Viet-House in Altamonte Springs, FL

Orlando has a really nice selection of Vietnamese restaurants in the Mills 50 District. That's good since Vietnamese food is generally really tasty. Once outside Mills 50, Vietnamese food gets a bit harder to find. I can only think of a couple Vietnamese restaurants in Seminole county, so I was happy when I saw that a new restaurant had opened in Altamonte Springs called Viet-House.

The tiny restaurant is located in a building behind a gas station at the intersection of 436 and 427. You order at the window and eat at some nearby picnic tables. There isn't an inside here. Viet-House seems to specialize in banh mi but also offer soups and appetizers. I found out the hard way on my first visit that they close at 4:30. When I returned on another day to give them a try, I had their combination banh mi.

The sandwich consisted of various types of sliced pork products (I'm going to hide my ignorance of Vietnamese meats by leaving it at that), pate, pickled vegetables, lettuce, tomato, and cilantro on a French baguette. The banh mi was good and was very filling for under $5.

I also shared these summer rolls, filled with shrimp, pork, noodles, bean sprouts, cucumber, and basil. They were somewhat messy to eat, but tasty.

Eating Vietnamese food in a gas station parking lot is definitely a different experience than eating in one of the nicer Vietnamese restaurants in Orlando, but the food was good regardless. A banh mi sandwich does seem like a perfect type of street food, so perhaps this is actually an ideal location for the food!

Fusion Tacos at the Orlando Farmers Market

I was enjoying a recent Sunday afternoon at Lake Eola when I decided to stop at The Orlando Farmers Market for some lunch. This farmers market seems to serve more ready made food compared to most and some of the options are kind of exotic compared to the typical farmers market fare. Case in point, I decided to try a banh mi from a booth called Fusion Tacos.

The banh mi was filled with spicy grilled pork, cucumbers, pickled vegetables, cilantro, jalapenos, and sriracha. Although expensive, about double the price of what can be bought a few blocks away in Mills-50, the sandwich was still good. The pork was nice and moist with good flavor. They were really generous with all the toppings, and I enjoyed my lunch overall!

Boston Bakery in Orlando, FL

It took me a while to figure out Boston Bakery served Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches rather than New England style baked goods. I had driven past countless times with minimal interest in stopping, but that changed when I realized Boston Bakery was something totally different than expected. My curiosity about trying Boston Bakery was further peaked when they scored the highest in the Orlando Weekly's rundown of the city's best banh mi.

I finally stopped into Boston Bakery at the start of a recent road trip. I've found that banh mi are very conducive to eating on the go, so it seemed as good of a time as any to try Boston Bakery. Inside, Boston Bakery was very toasty with no apparent working air conditioning, but I wasn't there for the atmosphere. I was there for the #1 Combination.

The sandwich was filled with steamed pork, head cheese, liver pate, carrots, daikon, jalapeno, and cilantro, all on a French baguette. While the sandwich was good, I also found it to be very dry. The banh mi could have definitely used some sauce to moisten everything up. This was my first experience with head cheese and although it's not the nicest looking sandwich meat, it actually wasn't bad. Just don't make the mistake of reading the Wikipedia page of potential head cheese ingredients as you eat the sandwich. As for the liver, I'll take it or leave it...

Overall, Boston Bakery's #1 Combination was good. The banh mi was nicely stuffed with a whole lot of meat and vegetables. It was a nice introduction to a new mystery meat and although the sandwich was very dry, it was still great deal for $3.

Nha Trang in Orlando, FL

When the recent Orlando Weekly article on the Vietnamese sandwiches called banh mi was published, I decided it had been far too long since I had eaten any sort of Vietnamese food. The next thing I knew, I found myself at Banh Mi Nha Trang in Orlando's Mills-50 District.

The banh mi is this restaurant's specialty. For $2.50, you get a large sandwich that's ingeniously packaged. With it's paper and plastic bag secured with a rubber band (and pepper), it keeps the banh mi held together while collecting any juices that might drip out. All sandwiches should be packed like this.

The banh mi came on a toasted baguette with a very nice crust. Roast pork, cucumber, cilantro, onions, various pickled vegetables, mayonnaise, and fish sauce filled the sandwich. There was potentially a few more banh mi fillings that I couldn't quite identify, and I'm not going to try. All I know is that this was a delicious sandwich!

I'm going to make a point to try some more of Orlando's banh mi. These sandwiches are really good, and are perhaps some of the best food values in town...

Ba Le Bakery in Orlando, FL

I was in the mood for some banh mi, so I stopped at Ba Le Bakery on Mills Avenue in Orlando. I have passed by this place plenty of times, but never stopped in. After reading Tasty Chomps! review of the restaurant, I decided I needed to give them a try. This Vietnamese franchise specializes in banh mi sandwiches, but they also had other choices available like pho and meat dishes.

I ordered a shredded pork banh mi for the whopping price of $2.75. The sandwich came on a French baguette filled with pork, cucumbers, cilantro, carrots, and assorted pickled vegetables.

It was a good sandwich for the price, but I had issues with some of the pork. The roast pork was good, but the shredded pork skin called bi wasn't quite as enjoyable. These thin, noodle-like strips of gelatinous pork skin were far too chewy to go on a sandwich.

I liked my sandwich and it's great price, but I have had better banh mi in Orlando. The sandwiches from other nearby restaurants seem to stuff their sandwiches more and also lack the chewy texture that I wasn't happy with...

Lollicup in Orlando, FL

I stopped in Little Vietnam in Orlando, FL. The plan was to eat lunch, probably at Viet Garden, but I got distracted by the sign in Lollicup's window. I've had boba tea from Lollicup several times in the past, and when I noticed this location now served food I decided to give it a try.

I started with the obligatory overpriced boba drink. I had a Papaya Avocado smoothie with boba. It was good, although I think they may have added lots of extra sweetener to the drink. There were huge jugs of fructose under the counter, so I'm assuming those go into the drinks. A fruit smoothie is sweet enough as it is and the boba makes it sweeter. There's no need to add additional sweetener on top of that. It was almost $5 for a small drink, but a dessert elsewhere would most likely also be about the same price. I've found that smoothies are definitely the way to go at Lollicup. All of the tea drinks remind me of a bottle of Orbitz with way too much ice (although I did love that stuff).

Moving on the the food, a Summer Roll was ordered. Sort of like the healthier Vietnamese version of a Chinese egg roll, the summer roll consisted of shrimp, pork, cilantro, cucumbers, and vermicelli, all wrapped in rice paper. Peanut sauce was served on the side. I love how the rice paper is somewhat translucent so you can see the brightly colored contents of the roll.

I have heard of Vietnamese Subs, or Bánh mì, but have never tried one. The sandwich consisted French bread stuffed with sliced pork, cucumbers, onions, cilantro, jalapeno peppers, assorted pickled vegetables, and possibly more toppings that I'm overlooking. I was really impressed with the sandwich. It reminded me somewhat of a Cuban sandwich with the pork and pickles, only improved with the rest of the toppings. This good sized sandwich was only $2.50. That's less than a Boba drink!


For a bit of an update, Lollicup no longer serves food and are back to only serving beverages. It's unfortunate, especially since I haven't found a better summer roll elsewhere in Orlando!