Sunday Sandwiches - Revisits to San Diego Bakery & Café and Banh Mi Express

A couple of recent sandwich revisits for a nice Sunday.

San Diego Bakery & Café:

"FOY" SomTommy recently mentioned that the prices for the formerly $5 Bolillo at San Diego Bakery & Café had gone up substantially over the last couple of months. It had been a while since I last visited, so I decided to drop by after doing my regular Saturday morning shopping.

I easily found parking and waltzed on into the rustic shop at around 845 and took a look at the chalkboard menu and yes, prices have indeed gone up!

The last time I'd had a breakfast bolillo here it was $5, it was now $6.50. Whoa, a 30% increase in the last five months! I know times are tough and there's all that inflation and stuff, but wow!

I decided to get the A la Mexicana.

Man, this had a good amount of jalapenos! It was quite spicy. The bolillo is nicely toasted and light, though up to the task of handling the eggs, beans, and stringy cheese. 

While there has been a 30% price increase, with Banh Mi now going for seven bucks and up, I guess this still falls into the "inexpensive" price range? What do you think?

San Diego Bakery & Café
6959 Linda Vista Rd.
San Diego, CA 92111

Banh Mi Express:

Speaking of Banh Mi. Just a couple of weeks before, I was having coffee and breakfast at Finjan (I need to make another visit before I post), when it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't been back to Banh Mi Express in a while. I was aware that the shop now opens at 8am on Saturday, it used to be 10am when they first opened. So, I decided to drop by.

Taking a quick look at the menu, I noticed that prices hadn't gone up since my last visit here.

I decided to get the Banh Mi Thit Nuong ($6.99). Interesting thing, while the prices remain unchanged, the bread looked totally different from when I last had a banh mi here.

  The bread looked like a rolled French Baguette. It was quite crusty, though a bit more dense then what I'd call a typical banh mi. The jalapenos were really mild. There was a thin sliver of cucumber....though I must say that cucumbers are MIA in many banh mi's these days. There was a good ration of pickled veggies to mayo to pork.

The only issue I had....and it's quite an issue was with the pork which was super dry and hard; like jerky.

I'm thinking I need to order a different banh mi next time. This would have been a good sandwich, if the protein had been better.

Banh Mi Express
9353 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92123

Comments

[Peter]

Well, considering that a sandwich at Ike's starts at around $12 and goes up from there, these seem like a relative bargain.

[Sandy]

I had their no. 1 at Banh Mi Express a couple of weeks ago, and bread looked normal, certainly not like the one in your picture. I remember noticing that the pate spread was pretty generous.

[Kirk]

Can you imagine if they raised prices by 30% Peter! Yikes. Man, haven't had Ike's in years.

That's interesting Sandy! I need to drop by again and see what the bread is like!

[kat]

bummer

[Kirk]

Yes, prices are going crazy Kat!

[KPW]

I think we all have to accept that this is just what stuff costs nowadays. The owners likely waited longer than they should have to adjust prices - hopefully their business didn't suffer for it.

[Kirk]

Well, speaking for myself KPW, I do accept that this is what stuff costs these days. But, I'm not enjoying it, that's for sure. And it does definitely change my spending habits.