’s easy to love their lemongrass lychee boba tea–fresh, light, and lightly floral from the bits of fresh lychee that float in an elixir whose base is a lightly sweetened lemon velvet tea from the Cultured Cup. Duong is careful about sourcing, approaching her small stand with restaurant care, and it shows in little ways. If I could change one thing, it would be to add a side option of pâté to the menu, to fortify the crusty sandwiches with its dark, savory smear. Minor details to be debated amongst bánh mi lovers. Welcome to the neighborhood. It’s good to have a new bánh mi shop in town.