Grumpy bánh mì

I met up with a Canadian traveller called Emma through Couchsurfing. She's only in Saigon briefly at the end of a two week holiday. We got a bite to eat, had some drinks at the rooftop bar and then she was picked up by her Couchsurfing host family.

I then tried my luck at going to a very popular bánh mì stand which I'd tried to go to before but they'd obviously had a day off. The stall has amazing scores on TripAdvisor with almost every review giving it five stars. However, TripAdvisor is used pretty much exclusively by foreigners, whereas Foody.vn is just Vietnamese users and they rated it badly. So I was intrigued by the unusually huge difference in ratings.

I got to the stall at 6.30pm and there were only a few people in front of me in the queue so I assumed I'd be luck and not have to wait as long as some of the reviews suggest. Normally bánh mì stalls are incredibly fast and can easily make a fairly complicated roll in less than 30 seconds. This place, on the other hand, were ridiculously inefficient and I timed it as being more like three minutes per bánh mì. Unlike the traditional style of paté, various sliced meat and salad; each roll was filled with five small pork patties which were being cooked on a tiny barbecue (doubling the size of the grill would cut waiting times significantly). Never mind, I was in no rush.

I'd already used Google Translate to try to work out why the Vietnamese users on Foody.vn were so critical and I discovered that many reviews focused on how rude and aggressive the owner can be. During my 30 minute wait, I saw it for myself. She was constantly rude to customers (who I think were all Vietnamese), and seemed to be very angry at everything, always. It can't be healthy! It was exhausting just watching. I get the feeling that she doesn't usually shout at the foreign customers, perhaps because she can't speak English, so that might explain the faultless reviews on TripAdvisor.

Finally I got my meal and I had high hopes. I could forgive the awful owner if she made one of the best bánh mì in Vietnam. Sadly, I thought it was average. The meat was a little bit dry and the main flavour was lemongrass, which I love but I expected more from the actual meat. The sticky BBQ sauce was great though and it's pretty cheap at 18,000d (65p). I still can't understand all the five star reviews but then again, I learnt a while ago that TripAdvisor is one of the worst ways to find local food.