Gastronomic Salt Lake City

Hong Phat is a Vietnamese store: groceries, cook/tableware, cultural items (incense, videos...) And they have a deli counter in back.

Located at 3086 South Redwood Road, it's a pretty beat up convenience store remodeled to their needs.

When you first enter, you'll notice the smell. An odd combination of things including some fishy scents and others that combine oddly to the Western nose.

But get past that and go to the deli counter in back with a signboard of some of the menu options. Numbered pictures indicate what you're ordering but there is also on array of items on the counter not pictured on the board. Usually, there's a short vibrant woman at this counter with next to no English. Point, mention numbers and you usually (but not always) get what you ordered.

While they have pho and other common Vietnamese dishes, i go here for the Banh Mi, a bit French/Vietnamese fusion heaven. A longish crusty bread roll filled with various meats and vegetables. I'm fond of the Dac Biet, which I understand to mean the special combination. Most of the pho houses have a Dac Biet option for the pho, the house special. At Hong Phat, this includes a light slather of a hybrid French-Vietnamese liver pate, some sliced pork loaf, beef, asian roast pork (commercial char shu) and vegetables. The vegies are universal to all the various Banh Mi which are sweet sour pickled daikon and carrot strips, thin slices of cucumber, cilantro, onion, and jalapeno slices. At least it looks like jalapeno but it kicks harder in my estimation.

The chicken is also a good sandwich. I find the various pork versions too sweet and lacking nuance for my tastes.

All the banh mi are $2.50 each and a good value.

Be prepared for lots of crusty shards from the bread to fall in your lap as you eat.

Just an update.

Prices have gone up to $3.00 per sandwich. Still a respectable deal.

Tried a different type of banh mi, the xiu mai (meatball). The woman behind the counter scooped out some pork meat with a lot of bright red streaks in it. I feared intense chiles. The meat went into the microwave for a bit, then was mashed and spread on the sandwich roll and topped with the standard pickled vegies, cilantro and chile slices.

It was sweet, not hot, until you bit one of the chile slices. Whatever those peppers are, they light me up but i'm not a chilehead. Good sandwich and one I'd repeat.