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The Baogette on Christopher st. (120 Christopher st.) is better than the one on lexington. In addition to the regular banh mi's they have pho in the back. I'm Vietnamese. I've grown up eating Vietnamese pho and I've had pho in Vietnam. Let me tell you, the pho there is delicious! It comes close to one of my favorites. The soup is so hearty and really hits home for me. The scallions are fresh and you can really smell the ingredients. Taste like how my grandma used to make it! I also tried the beef tongue. Exceptional as well.

Baoguette is pretty good, but I felt they should toast the bread more, that is what would make them stand out. if they are gonna do business during the day when its very busy, i don't see how they can toast/bake bread properly.

btw, check out my banh mi site listing all banh mi places in nyc
http://www.nychinatown.org/directory/m_banhmi.html

I discovered Banh mi sandwiches about 7 years ago and they were a revelation: crunchy and soft; sweet, spicy, and savory; cold and warm all in one glorious bite. Baoguette's version is fine if you're in the Curry Hill area and you've a hankering, but it doesn't hold a candle to those served at Banh Mi So 1 on Broome or Saigon Banh Mi on Elizabeth. To my knowledge, Banh Mi is served on a hero roll made partly with rice flour, which gives it a fluffy, airy lightness. Baoguette's bread did not have this special texture - it seemed to have the density of a typical baguette. The meats were fine combined with everything else but not very tasty individually (I kind of deconstructed the sandwich as I ate). On a positive side, the sandwich was generous in size and contained lots of fresh cilantro. Baoguette has a sandwich titled the "Sloppy Bao" that I'd return to try - beef in green curry and some other interesting ingredients - but I'll do my best from here on in to get my banh mi fix further downtown.

I finally made the trip to Kip's Bay (the true neighborhood of this shop) and I ordered a classic and the catfish. I'm a picky about my classic banh mi, I like the head cheese salty and the pate porky, and this was a slightly different twist. The pate was different from what I was used to, a little more mushroomy, but still enjoyable. While the cat fish curry was appropriately spicy, I just thought it was a tad too sweet. I still hope the Baoguette trend catches on, I need people to know there are alternatives to 5 dollah footlongs.

Just finished the classic ($5) and the Super ($7).

The classic was OK, but the roll was huge and doughy. Nothing crunchy to enjoy.

The Super was not super at all. The roast beef was of extremely poor quality; I took out all the meat and just ate the carrots, basil and cucumber. Even though it was spicy, it disappointed.

Service was wanting. Customers waited for orders, while the four people working there didn't pitch in to get them out quickly. The sandwich maker (Mexican? guy wearing a Burritoville baseball cap) worked hard, while a woman took her sweet time making one salad while he pumped out four sandwiches. The cashier rang up three customers in 30 seconds, and then stared at the sandwich maker the rest of the time. Another man sat tapping on a laptop, only occasionally turning around to chat with the Vietnamese staff.

I'm not going back, although I've been dying for a place like this to show up in my neighborhood. Food + service = don't bother.

You have the address wrong. It is 61 Lexington Avenue.

After reading this, I had to go try it out. The classic was great, but next time I'll ask for extra pickled veggies and jalapenos. The catfish was awesome though.

Concur with the general trend of this thread that Baogette is no great shakes.Though I wouldn't know a rice flour baguette if it whacked me upside the head, I did note that the bread in the Baogette sandwich wasn't as pleasant as the banh mi I've had at other locations. My problem was that the meat was too sugary and the mayo too goopy, tossing off the balance of the sandwich. Did anyone else think that the meat was too sweet? Was it just me? I'd rather have slices of spongy Vietnamese sausage.

Maybe I'm just the sort of philistine who likes her cheap pleasures to stay cheap, and thus I have an intractable bias against haut-ified fast food such as this place. My first banh mi was from a little storefront in Chinatown, and I thought it was manna from heaven; Baoguette, for all of its cheffy flourishes, isn't quite the same in ambiance or in execution.

@simon: It's best to get to Banh Mi Saigon at a decent lunch hour, when there's been decent turnover of the bread. Sadly, I'm never this lucky.

Regarding banh mi made with rice flour vs. all-purpose, there's a bit of contention among Viet bakers as well. http://vietworldkitchen.typepad.com/blog/2007/05/vietnamese_bagu.html

omg omg omg, I can't believe I've missed this. I sing the praises of this coffee ALL the time. http://www.javacabana.com/?p=catalog&parent=2
It's Cafe' Bustelo Espresso. SOO good and soo cheap.
Got it because it was good and found it online and there it was cheap. You can also buy beans if you'd like. I bought one can and then started buying the bricks by the case for less than $3 a piece.
It's really good in a coffee press.

I really love how ardently everyone responds to the coffee question.

My recommendation is Citizen Bean for coffee obsessive types.
It is like a wine of the month club for coffee lovers. Every Month Citizen Bean selects the work of a different small roaster honored for providing a rich, complex roasts from all over the country and delivers it within days after it has been roasted. Subscriptions also comes with various complements. (http://www.citizenbean.com)

The site also mentions a new site they're working on: Liquorious in alpha, devoted to, you guessed it - drinks! This may tide some of you over for a bit.

Thanks for taking into account my concerns, both FP daily and gawker are looking good and even though I have asked my hubby if we could take up the void left behind when TS left ('would love to, but seriously, we don't have the time'), I am glad someone is. Just hoping it/they will be close to as good as TS was. :)