that was a delicious meatball sandwich! what worries me is that the two other places had long lines but SVS was very quiet at lunch time. And their food was so good, based on this single sample… Go and see, Id say
These were, to be gracious, very mildly flavored.
Bika ambon makes frequent appearances at the various Indonesian bazaars in Queens, cucur, a little less frequent. If you can’t manage a visit to one of the bazaars, you might find bika ambon or cucur on offer at Indo Java, in Elmhurst.
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The House Special at SVS is a cold cut sandwich with ground pork (what is called grilled pork on the menu but the owner said is pork crumbles).
The reason we didn’t get that sandwich from every place is so we could taste what else they were making in-house (ie it’s unlikely they are making their own cold cuts, but they are marinating and grilling the pork and chicken and making the meatballs).
I’d posit that the meatball sandwich from either BMS or Co Ut will also be better than the cold cut sandwich at either of them, because the meatball just has more flavor. (But the grilled pork at BMS is strips of char siu-like pork, so it holds its own.)
Btw I thought the balance of radish & carrot pickles was better at both other places than at SVS, and the cucumber was a thick chunk, which may have affected balance too.
If you usually get SVS, I’d venture over to BMS next time.
Had a banh mi from Banh Mi Saigon several years ago and disliked it. What I wrote to a cousin in 2011 was that the banh mi at Banh Mi Saigon was “drowned in bread” and didn’t have the taste of all the elements in each bite. Don’t think that I’d go back.
Looking over the menus, I was struck with how many banh mi fillings I haven’t tried yet. Typically as a family we started our crawls with ground pork, meatball, cold cut and/or pork chop. I haven’t tried sardine, curry chicken, sautéed shrimp, sausage or roast pig.
Looking forward to continuing our banh mi, rice roll and what have you exploration!
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A group of were back at it today, in a different part of Chinatown.
Kopitiam
— Pandan chicken
— Lobak (fried five-spice pork rolls)
— Nyonya Bak Zhang (sticky rice in lotus leaf)
.
Fong On
— Ssvory soft tofu
.
Harpers Bakery
— Portuguese egg tart — no pic
.
King’s Kitchen
— Youtiao and shumai cheung fun
.
Nuan Xin Rice Roll
— Braised pork and preserved vegetable
— Duck etc
.
New Spicy Village
— Big tray chicken & noodles
— Beef and pork sandwiches
.
Lucky King
— Steamed cake
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My favorite bites of the day were the cheung fun with youtiao and shumai, the other rice roll (fan tuan) with pork (though the duck was pretty close), and the Portuguese egg tart from Harpers (@DaveCook and @vinouspleasure are converting me from an egg tart agnostic).
The steamed cake was also an unexpectedly (to me) tasty bite with a bit of molasses flavor.
On the subject of New Spicy Village, it’s definitely cleaner and much more pleasant of a space to be in than the original, but my memory of the food from the original is better than what we ate today. That said, it’s been 5 or 6 years, so I know it’s an unreliable comparison.
ETA
The beef cheung fun I brought home for dinner from King’s was good, but overshadowed by the crunchy shumai one we ate earlier
And Lucky King now holds the title of my favorite sponge cake in the area — I feel guilty now for not having shared it 
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The Youtiao shumai cheung fun was my favorite bite but I’d happily hop the q back to Chinatown tomorrow and eat it all again. My last visit (pre-pandemic) to spicy village was disappointing, I thought new spicy village better in every way but I suppose to be fair, I need to get back to the original spicy village for an up-to-date comparison 
it was a great decision to spend our day in this part of chinatown, well done @Saregama and @DaveCook! It was hard to pass up carols bun for fried baitfish and it’s good y’all nudged me away from nasi lemek, kaya toast and soft boiled eggs at Kopitiam.
best,
ps I took home 1/2 soy sauce chicken and honey roast pork from hay hay on mott, the chicken was very good but the roast pork a little too sweet. Probably back to big wong or ny noodletown next time.
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… I brought home a takeout menu for my files, as I often do. The restaurant uses these menus in-house, too, and when we were ordering I noted that the two phone numbers on the front were crossed out and a new number written in. I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that the name on the menu read, simply, Spicy Village rather than New Spicy Village. And I certainly didn’t notice, till I was about to file away my menu, that the address was 68 B Forsyth St., the address of the original Spicy Village.
When New Spicy Village was opened in 2021 by a brother of one of the original restaurant’s owners, the perceived similarity between two restaurants under separate ownership raised some concerns:
I’m not sure where this takeout menu might fit in to that story. At one time, New Spicy Village did have its own takeout menu (as I see in my files), albeit one still very similar to the menu from the original restaurant.
On our visit today, I did like the food, and the service, and the setting. And, of course, the company.
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The Grub Street article later that year was a bit more sinister about the new one telling fake tales about its connection to the original
I liked the dishes at the first spot. Also the big tray chicken was super.
But as always, the fun group was delightful.
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Hi all! I haven’t eaten at any of these Manhattan bánh mì places in quite a while – how would you say these compare to Ba Xuyen in Brooklyn, if you’re familiar with that? The sense I’ve gotten over the years is that Ba Xuyen is pretty tough to beat.
@Saregama had suggested we get banh mi that might show off the skills of each kitchen, and I’m glad we did. As I’d mentioned before, I’d make a meal just of those meatballs. I’d noted at the shop that the listed ingredients, on the menu above the counter, are “pork & water chestnut.” I hadn’t noted till today, however, that the Vietnamese name is bánh mì xiêu mại, that is, “shumai,” like a favorite cheung fun filling of ours on a subsequent crawl.
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How big is your files of physical menus? Do you still keep paper copies now that one can take a photo of the menu (or find them online)?
Indeed, it would be fun to create wallpaper out of menus
Is Num Pang still around?
Not large; perhaps three file drawers’ full. They’re handier and easier to read than digital copies. For certain restaurants, I keep successive dated copies, to help track the evolution of prices, dishes, menu categories, and even menu design.
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You’re the man I always wished I was. I’ve some old menus tucked away here and there, but not systematically.
For those interested in such things:
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/the-buttolph-collection-of-menus#/?tab=navigation
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Doesn’t look like it. There’s Thanh Da, but I’ve never been impressed with that.
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