In the case of Vietnamese banh mi which is a huge variety of sandwiches too, the only places it's cheap and high quality are where there's a lot of Viet people in that neighborhood. Other places suddenly becomes as expensive as an American sub shop, smaller, and often times unremarkable ingredients
this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2025
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the prices for Pho at restaurants are criminal
Cost of beef probably screwed pho especially. The rest of Viet cuisine, protein is often pork like banh mi so the price hikes haven't been so bad
Depends where. Vietnamese neighborhood can go down to like $10. Outside gets up to like $25. Banh mi Vietnamese neighborhood down to like $6-8. Outside up to like $20. One common complaint I hear from restaurants for any food that isn't European is that people expect their food to be way cheaper than European cuisine regardless of ingredient costs and prep/labor/time/etc
Like it could be worse like Italian restaurants selling cacio e pepe for $20 or grilled cheese/melts for $15. French restaurants selling 8 cracker sized pieces of a baguette adorned with a slice of meat and a pea sized dot of sauce and a small microgreen for $20
French restaurants selling 8 cracker sized pieces of a baguette adorned with a slice of meat and a pea sized dot of sauce and a small microgreen for $20
The Fr*nch (
)really must pay for this
I've seen worse at French restaurants. Like that's an appetizer $20-40. Main dish $50-$200. Dessert $20-100. Then drinks. And everything is very small portioned. Restaurants with minimum $300 spent on the meal for a table. Minimal preparation, minimal ingredients, everything takes less than an hour to cook at worst but all very high quality ingredients and played very fancily in a very quiet restaurant. Prep time is long at any restaurant. You're just paying the restaurant to buy the highest end ingredients, far overpriced than normal alcohol, and for an extra quiet restaurant
Then everyone wants to spend $10 for a lot of food where the restaurant spent a day of prep and a day of cooking barbacoa in a hole in the ground with a brick oven inside lined with agave leaves
And luxury restaurants charge so much that they can manage way lower volume of tables served a night while everyone else has to really draw in a lunch rush. Really compete on price and value. So a lot of labor and not much margin for much kitchen staff. Both hard work. But one way worse pay/prestige. Real small cramped kitchen vs large spacious kitchens with larger staff
I've always wanted to try banh mi.
Took a photo off the internet
Whenever you try it, the normal version will look like this. I've noticed other places without a major vietnamese population often push mostly hot sandwiches which, not that those don't exist- they're common along with ones that are like sardines, just that often times the hot sandwiches aren't even Vietnamese or Chinese meats. Like I don't see it in that photo, it's common to see cold cut xa xiu in it with slices of different Vietnamese cold cuts
Yummy, the veggies look delish and I've never had cold cuts from vietnam.
You've gotta have a bammi
Lemongrass tofu is my favourite
Its soooooo fucking good. I get a lemongrass tofu one from nearby almost every week
It's nice, really, pickled vegetables, such as carrots and cucumbers + marinated [CW: meat] + light condiment, on a baguette-style bread, very nice
Sounds yummy
I miss living down the street from a Vietnamese grocer/noodle shop.
So just like home. If you want good Italian food, go where Italians go, same with any other ethnicity's food.
Pretty much but in the US French food and Italian food succeed across the country with high end restaurants whereas like Mexican or Thai is far more obscure in fine dining. Difference in price between American BBQ and Chinese BBQ when both take similar cook and prep times
edit: Just realized you didn't reply to my comment about price expectations between foods of different ethnicities. This not relevant to your comment
No worries, you aren't wrong!
I once worked lunch shifts at a local ethnic joint. We had two menus, the official "American" printed version and one for everyone else. The owners were good to me, I ate with the family after the rush, no charge. Was sad when they passed away and the kids went home.
What if China had Bordiga-style subs though
what if china had bodega style doms 🥺
China's got roujiamo (or caijiamo for a 
option). I always get a vegan spicy one from this local dumpling place
Shit well China should win now surely.
If you ever get a chance, you should try one. They're yummy 
roucaimo
Fyi it's {rou|meat} jiamo and {cai|veg} jiamo, not roucaimo. Jiamo means stuffed/folded bun
I couldn't remember which part got replaced. The place I eat them at just calls them "Chinese burger" lmao 
street subs