The best banh mi in Melbourne

Order this: Traditional pork roll, $5.50

Accepts: Cash

Taken alone, bánh mì means ‘bread’, and nowhere is the bread better than Springvale bánh mì institution Bun Bun Bakery, set up by a husband-and-wife duo over 20 years ago. Lines snake out the door no matter what time you visit, but the five well-organised women behind the counter remain unfazed – between them churning out between 600 to 1,000 rolls every day. Bun Bun’s fresh housemade bread is the perfect foil for the fresh hams and steamed pork belly. The sandwich is lifted by the julienned pickled carrot, fresh cucumber and spring onion shoots. A hot tip: ask for extra coriander and chilli to offset the rich chicken liver pâté and butter. Bun Bun’s best-selling roasted pork in barbecue sauce roll is stuffed with marinated cubes of crispy pork and caramelised onions. If we had to pick one, we’d stick to the original.

Order this: Pork salad roll, $5.50

Accepts: Card, cash

Phuoc Thanh is nothing to look at, but it serves up one of the best bánh mì in Melbourne. Flaky, light yet substantial bread envelops Vietnamese hams, pork loaf and brawn (a jelly-based terrine made from the pig’s head) as well as a smattering of fresh lettuce, which breaks up the typical holy trinity of pickled carrot, fresh cucumber and coriander. The grilled pork salad roll is laced with caramelised onions layering the sweetness on a roll already sweet from the soy marinade blanketing the barbecued pork. The equally popular crispy pork roll contains deep-fried shallots, and spring onions accompany the fatty cubes of crisp pork drizzled with hoisin sauce. Both are delicious.

Order this: Mixed ham roll, $5.50

Accepts: Card, cash

Footscray's Hopkins Street is a bánh mì battleground between To’s and the flashier Nhu Lan, but we’d vote for To’s. As To’s is far less hyped up than its competitor, you can easily stroll in on a Sunday morning and order your preferred fresh housemade roll and a Vietnamese dessert without playing human dodgem. To’s reasonably priced mixed ham roll surprises us with its addition of pickled capsicum, though it’s disguised in the melange of pickled carrot, fresh coriander and cucumber. The mixed hams in To’s traditional roll are firm and freshly sliced with a decent slab of head cheese (a meat jelly made from the head of a pig) adding a pleasingly gelatinous fattiness. The richness of To’s crisp pork roll is offset by the absence of pâté or butter, with shards of crackling punctuating every second bite.

Order this: Tofu roll, $5.00

Accepts: Cash

Selina Hot Bread in Sunshine may not be as synonymous as Trang is with vegan bánh mìs, but it should be with its mock tuna, mock barbecue pork and mock chicken. The VN ham roll is a steal at $5 with five generously slabs of cold cuts (some, too thick) packed in with raw onion, shallots, red chilli, coriander and pickled carrot with the requisite spreads of pâté and butter. The acidic combination of raw onion and the fiery red chillies result in one of the spiciest, tear-inducing bánh mìs and we love it. The tofu roll is filled with spongy pieces of tofu that are microwaved and stuck in a roll that is assembled with raw onion. The soy-and-hoisin marinated tofu absorbs all the savoury notes of its seasoning and works a treat with the crunchy housemade bread. 

Order this: Chicken roll, $5.50

Accepts: Cash

Venture off the high street into the bustling Springvale Shopping Centre and you’ll find the brightly lit Anloi Deli nestled in amongst Vietnamese coffee shops, butchers and greengrocers. Anloi has two L-shaped counters dedicated to takeaway meals, processed meats and condiments, leaving a tiny portion of the shop reserved for bánh mì orders and a bottleneck of hungry customers that accrue once lunchtime hits. Anloi Deli’s piquant ham roll with its multiple thinly sliced fresh cold cuts is complemented by the abundant coriander sprigs with swipes of pâté and butter. The bread-to-ingredient ratio is the most balanced of everywhere we try; a perfect sphere of crust neatly surrounds the packed in meats and pickled vegetables. Don’t leave without trying the well-seasoned, moreish and tender chicken roll – it’s the high-performing underdog that competes against the crispy roast pork roll. The only place where Anloi falters is when it comes to its bread, which is ever so slightly tough. 

Order this: Mixed ham roll, $4.30

Accepts: Cash

The family-run Spring Hot Bread where Anna Nguyen and her parents have been baking bread since 2003 produces rolls that are light but with substantial heft. As for bánh mìs, the julienned carrots in the rolls won’t win prizes for uniformity but they do the job of cutting through the richness of the cold cuts, chicken liver pâté and butter-slathered insides of the mixed ham roll. The pork skewer roll is filled with grilled pork dark pink from the chargrill which tastes akin to reconstituted meat and won’t be to everyone’s taste but is a favourite amongst locals to the Springvale area.

Order this: Mixed ham roll, $5.50

Accepts: Cash

Nhu Lan is everything we thought a cult favourite bánh mì local would be on a Sunday – haphazard customers refusing to queue and trays of hot bread being unceremoniously deposited onto the counters. Nhu Lan’s bread is exceptional – it’s light and airy on the inside (almost to the point of being hollow) and crisp on the outside. The mixed hams themselves aren’t as fresh as the neighbouring To’s, but the rich, housemade liver pâté is slathered on with more abandon and the red chillies are far more potent, while the addition of spring onion adds a welcome acerbity to the roll. The barbecue pork roll is moist, with a pleasing combination of salty and sweet. If you're not close to Footscray, Nhu Lan also has an outpost in North Richmond. 

Order this: Grilled chicken roll, $8

Accepts: Cash

Minh’s bánh mì selection is scant, around five features, none of them the traditional mixed ham roll. What differentiates its bánh mìs further is the use of tiger rolls (made off-site). The mottled crusts give them the appearance of an almond croissant and the rice paste crust and sesame oil-spiked flour lend them a distinctive savoury flavour – we could eat these by themselves but we pair them instead with the grilled chicken and the grilled pork. The grilled chicken with cucumber, coriander, carrot, spring onion and a generous hoisin and housemade chilli oil seasoning is perhaps the best chicken bánh mì we have come across.

Order this: Pork loaf roll, $6.30

Accepts: Cash

N Lee opened Collingwood in 1991, expanding to Little Collins Street in 2007 and Collins Street in 2010, but the original store has not received a glow-up – it remains a no-frills, sparsely decked out bakery where bread is baked in-house, daily. N Lee’s mid-priced pork loaf roll at $6.30 is decent – the roll is soft and fluffy but lacks an outer shell with good crunch, and the mixed hams aren’t as fresh, varied or firm as the others we tried. The chillies are far from ornamental and the generous proportion of pork liver pâté, pickled carrots and daikon, fresh cucumber and coriander to sliced cold cuts makes it a real winner. The thinly sliced slabs of tofu in the vegetarian bánh mì are marinated in a soy concoction and is sandwiched amongst the usual deluge of pickled and fresh vegetables along with a garnish of fried shallots, elevating it into an option meat-eaters should consider. 

Order this: Crispy roast pork belly roll, $9

Accepts: Card, cash

Pho Nom used to offer a traditional bánh mì thịt nguội but pulled it from the menu after a lack of interest. It’s a shame, though the $9 crispy roast pork belly makes up for it. Everything that would be in a mixed ham roll is replicated in this one – from the generous spread of pâté and butter to the packed in pickled carrot, fresh cucumber and sprigs of coriander – but replace the litany of cold cuts with sticky pork belly marinated in a plum sauce framed by the crunch of impeccably roasted crackling. We also enjoy the immaculately deep-fried, free from grease, five-spice-speckled Milawa chicken roll doused in sriracha mayo, accompanied by the usual suspects of pickled carrot, cucumber coriander and chilli but it eats more like a fancy baguette than any bánh mì we’ve ever had. 

Order this: Keepin’ it real, $8

Accepts: Card, cash

VB Rolls in Tivoli Arcade gives the most excessive serving of shredded carrot we’ve ever seen in a bánh mì, which is mostly welcome, but the carrots the aren’t as pickled as we would’ve liked. The cold cuts are fresh, featuring the highly-prized head cheese and the bread is reasonably crunchy and flaky, but expect to shed half your banh mi on the floor of Tivoli Arcade’s food court. The salad roll, jam packed with thinly sliced tofu, beancurd skin and fried shallots, is light and savoury, though both rolls feature slightly too much soy sauce which results in leaks and drenched bread ends. Service is friendlier than other bánh mì shops, but a word of warning, hold on to your receipt as the women behind the counter yell out ticket numbers for you to collect your sandwiches.

Order this: Vegan duck roll, $7

Accepts: Card, cash

Vegans flock to the family-run Trang for their bánh mìs that range from vegan roast duck and vegan chicken to eggplant tempura and lemongrass tofu. The roast pork roll contains roasted pork cubes are a balanced blend of fat and crackling but they’re unevenly spread throughout the bread roll, which is tough and overly dense. Less traditional fillings of purple cabbage, capsicum, fried shallots and roasted peanuts do little to cut through the richness of the pork and pâté. A better order is the soy-soaked vegan duck, meat-like in texture, drizzled with an unconventional peanut sauce. In both cases, the bread roll doesn’t fully wrap around the ingredients and it’s a highly messy affair. Hot tip, if you’re ordering several bánh mìs, the lovely staff will chuck in a few spring rolls on the house.

Order this: Cold meat bread roll, $7

Accepts: Card, cash

Master Roll’s ingredients are high quality, pickled matchstick carrots and thick-cut daikon are by far the most vinegary and refreshing we’ve tried. Its different cold cuts, including head cheese, are firm and aromatic and the grilled chicken bread roll features smoky chargrilled cubes of chicken. Unfortunately, the rolls are let down by overly stiff and heavy bread with a disproportionate bread-to-fillings ratio. The addition of a house-made mayo, more like the Western version of mayo than the Vietnamese one, gives the pickled vegetables and fresh cucumber an almost coleslaw-like coating and the pâté is generous.