The Bay Area’s default baguette supplier for banh mi, Bakers of Paris, is closing according to Becky Duffett’s Eater article.
Who are the new suppliers at your favorite shops, and are prices or quality affected? Bui Phong and several Latino-owned places come to mind, and higher end banh mi sometime use Acme bread.
In the East Bay, Kim’s Cafe in Albany uses Acme sweet baguettes. They’re very good.
There’s an Interesting background to the Bakers of Paris connection with banh mi. Prior to 1981 all the wholesale bakeries in SF were unionized, and wouldn’t bake on Sundays or Wednesdays because the delivery drivers union mandated those days off for the drivers. BOP was founded as a non-union bakery to fill the demand for fresh sourdough and sweet French bread on those days, even though management had to deliver bread to clients unwilling or unable to pick up the bread. Union bakeries refused to hire Vietnamese refugees, many of whom had learned to bake in Vietnam. Many found employment with Bakers of Paris, putting it in position to supply the growing demand for banh mi baguettes.
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Our banh mi source is Ba Le on International Boulevard. All we know is that the baguette has always had a light and thin shattering crust and a soft crumb within. It’s not anything with strong gluten structure that you find on a Western table. (By the way, just up the street is the three-days-a-week carnitas kingdom of Jalisco.)
Banh Mi House on San Bruno Ave uses Paragon Baguette, a wholesale business a BMH employee says was started by a former Bakers of Paris employee.
