Bánh Mì Hội-An, E8

Vietnamese sandwiches, ordered on their own terms

When I wrote last weekend’s ranking of my favourite bánh mì in London, Bánh Mì Hội-An was the one entry I always knew would make the cut. It’s long been my immediate answer when asked for the best Vietnamese sandwich in the city, and while I’m now a little less certain that it’s the outright number one, I can’t see it dropping out of my favourites any time soon.

Perched around the back of Hackney Central station, Bánh Mì Hội-An is tiny. There’s enough room for two or three people to queue and order, and for the same number again to perch on small stools and eat. Even after ordering, you should probably expect to have to stand out on Graham Road to wait for your sandwich — there just isn’t enough room inside for anything else — where the staff will happily pop out to bring it to you.

It’s an arrangement that works better than you might expect, not least because Bánh Mì Hội-An is exclusively designed for the weekday lunch crowd — it’s only open for three hours a day, five days a week. No weekends, no evenings, and so for the most part no crowds. There’s a steady stream of local workers and work-from-homers, and that’s about it. There aren’t even any Deliveroo drivers to fight past, because Bánh Mì Hội-An doesn’t do any delivery at all. If you want it, you’ll have to get your steps in.

Understandably, almost everyone is here for a bánh mì. There’s a menu of eight, including two vegetarian options — omelette or tofu. Assuming you eat meat, the best move most days will be the Hoi-An Pork Special, which takes the typical pork bánh mì — here char-siu, pork belly, steamed pork, and pâté — and raises it a level with a layer of delicately folded omelette.

It’s a great addition to the array of pork, adding a little more substance to a sandwich that in some shops feels like mostly salad. There’s plenty of that too of course, with mild pickled carrots, cucumber, and coriander. If you ask for it spicy, that’ll all be bolstered by a punchy homemade chilli sauce with a richly savoury flavour. I love it, but it can dominate the rest of the baguette and make it a little one-note, so sometimes I prefer to go without and add controlled amounts of my own sriracha.

I will admit that Bánh Mì Hội-An’s bread, while good, isn’t the absolute best around. Still, it has a delicate shatter to the thin crust, and a soft, chewy filling that’s been hollowed slightly to pack the filling in tight. If you think nothing matters more to a sandwich than the bread then you can probably do better at the likes of Lò Bánh Mì in London Bridge, or Bánh nearby in Dalston. But everything else about the sandwich is so top notch here that it can overcome only scoring bronze on the bread.

I struggle to order anything other than the various pork and pâté combos, though I have branched out into the roast duck, which is cooked tender but understandably lacking in the way of crispy skin. Whichever sandwich you order, give strong consideration to the meal deal to add a cup of broth for a couple of quid. You can have either chicken or vegetarian broth, and either way it’s a richly warming, herbal accompaniment to the sandwich. I’ve never ordered the phở here — if I’m here, I’m here for bánh mì — but on the strength of this broth I might need to reconsider that stance eventually. There are also rice and noodle bowls that repurpose the sandwich fillings for a different sort of carb.

That is, of course, excepting the Vietnamese iced coffee. I’ve never quite had the taste for these excessively sweetened, milky coffees — I’m a double espresso, no sugar guy, so sit at the other end of the caffeination spectrum — but they do make for a welcome treat every once in a while. Bánh Mì Hội-An’s is served premade in the fridge to speed up service, but is no the worse for it, sweet and creamy with the barest hint of robusta bitterness.

Bánh Mì Hội-An’s stubborn ways of serving — weekday lunch only, no delivery, wait on the kerb to be served — can make it feel oddly abrasive, but they’re really part of its idiosyncratic charm. This is a bánh mì shop with no website, and a social media presence I could only describe as “reluctant,” but it’s been quietly sitting in Hackney slinging out some of the best sandwiches of any kind in this city for over a decade and counting. Come to it on its own terms, and you’ll leave all the happier for it.