Bánh Mì Bay

Soon you'll be able to walk from Bloomsbury to Dalston (via Theobald's Road, Clerkenwell Road, Old Street and Kingsland Road) without being more than a few minutes away from a decent Vietnamese café. At the north-eastern end, we have the 'pho mile', with stalwarts such as Song Que and the newer Mien Tay; in the middle, the Hoxton favourite Cay Tre. At the other end is Café VN. But now, just a few minutes west down the road, is this new Bloomsbury venture from the owners of Camberwell's Café Bay.
Café Bay was crafting bánh mì - Vietnamese baguettes - long before it became trendy last summer. This new central London branch is a much bigger operation, mostly aiming at the lunchtime office crowd (though it opens for dinner until 10pm, too). It's all very Liberty in decor, with a kind of soothing light jade/celadon colour scheme, blossom prints and fiddly chandeliers; furniture is a bit Daylesford Organic home collection, all light wood tables with whitewashed legs.
Bánh mì is the main seller. Although the café now offers traditional Vietnamese-style bread made with a proportion of rice flour, ours was simply too soft and pallid. It needed that paper-thin crunch to complement the fluffy crumb. To their credit, we were told that the baker who developed the baguettes is still not quite happy with the result. So you may see improvements in the coming weeks. Great peppery pâté, though.
The best dish was the lemongrass pork 'balls' (more like sausages) that were freshly cooked on the tiny open grill at the front of the shop. Caramelised and juicy, they were excellent rolled up into rice paper with crunchy lettuce, mint leaves and vermicelli, but the carrot and daikon pickles were superfluous as they had so little flavour. Own-made noodles made from rice flour and tapioca flour (bánh canh) were curiously spongy, like packing foam, and lacked a serious amount of the advertised crabmeat, prawn and pork shoulder - though at a mere £7 for a large bowl it seemed churlish to complain.
There's room for improvement on the food front, but the service is terrific, with helpful, smiling staff. Judging by the queues out the door, this café will be around for a long time. And if you're not convinced, there are plenty of other Vietnamese cafés to try as you head east.