Finally, the location where Stacks Pancake House & Smokehouse BBQ used to be (it has been closed for more than a year), has been rented out and replaced with Bon Banh, a Vietnamese restaurant serving casual food, and of course Banh Mi, a Vietnamese sandwich with French influence.

As you enter, you cannot not notice the nice mural as well as the neon sign that gives a nice touch to the place. You then proceed to the counter where you will order your food. They have four main dishes: Banh Mi, tacos (?), the rice bowl where you can replace the rice with noodles or a bed of lettuce, and Summer rolls, with few sides like spring rolls or shrimp chips (I could not resist ordering them and they made them there rather than just buying prepackaged ones). Whether you get banh mi, tacos, a salad or Summer rolls, you get more or less the same ingredients to pick from but with a few differences; for instance, the banh mi has pork pate, the tacos can be drizzled with sriracha mayo. As you order them, you pick various proteins: soy tofu if you are vegetarian, Vietnamese sausage (my favorite), lemongrass chicken, charbroiled beef, grilled pork and grilled lemongrass shrimp. I of course tried their banh mi that was superb: I picked the Vietnamese sausage and got everything they propose besides jalapeño. Every bite was an explosion of flavors: you first get the crunchiness of the baguette that has been slightly pressed prior to being filled, like you would do for a panini, and then get mayonnaise, the pate, the sausage, the cilantro, cucumber for added crunch and the freshness of the carrot and daikon slaw. A must have for sure!

The salad is a similar version but without the bread and I admit that the soy tofu was quite good.

Summer rolls and tacos comes in threes (and by the way they wrap them so you do not get any sauce on your hands while eating), and what is great is that you can pick a different protein for each of them. So we tried the tofu summer rolls (2) and a grilled lemongrass shrimp roll, as well as the charbroiled grilled beef taco, sausage taco and a tofu taco. Everything was really good and tasted really fresh, but I admit that the Summer rolls were my favorite, even if ultimately only the shell was different.

For drinks, I should mention the Vietnamese iced coffee and Thai iced tea we had, both made with condensed milk. The Vietnamese coffee is made with the instant coffee from Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, and they asked me to taste it to see if it was sweet enough or if they needed to add more condensed milk: it was perfect.

So, overall, Bon Banh is a great addition to the food scene in Hoboken. I love their menu that allows multiple combinations, but, most importantly, it tastes fresh and is delicious. Bon meaning good in French, they picked well the name of the restaurant for sure.

Enjoy (I did)!

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Bon Banh - 506 Washington St, Hoboken, NJ 07030

Bon Banh in Hoboken, NJ

I Just Want To Eat!