(photo from the summer)

I was near Union Square around lunch, and I haven’t been to Num Pang in quite a while.  Num Pang is a small storefront located at 21 East 12th st between University Place & 5th Ave, with a few seats at counters upstairs.  They are one of the main reasons we started an Honorary Street Food category.

For new readers who may not be familiar with Num Pang, it’s the Cambodian version of banh mi.  There are a few differences, but the quality of the food at Num Pang is usually so high, it appeals to lots of different people.

We’ve had just about everything on their menu, but still stop by when the need arises. We also want to see if anything new is on the menu.  Today we found 2 new menu items, one for veggies and one for carnivores.

There was a spicy organic tofu with a ginger-soy-honey glaze and leeks ($7 plus tax), which sounded pretty good.  But Today’s Lunch is grilled khmer sausages with Asian slaw ($7.50 plus tax), which they dub Brooklyn Bangers.

As with all Num Pang sandwiches, they start with an oval bun, spread chili mayo on the top and bottom, put on the main course, then top it with shredded carrots, fresh cilantro stalks and thin slices of cucumber.  For this sandwich, they added Asian slaw.

The sausage was flame-grilled, giving it a nice char.  The name Brooklyn Bangers was fairly accurate, as the sausages were soft like bangers, not snappy like some sausages and hot dogs.  The sausages had some herbs mixed into the meat, and they were definitely spicy by themselves, even without the chili mayo.  Just how I like things!

The carrots, cucumber and cilantro cooled things off a bit, making it a nice, well-balanced meal on the heat scale.

Once again, Num Pang comes up with a winner.  The Brooklyn Bangers were bangin’, especially with the patented Num Pang toppings.

I’m not too much of a veggie, but the spicy tofu sounded good too.  Guess I’ll be heading back to Num Pang sooner than expected.

(photo: Thrillist)

As we mentioned last week, one of our favorite places for lunch, Num Pang, has opened a 2nd location in midtown, at 140 East 41st st between Lexington & 3rd Ave.

They even have a couple of new items on the menu – which is a good thing, because I think I’ve tried every item on the menu in the Village!

The midtown menu has a new pulled chicken salad and grilled Khmer sausage sandwiches.  I’m really looking forward to trying the sausage sandwich, but everything I’ve ever had at Num Pang has been delicious!

Grilled coconut shrimp sandwich

The space is on East 41st Street right next to sports bar Public House, and is only two blocks from Grand Central.

We’ve consistently said that Num Pang has one of the best under $10 lunches in the city.  If you work in east midtown, now you can find out for yourself.

Peppercorn catfish here we come!

I had lunch near home today at Baoguette/Pho Sure, which is located at 120 Christopher St in the West Village.  They are listed in our Honorary Street Food category, which are storefronts with little or no seating serving what is generally considered to be street food in their home country.

Today’s Lunch is a sloppy bao ($7), and since I have no self control, I also ordered a chicken summer roll ($6).

A sloppy bao is basically a cross between banh mi and sloppy joe – spicy ground beef in a red curry sauce with jalapenos, cilantro and basil.  The sandwich is topped with jullienned mango, which offsets the spiciness of the meat perfectly. This was a great sandwich!

One thing they do differently here is to take the bread out of the top of the roll, effectively hollowing it out.  This leaves more room for the meat and mango fillings, and also makes it neater to eat.  Great idea!

For the chicken summer rolls, there were two, which were cut in half, making four large pieces.  This could have been a lunch by itself for someone with a smaller appetite than me.  With the sloppy bao, this was a big lunch.

The chicken rolls had thin rice noodles, bean sprouts, mint leaves and chicken wrapped tightly inside cellophane rice wrappers.  The rolls came with ground peanuts and a peanut dipping sauce.

The chicken summer rolls were leafy and delicious.  The mint leaves and rice noodles gave them a very fresh taste, and the peanut dipping sauce added even more deliciousness.

Today’s Lunch was very enjoyable.  The sloppy bao was spicy, meaty and even a little sweet and fruity with the julienned mango.  The chicken summer rolls were tasty and significantly lighter than the sandwich.

We definitely recommend Baoguette/Pho Sure for some delicious Honorary Street Food.

I had to be by Union Square around lunch, which means Today’s Lunch is an old favorite – Num Pang.

Num Pang is a small storefront located at 21East 12th st btw University Place & 5th Ave with a few seats at counters upstairs, which puts it in our Honorary Street Food category.

For new readers who may not be familiar with Num Pang, it’s the Cambodian version of banh mi.  There are a few differences, but the quality of the food at Num Pang is usually so high, it appeals to lots of different people.

Today’s Lunch is the pulled Duroc pork with spicy honey ($8.20 after tax).

So they start with an oval bun, spread chili mayo on the top and bottom, put on the main course, then top it with shredded carrots, fresh cilantro stalks and thin slices of cucumber.  Except for the main course (beef, pork, fish, veggies), just abot all the num pang sandwiches are made this way.

The pulled pork in this sandwich was slightly sweet and a little salty, but I wouldn’t call it spicy.  The pork was moist and delicious, and I actually dripped a little juice on my shirt on the very first bite.  Talk about bad luck.

With the pulled pork, chili mayo and all the toppings, this was a spectacular sandwich.  The chili mayo added some zing, but I wouldn’t call the meat spicy.  The cucumbers, carrots and cilantro provided some crunchy texture and refreshing tastes too.

Today’s Lunch from Num Pang was excellent, as usual.  In my opinion, Num Pang is one of the best places for under $10 lunches in the city, and I’m glad we can fit it into the Honorary Street Food category.  Otherwise, I would have to get it for dinner much more than I already do.

When I was at the new Cambodian Cuisine Torsu truck last week, someone else on line got #5, Num Pain Saach, a Cambodian version of banh mi.  It looked really big and delicious, and luckily I was able to get back there over the weekend to try one.

It was Saturday night, but the truck tweeted they were at their usual weekday location, West 4th St & LaGuardia Place, on the south side of Washington Square Park.  That’s an easy stroll from my apartment, and it was a beautiful night, so I headed over.  They are usually there from 6-11pm, but check their twitter account here to make sure.

I ordered a #5 sandwich ($5.95), and about 5 minutes later was handed a giant hero.  You can see from the picture below that it’s a little bigger than a dinner plate.  Now that’s a sandwich!

There were about 8 slices of ham, a similar amount of turkey under the ham, pickled carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, ground pork, hot sauce, and a mayo-like spread.

The ground pork was a little spicy and was a nice addition to the sandwich.  The pickled carrots and cucumbers gave the sandwich some crunch and texture, and were quite refreshing.

Of course, there was plenty of meat on the sandwich, with all that ham and turkey.

The spread tasted like a combination of mayo and fish sauce.  It was a little disconcerting at first, but ultimately went very well in the sandwich.

As I said last week, I’m really glad to have Cambodian Cuisine Torsu in my neighborhood.  Being able to get such a good dinner for only $6 is awesome.

My wife got a noodle dish with peanut sauce (#11) that was really good too.  I will write that dish up in the next week or so, too.

As NYSF readers know, I really like banh mi and num pang, the Cambodian version of Vietnamese banh mi.  While I get num pang fairly often in New York, I don’t get banh mi nearly as much – but L.A. has a bunch of banh mi trucks.

Since L.A. can be a bitch to get around, I decided to try the banh mi truck that was convenient to where I was located.  That turned out to be the Mandoline Grill, which was in the parking lot of The Other Door bar in North Hollywood, the same place I went to try the Canter’s Deli Truck.

After asking the owner Mong a few questions, I decided to get the grilled pork banh mi ($6), which she said was their most popular sandwich.

Mong grew up eating the food at her mother’s Vietnamese restaurant in Honolulu.  She learned these Vietnamese recipes from her mother, and then made some changes to put her own personal twist on each one.

After starting the Mandoline Grill in the Verdugo Bar, Mong then spent some time working in the Dosa Truck to learn the food truck ropes.  She rolled out the Mandoline Grill truck in February 2010.

Once you choose your main course (pork, bbq chicken, steak or tofu), you can get it as either a banh mi , 3 tacos or a bun (with rice noodles) for the same price.  As I said, I went for the banh mi, which comes on a 12′ baguette.

Their banh mi is pretty traditional.  It comes with pickled carrots and daikon, sliced cucumbers and jalapenos, whole cilantro stalks, mayo and scallion oil.

Before taking a bite, I opened the banh mi to look inside, and also took out a piece of pork to taste.  It was a bit salty, having been marinated in soy sauce and some spices before being grilled.  I’m pretty sure I could taste some Asian 5-spice powder in there too, which gave the pork a nice flavor.  After sampling the pork, I closed the sandwich back up and started eating it.

The cucumbers, carrots, daikon, cilantro and jalapenos gave the sandwich a nice, refreshing taste, and these crisp, fresh ingredients and the baguette offset the saltiness of the pork.

This sandwich worked on several levels.  The only downside was the absence of pate, which is often found on banh mi sandwiches.  (You probably know this already, but the baguette and pate are remnants from France’s colonization of Vietnam. )

This was a pretty big sandwich for $6.  It wasn’t really thick like the reuben sandwich from the Canter’s Deli truck, but it was very long and had plenty of grilled pork and the other ingredients described above.

The grilled pork banh mi from the Mandoline Grill was a very nice meal.  It had a bunch of diverse flavors combined into one sandwich, and even though it was a big sandwich, I wasn’t overstuffed after eating it.

This sandwich reminded me of why I like banh mi so much in the first place.

I was near University Place today around lunch time, which often means NUM PANG!  Regular readers of NYSF know about my love of Num Pang, and it’s been a couple of months, so there was no question about Today’s Lunch, other than what to order.

Num Pang is located at 21 East 12th St between 5th Ave and University Place.  I haven’t written about Num Pang recently, so for our newer readers, Num Pang is in the Honorary Street Food category.  This means a storefront with little or no seating that serves food traditionally known as street food in their home country – in this case Cambodia. Num Pang is basically a Cambodian variation on banh mi.

Today’s Lunch is a grilled king mackerel sandwich with leeks and thai-basil infused olive oil ($8.45 incl tax) from Num Pang.  Yes, it was as good as it sounds, and there are more details after the jump.

The chili mayo can sometimes be pretty hot, but it didn’t seem that hot today.  Maybe I’m just getting used to it.

The sandwiches are on toasted rolls, which maintain their firmness but are not too crunchy.

Today’s Lunch was one of the best lunches for under $10 that you can get.  There’s a reason I keep going back to Num Pang – because it’s one of the best damn sandwiches around!  Good thing I don’t live a little closer to Num Pang, or I’d be ordering dinner in from here on a regular basis.

I happened to be near home for lunch and decided to go back to Baoguette/Pho Sure at 120 Christopher Street (between Bleecker and Bedford), a member of our Honorary Street Food category.

Last time I had a Classic Banh Mi sandwich that was tasty, but a little messy.  For Today’s Lunch, I decided to go for the Spicy Catfish Banh Mi ($7).

This banh mi was somewhat different from the classic banh mi, in that it didn’t have pate, pickled daikon or carrots.  What it did have was plenty of catfish on a baguette with cucumber relish, pickled red onions, fresh cilantro (including stalks) and a sriracha honey mustard sauce.

Sometimes catfish can be very fishy tasting, but this sandwich was not overly fishy tasting at all.  I don’t have catfish all that often, but this was some of the mildest catfish I can remember.  Perhaps the sauce it was cooked in helped.

The cucumber relish gave the sandwich a crunchy and refreshing sweetness that nicely offset the bite of the pickled red onions and sriracha honey mustard sauce. The cilantro also came through pretty strongly, since the stalks were included as well as the leaves.

You can get the sandwich mild, medium or hot, and I asked for medium.  The hot comes with jalapeno in addition to the sriracha sauce, and the mild doesn’t have sriracha sauce or jalapenos.  There was some heat in the medium, but I would have enjoyed more.  Next time I’ll go for the spicy.

The bread was really good too.  They take some of the soft insides out of the baguette and lightly toast it before putting the filling in.  This gives the baguette a crunchiness, and also makes the sandwich less bready.

I really enjoyed Today’s Lunch, and would definitely get it again.  As far as value, banh mi can be had for around$4 in Chinatown, but I was in the West Village where $7 is considered a decent price for lunch.  I would like to try their pho too one day.

Check out the Baoguette website and full menu here.  The Christopher St location is not listed on their website, but all the locations are included on the takeout menu I got from there.

I was in the West Village around lunch today and remembered that Baoguette/Pho Sure has a location at 120 Christopher Street (between Bleecker and Bedford).

With the weather being cold and windy, an Honorary Street Food lunch seemed like a good idea – that is, a storefront or small restaurant with few or no tables that serve what is commonly considered street food in their country of origin.

The pho was tempting, but I decided to go with banh mi instead.  Today’s Lunch is the Classic Banh Mi ($6) from Baoguette/Pho Sure in the West Village.

The Classic Banh Mi had pate, pork, pickled daikon & carrots, cucumber and cilantro.  The first bite tasted of cilantro and pate, and was wonderful.  Growing up on chopped liver, I got into pate pretty easily, and did not have to develop a taste for it.

Subsequent bites on the banh mi emphasized the pickled daikon and carrots.  The sandwich was juicy, although it was a little bit messy.

The bread was just right, crunchy on the outside but soft inside.

Today’s Lunch gets an 8 out of 10.  Even though banh mi can be had for $3-$4 in Chinatown, I was in the West Village, and $6 is considered a decent price for lunch.  Next time I will probably go for the pho, but I was happy with the classic banh mi sandwich at Baoguette.