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Business & Tech

Park Slope's Best Banh Mi

We waded into the middle of Park Slope's biggest debate: who has the neighborhood's best banh mi?

If you want to start a fight in Park Slope, just mention the name of your favorite banh mi joint. The relative merits of the neighborhood's Vietnamese sandwich spots divide residents even more sharply than the endless babies-in-bars debate.

Not involved in the the fracas yet? Here's the scoop.

At its simplest, a banh mi is a baguette spread with mayonnaise and butter piled high with meat or tofu, cucumber, cilantro, and julienned daikon radish and carrot. Park Slope boasts three major banh mi destinations: Hanco's, Henry's, and Home.

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Park Slope Patch set out to determine which banh mi is truly the best. For consistency's sake, we made the same order at each sandwich shop: one classic banh mi (pork pate, Vietnamese ham, and ground pork), medium-spicy. Below, the results.


Henry's
Sandwich: Henry's offers a near-perfect banh mi specimen - the clear winner in this banh mi battle. The bread's innards are pillow-soft, even if the crust could be crisper. The pate is unctuous, the ham salty, and the ground pork satisfyingly clumpy. The ingredients meld well, and the condiments are subtle.
Price: $5.95
Atmosphere: Henry's is cute, but tiny: three small tables and two stools at the window. Unless you're going during serious off-hours, be prepared to do take out.

Hanco's
Sandwich: While Hanco's banh mi was certainly enjoyable (it would be very hard for a roll filled with pork products to be anything else), it lacked the cohesion of the sandwiches from Henry's and Home. The ground pork was too loose, which made for a messier-than-necessary sandwich, and the vegetable slices were too large, which threw off the balance. There was also an odd, added sweetness to the fillings: perhaps a sweet butter? The bread, though pleasantly warm, was nothing to write home about.
Price: $6.50
Atmosphere: As befits the most expensive banh mi spot, Hanco's has easily the nicest atmosphere out of the three shops. It's located in the spacious former home of Tea Lounge, so you don't feel like you're eating right on top of your neighbor. Bonus: there's a wide selection of magazines to read.


Home
Sandwich: The good news: Home had easily the best bread of all three banh mi joints. The insides were fluffy, yet dense, while the crust was shatteringly crisp. Delightful. The bad news: the rest of the sandwich was not so good. Like Hanco's, Home's banh mi suffered from giant vegetables, but the fatal flaw here was too much mayonnaise, which obscured the other flavors.
Price: $6
Atmosphere: Despite the name, Home is not especially welcoming. The shop is small and not very well lit. 

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