I missed posting a new review last week, but I’m back… not that anyone would have noticed. I have a new job, working from home on Pacific Time, and I am still getting used to the schedule. The only drawback, measured against too many wonderful positive changes to count, is that I no longer work on the outskirts of some of Orlando’s greatest culinary neighborhoods, the Milk District and Mills 50. Case in point: I have been craving banh mi, or Vietnamese sub sandwiches, for weeks, and all the best places that serve them are in the Mills 50 district, about 25 minutes from home, as opposed to ten minutes from work. Jetting there and back in the middle of a workday is unthinkable, and most of the places are closed by the time I clock out around 9 PM (not that I need to be eating that late anyway).
Banh mi are a perfect comfort food for this scorching hot summer, usually featuring cured cold cuts or fresh meats on fresh-baked baguettes that are crusty on the outside yet perfectly soft on the inside. The fluffy baguettes are spread with rich pate, mayonnaise, and/or butter, and the salty meats are topped with cool, crispy pickled carrot and daikon radish strips and fresh cilantro and jalapenos. They are decadent sandwiches for sure — the product of French colonialization of Vietnam — but also surprisingly light and refreshing, compared to something like a heavy, greasy cheesesteak or my beloved Italian subs.
While I really liked the banh mi sandwiches at Paris Banh Mi, this time I visited a place I had not been in several years, but I first tried in 2010 when Orlando Weekly published “Banh Voyage,” an article comparing and contrasting some of Orlando’s finest banh mi. Many of those listed establishments no longer exist, and several more have opened in the ensuing 13 years, but the #1 ranked place from the 2010 article is still around, just with a new name: the former Boston Bakery, which is now called Banh Mi Y Nhu, at 1525 East Colonial Drive in Orlando.
This place has never had a website under either name, so I wanted to include a photo of the simple menu at Banh Mi Y Nhu, displayed over the counter on two large TV screens. There was plenty of glare coming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows on a Saturday afternoon, so apologies for the quality of this picture (the best of several, for what it’s worth):
All eight sandwiches are priced at either $7 or $7.50, and if you buy five at once, you get one free. The 2010 Orlando Weekly article mentions banh mi usually cost between $2.50 and $3, but that’s 13 years of inflation for you! I do remember them costing $5 at Boston Bakery the last time I was there, but like I said, it had been a while. Too long.
My wife doesn’t share my sandwich love, so I could not justify bringing home six, but I did splurge a bit and order three different banh mi for myself. I justified it because it’s more of a mission to get down here, and because I wanted to write a worthy review. Don’t worry, I didn’t eat all three sandwiches in one sitting.
I ate them in two sittings, although I was standing up for the second.
The first one was my usual banh mi order: the combination, or banh mi thịt nguội (#1), which contains multiple cured meats, including ham, steamed pork roll, and head cheese (which is meat, not cheese, and way more delicious than it sounds), in addition to the savory liver pate. I am much more used to the combination banh mi being called dac biet, but I’m sure some expert will come along to explain why they aren’t the same thing. 
Here’s a cross-section. This is one of the prettiest banh mi I’ve ever had from anywhere, and Banh Mi Y Nhu was much more generous with the ingredients than several of the other local places. It was delicious, with crunchy, chewy, salty, spicy, sour, creamy, and fresh textures and flavors. I like a lot going on in my sandwiches, and this one did not disappoint. 
I realize I haven’t tried every single banh mi in Orlando, but I don’t mind naming this one the highest-quality combination banh mi I’ve ever had. (That said, I don’t know if it was missing certain meats that go in the dac biet, or vice versa.)
The next one was the fried fish cake, or banh mi cha ca (#6), which sounded different (and I had completely forgotten I tried something similar at nearby Banh Mi Boy in early 2022). I expected something like surimi, the imitation “krab” that I love in a mayo-based seafood pasta salad, or maybe like those spiral-emblazoned fish cake slices that make their way into bowls of ramen noodles.
Interestingly, what it reminded me of the most was Jewish gefilte fish, just sliced like cold cuts (I compared it to “fish bologna” in my Banh Mi Boy review) rather than mysterious loaves floating ominously in glass jars like specimens in some forensic scientist’s lab. This fried fish cake has a slight sweetness to it, and while it was clearly processed fish, it didn’t taste super-“fishy,” which was fine with me. As usual, the incredibly fresh baguette, spreads, and vegetables elevated the sandwich to a special experience, the sum of its parts surpassing any individual ingredient. 
I asked the lady at the counter for her recommendation for a third, and she recommended the grilled pork, or banh mi thit heu nuong (#9), so I went for it. I’m so glad I did, because it ended up being my favorite of the three sandwiches. 
The grilled pork was still warm, sliced thinly and covered with a savory-sweet, sticky glaze that probably included sugar and fermented fish sauce. My wife sometimes orders similar grilled beef with rice vermicelli at sit-down Vietnamese restaurants, and this grilled pork was very similar to that, if you’ve had those dishes before. Of my three choices, this is the sandwich I would recommend to banh mi newbies since it is the most familiar filling and the least processed, and it was really satisfying. 
I’m used to these being cool and refreshing sandwiches due to the cilantro and pickled carrot and daikon, but all three of these were still warm by the time I got them home, all due to the baguettes being so fresh (baked on the premises, of course). I’ve had too many banh mi in Orlando served on stale, hard, undersized, and even burnt baguettes, and lots where they skimped on the ingredients, but I will definitely return to Banh Mi Y Nhu to fulfill future cravings.
I also ordered a fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice to sip on the way home to beat the heat, but I forgot to take a photo of it. The last thing I ordered was a bag of crispy shrimp chips for $3, since Banh Mi Y Nhu also sells several small dishes and snacks, beyond the eight sandwiches on the menu. These shrimp chips are such a great consistency — crispy but not crunchy, probably fried but not greasy. I wonder if they are made of tapioca flour for that texture. I’ve had some mass-produced bagged shrimp chips that smelled like sea garbage, but these were relatively mild and not even super-shrimpy. They were nice and light, and I enjoyed them too.
But at Banh Mi Y Nhu, the sandwiches are the star attraction, so if you haven’t hopped on the banh mi bus yet, this is the place you want to start.
The Saboscrivner 