Saigon Sandwich versus Baguette Express

With this post, I'm going to try and set up what will be this blog's pattern: pick some neighborhood in San Francisco and then give you reviews of a lunch spot (Wednesday), dinner (Thursday), and drinks (Friday). I'll work in posts about other activities as well throughout the week.

This week, everyone's favorite crackhead hangout: the Tenderloin.

Besides the Tenderloin's varied places to get a great dinner (and score some heroin!), the Tenderloin has two Vietnamese sandwich places. I prefer one over the other. They are both located on Larkin near Eddy, about a block apart. Saigon Sandwich is at 560 Larkin while Baguette Express is at 668 Larkin.

So, what the hell's a Vietnamese sandwich? It combines a buttery French baguette with meat (usually barbecued), cilantro, pickled carrots, some spicy peppers, and sometimes mayonaisse. In other words, it combines the best of France with the SouthEast Asian melding of flavors: sweet, sour, salty, and spicy.

Baguette Express is clean, tidy and they have a machine that they can run some sugarcane through to get you your fix of sugarcane juice (haven't had it? then you haven't yet backpacked around South East Asia - you get addicted to this stuff there). It's slightly bigger than Saigon Sandwich and you can even sit down at a table or two. Saigon Sandwich is a small, cluttered little shop that has a lot more Vietnamese snacks to sell than Baguette Express. Both run around $2.50 per sandwich so it's probably the best deal in the entire city.

Baguette Express's bread has that difficult-to-get balance of crunchy-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside, while Saigon's is not as crunchy but still soft. The choice of meats are broader at Baguette Express and that's where Saigon Sandwich to me really shines. The meats there are just better - I think because they focus on fewer than Baguette Express. I compared a barbeque pork sandwich and a barbeque chicken sandwich from both places. I also felt that Saigon's balance of the sweet/spicy barbecue sauce, sweet/sour pickled carrots, spiciness of its peppers, cilantro, and mayo really balance well, while with Baguette Express the flavors were not as powerful.

For some reason, I've made it a ritual to head over in between the 2 NFL games on Sunday afternoon with a few bucks and pick up one of these sandwiches for the second game. Hope to see you in line around 1:30 next Sunday!