Banh Mi Che Cali
Categories: Sandwiches, Vietnamese, Fast Food [Edit]
Neighborhood: Alhambra647 W Valley Blvd
Alhambra, CA 91803 (626) 293-8396
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: No
- Parking: Street, Private Lot
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: No
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Good for: Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol: None
24 Reviews for Banh Mi Che Cali
Buy 1 milk tea boba, and get one for FREE. $2 bucks will get you two milk teas. How CHEAP AND AWESOME IS THAT!!!
I personally don't really like there sandwiches..I actually prefer Mr. Lee's sandwiches. The bread isn't crusty ..(cut my mouth) good enough and the meats just seem questionable.
I do like there pho though. All the times I've been there, I thought i got great service. The parking lot is kinda small and if you go there on the weekends, it will take you like 10 minutes to get a milk tea and I'm not patient, but I will wait cause it's cheap.
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This place definetely has the best prices in town as far as decent food. I come here once or twice a week for vietnemese food. If you want horrible negligent service, you've come to the right place.
The Pho comes out pretty quickly, and their drinks and dessert deals are second to none.
I thought their viet sandwiches could had been better. The bread was old and yeah.
I recommend this place for anyone looking for a good yet cheap meal!
This place is so pho-king good, meng!
Sunday, a group of us were at a Pro-Motion's convention in the city of Strong Beach. They provided lunch for us there but, meh- We were still hungry. I was craving for some Pho, that saaavory goodness. I had my friend yelp a Vietnamese joint within the neighborhood.
Proceeding to car-
me) Did you find a spot yet, Mikey?
friend) Yup, its 10min from here...
m) let's bounce, kid!
f) but James, they gave this place like 2 stars
m) aaaaawwwww................ hells naw! Go find another place then
f) its 25 min away though.
m).Why...............................why pho-king me!?
f) i gotta go pee.
after my comrade pissed on the walls of the Standard Parking structure, we hopped onto the 710N-
Alhambra-Valley Blvd!
m) where u wanna eat? I want some pho!
f) there's like 500 pho places here- I dont want any soup... Its 107 degrees!!
m) oh shadddup... stop cryin its only 104...pull over here
we walked inside. At first, this bakery looked like that of a sweatshop, sewing designer labels onto counterfeit TrueReligion Jeans- but instead they were crankin' out delicious baguettes and buttery french rolls by the second. impressive! When it was our turn to order- I pulled a Harold n' Kuumar (how do u spell that -with two U's & four O's?).
server) what would you like to order?
me) I'll have 3 baguette sandwiches and 3 french roll sandwiches (pointing at the pork, House Special, and chicken...mmm.mmm.mmm). He'll have the same....and also some pho, the House Special. Might i have it for here.
s)*looks at the two of us scratching his head*12 sandwiches?& pho... what would you like to drink?
m) He'll have de ESprite and I'll have..........um ...another bowl of pho!
s) one more pho!?
m) Naw, i was just Pho-king with you- a Sprite for me too pls
s)*mumbles back something like
* Pho-Q (methinks)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~The GET Down~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Baguette sammiches 5*
French roll sammies 4* (the bread tasted OK..like bollios)
Pho........(drum roll pls)....5+*
Jimbob, why only a 4* you might say?
1* (which they gladly replaced) for the hair found in me plate of sprouts, basil, and limes.
I better lay off and retire these Pho jokes before i find something else in Me soup! (check out my Octopus review *shudders)
enjoy!
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This is a fun place to eat. There must be twenty staff working at a time, baking bread, making sandwiches, working the grill and so on. But I find the food to be uneven. The pho, in particular, is oily and bland and not recommended. But the sandwiches are fresh and flavorful (try the grilled meatball). I am also quite fond of the chicken porridge.
The first time I came here, I ordered a sandwich and a iced tea. I had to ask the girl to repeat herself three times because I could not get my head around "$2.57".
REALLY wish I still worked in the area. I miss this place.
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Came here through the recommendation of Eileen T. and I have to say I've made this place a must stop for take out in my weekly shopping trip in SGV. I've never eaten here before, but this place is pretty crowded most of the times I've been there. My typical order: 3 sandwiches (buy 2 get 1 free) + 1 order of the shrimp rice rolls, and 1 pudding milk tea. All that food for a little over $9. What, are you kidding me?? If I feel like I don't have much to eat in the next week or if I'm really craving those sandwiches, I'd get 6. Hey, for 6 sandwiches for less than $10, eat your heart out Subway $5 footlong!!
If you are getting the sandwich deal, make sure you pick the sandiwches at $2.25+, and my personal favorite is #25, bbq pork. If you're more adventurous, #22 is good as well. Get the vegetables on the side, and ask for some cilantro. I've had sandwiches, shrimp rolls, pork innards (blood, liver, and other goodies) porriage, and of course the $1 milk tea, and it's all pretty good. Are you going to get awesome gourmet food here?? Of course not. This is the Vietnamese version of Xiao Mei in the SGV, but if you need good, cheap Vietnamese food, this is your place. Thanks Eileen for the recommendation. It's sad my car takes in more expensive "food" than what I eat........
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What makes this place so great is that it's so simple and cheap. It's actually a lot like Shau May's except it's Vietnamese. They got a lot of the basic SGV/Chinese Vietnamese stuff here. They've even got Vietnamese deserts. I think if you buy one or two, you can get one free. Don't expect service or awesome quality food.
BTW, if you're into Boba, you should know that they got pretty decent quality Boba for $1 here. They're open till 11pm.
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This is one of my local cheap meal solutions.
The pricing on the banh m is deal! I normally take advantage of their buy 2 get 1 free promotion and stock up on sandwiches to last me a few days. Depending on when you buy the banh m, the bread can be a bit hard, but nothing 10 seconds in microwave can't fix.
I've also had their chicken curry, pho, and beef stew. They're were good but not outstanding. Like the sandwiches, these dishes are priced very well.
Bang for the buck, this place is pretty good.
Chicken Curry: tasted pretty good.The chicken is small chunks of chicken with the bone in, although I prefer boneless chicken.
Bread: was awesome, straight out of the oven and still warm.
Milk Tea: really good, and you can't beat the 2 for 1 deal
Pho: didn't try it, but I'm sure it would be pho-king good. Pho Shizzle!
This is my boyfriend's go-to place when he doesn't want to cook. You really can't beat the buy 2, get 1 free sandwich deals. My only complaint is that they don't put cilantro in their sandwiches. No worries tho, just ask and they'll hand over a bagful.
Btw, if you're feeling sick, nothing hits the spot like the chao ga (rice porridge w/ chicken.) The bo kho (beef stew) is pretty good too - almost like my mom's cooking. Oooh, and the pate choud. Mmmmm... soo good.
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Yup I eat a lot of pho. Why? Because they cheap, delicious, and fills up my stomach. I found this place on a Sunday when I was driving around with my gf looking for a place that is OPEN. It kills me to have to look for a place on Sundays and to find a pho place that opens late....that is absurd. At least in SGV it is. They don't have small or large just one size but it was large enough for me. The soup is great and the noodle is chewy but not too hard. The meat is good too but not the best. Usually after dinner I would buy a bbq pork sandwich to go for lunch next day at work. I have to say the sandwiches here are better than lee's, because the bread here doesn't cut into the insides of my mouth. Only quam I have with this place is that they charge for water. I believe they have a ro system in the back and yeah I guess the water is cleaner...it's not expensive but charging $.25 for a cup of water is just odd.
I am always on the lookout for that great deal and suggestions for my culinary conquest. At the night of the elite event at Bordello's, I caught up with fellow foodie Michael S. in asking where some of his favorite places he had been lately.
Surprisingly he suggested Banh Mi Che Cali. A real shocker because I didn't expect this from him at all regarding this. Took his tip at the back of my mind and head towards it the next day.
I was wondering if he have led me to a hole in the wall. This place was not what I expected. The place sits on a former donut shop that got converted into a mini cafe style restaurant. Very small confinement where they do served Vietnamese food of different noodles and rice dishes at this place.
The take out counter is very "busy" looking as though a bomb have just set off the place. All the snacks and springs rolls are all over the place. Not very neat or organized at all in this place. It really looked chaotic it seemed on the way they approached with the way they stacked the items.
The forming of the line to the register is a disaster too. The shape of the line is like the letter "V" and I was standing at the bottom tip of that V and people were very short fused as they all thought I cut in line. Man, these guys need chill pills.
It's been pointed out they have some of the cheapest banh mi sandwiches around. It's rough about $2 flat with sales tax included. They have a special where you can buy two of their sandwiches of regular price of $2.50 and up, you can get the third one free.
I took up on the offer and ordered:
*Thit Nuong (Grilled Pork Sandwich) http://www.yelp.com/bi...
*Ga (Chicken Sandwich) http://www.yelp.com/bi...
*and the ever popular, Cha Go Thu (pork pate sandwich) http://www.yelp.com/bi...
The sandwiches left me back at less than $5 for all three of them. They were $2.25 each with sales tax added on. Still an awesome deal to walk away with that.
The bread is a bit more crunchier and they spare no expense on the condiments. I really appreciated on that generosity. My favorite type of bread is more to the likings from Saigon Bakery at Rosemead, which the bread were more tender. The pork pate sandwich was awesome, but the chicken sandwich was too dry for me. For some reason, it was not moist at all.
It's a good deal for what I got out of the three sandwich and even better bargain is the bobba milk tea (Two drinks in the price of one, limitations on which ones are part of the offer).
Cheap deal are to my likings as this el Cheapo loves to walk away with a bargain. The only concern of this place is the chaotic nature of how the shop is set up as they were out of room in the kitchen so they move some of the operation up at front.
I know I shouldn't make a big deal out of it, but they do a "C" on the health code. That can be a turn off for some people.
As in for Michael S.'s suggestion..... I found out he meant this Banh Mi Che Cali: http://www.yelp.com/bi... . Maybe I should have read his review a little bit more carefully next time before I went off assuming as there's two sandwich place with the same name on the same street. Nonetheless, it's still worth trying.
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I wanted to try a new pho place in the area that happened to be open later than 9pm. I was very pleased with the food, service, price and over all experience at this location of Bahn Mi Che Cali, as there appear to be others in the area and in Westminster too. I was a little shocked to taste good food and have an A, I g by the C rating for flavor. I liked the dry noodles with pork, pho tai, shrimp pho, egg rolls, and oh yeah iced coffee!!! $16 for 2 pho, 2 drink and appetizer, my kinda place.
Sandwiches: Delicious and cheap, given that it is served on a FRESH baguette.
Other foods: Mediocre. The only appealing factor is that the food is cheap but not terrible by any means. You get what you pay for basically. Want something better tasting? Be willing to pay a few extra bucks somewhere else. However, for the price, the food is not a bad deal. I have had the Chicken Curry which will knock you to sleep, the Pho which is not good at all, and their Spring Rolls which are cheaply packed which a ton of lettuce.
If you come here, don't expect much. Expect a cheap and "not so spectacular" meal. Stick with the sandwiches and you'll love this place! Sandwiches are my favorite in Alhambra with Mr. Baguette coming in at a VERY close second!
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AWWWWWWW YEAHHHHHHHH KIDDDDDDDDD! 2 dollar large vietnamese sandwiches!!!!!! AWWWWWWW SHIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT!!!! its another "c" rating!!!
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really good bbq pork sandwiches. i really drove all the way out here for them. funny because when i got here i realized that i had one of my wedding at the seafod 888 next door. it is cheap and fast and worth the drive. i like that they do che here and so many different viet dishes. the nam in the spring rolls were also a big hit. buy two sandwiches and get one free is great, but i don't like to eat the sandwiches unless they're on the baugette. also went to mr.baugette since i was out this way and i prefer it here. one downer was the traffic inside...it was pretty chaotic and confusing, especially if you don't speak vietnamese like me.
i've been to maybe a half dozen of this small chain sandwich place, but this is by far the worse. i hate, absolutely hate the service here. the workers are not very personable, bordering on rude and cold. the wait for a simple take-out (a sandwich and coffee) can take 10-20 minutes....even when there's 2 people waiting! that's comparable to waiting that long at an american fast food place. i find that unacceptable.
i'm not sure why i keep coming back -- it's freaking cheap. and it's on valley. i'm always on valley (and hungry). i do go to the other one on the other end of valley...that one is much better. i'm actually waiting for the one on garvey to open. hurry!
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I think... for the price. This place is good. I like it. I just came here today for breakfast. Got the pho dac biet and my boyfriend got the pho ga [chicken]. My pho soup wasn't as flavorful as I wished it could have been but it was good enough.
I'm sure if it were really 'flavorful' it would have meant a lot of MSG and I have horrible reactions to a lot of MSG. If I have more than one soup bowl of anything [like hot and sour] and they put a lot of MSG, I'll know. Even if it's not a lot to other people, I'll know. I get shivers throughout my body and my shoulders and neck feel awful like I just gave blood [btw, I gave blood once, during the summer and I blacked out at work. lol message me if you want to wonderful details of how I embarassed myself at work]. So yeah, not a lot of msg because I finished a bit more than half the bowl of soup. The noodles were good. The amount of oil floating on the top was moderate to low, which I like.
I also got the pudding milk tea. THANK GOODNESS, they got it right this time. The last time I came with my boyfriend, they gave me boba. :P The pudding... Man... How do these places make it? So yummy, so flavorful. Where do they buy the powder [it must come in a powder form, right?!] to make this yummy pudding delight? Just right richness in a cup. Yum... that and a great deal! Buy one, get one free! Don't get the boba, get the pudding!! I've also discovered that, good pudding is like uni. Good pudding is like the uni of desserts...
I also got a house special banh mi for lunch seeing how I'm back in college. Bidding my time of internet use until I'm hungry again to eat my banh mi.
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I've been to many vietnamese sandwhich shops around this area. I've been to this one several times. When they opened, they were in disarray and weren't producing good food. Now, it's beginning to change. They service is getting better. The sandwiches, to my suprise, are pretty decent. I had the BBQ pork and chicken. The pork was flavorful and good, chicken was shredded and a bit dry. The bread was good when hot. The size of the sandwich was also larger than average. If you compare this to Lee's sandwhiches, it's way better. Lee's bread always tastes stale and they give you little meat.
What can I say? I like this place because I'm a frugal guy. The food is decent, not great. You don't always need great. Sometimes good and cheap is great enough.
$2 Vietnamese sandwiches. $3 for good spring rolls. $3 bowls of curry with baguette. $2 for desert. When you're not spending a lot of money, and those are the only three good items on the menu, you really don't have much to complain about.
Dont' eat the pho.
Of all the Vietnamese sandwiches shops I've tried, got to admit, this place is possibly the worse.
I order a chicken sandwich and a Thai tea.. - My sandwich looked like one of those American type sandwiches. Bread wasn't those baguette you usually would see, and the sandwich was much smaller than most... well, it's big, it's just the bread is what makes it big. So basically it seemed like I was just eating bread with nothing inside.
As for my Thai tea, well, if I had known I would save like $0.50 cents by just getting one of those Thai tea in the bottle behind the counter, then I would of done that, than to have them just put the bottle into one of those plastic clean cups.
If I just go 2 blocks west, I would end up at a much better Vietnamese sandwich shop called "BA LE". I'm never eating at this place again. Food is just horrible.
This restaurant still has the grand opening sign on the building. Buy 2, get 1 free deals on desserts and sandwiches. For boba, it's buy 1, get 1 free. The waiter didn't understand what I meant, so we both got the milk tea, when I wanted the milk green tea. The boba is pretty watery, the boba is chewy and soft but pretty flavorless. I got the first pho listed on the parse menu, pretty much the one with everything in it. The well cooked beef flank, the raw slices of beef, meat balls, a bit of tendon and tripe. Not bad, but not really good either.
I also got 3 desserts to go, a banana spongy things in thick coconut milk that is just ok, a light green coconut milk with green jelly in various shapes and lychee, plus a thick coconut milk with some jelly thingys, taro, yams, etc. The green one is pretty sweet but refreshing, it might be my favorite. Didn't try the sandwiches yet, parking available curbside. 1 block and across the street from Boiling Crab that had 1.5 hour wait, so we tried out this place. Great prices, 2.5 stars for the boba, 3 stars for the food, 3.5 stars for the dessert options, atmosphere rather parse, leaves a bit to be desired. Cash only.
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I know this place has "Banh Mi" in the name, but I ate pho here, OF COURSE.
A wise pho sifu once said that even when pho is kind of bad, it's still pretty good, and I would grudgingly have to agree... the pho here wasn't poisonous by any means, but right now I have a giant MSG headache so my judgment isn't really 100% at the moment. What can I say? There are soup people and sandwich people, and I am a soup person, even on a hot-ass muggy day such as this one.
Hopefully a sandwich person will get in there and speak the gospel. Me, I'm going to go drink a gallon of water and nosh on some Tylenol.
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Great lunch place, but get there early because its packed. The soups and combo plates are great plus they have decent tapioca drinks. The curry chicken is pretty good. You can also purchase an assortment of items to go. The only bad thing is that the sandwiches are prepared ahead of time and refrigerated so the bread is cold.
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