Sorry I’ve been gone for the last couple months. I recently started at a new job so that’s taken quite a bit of time. I will try to post more regularly now that I’m getting settled, though.
Oh, and all this food at Che-licious I’m writing about here was complimentary but all opinions are mine. Seriously. You know the drill. C’mon.
I discovered bahn mi in my early university days at this great spot hidden away in a strip mall across from Richmond Centre. $10 got you 4 subs and being a growing boy, my friends and I could eat at least half of them before we even left the parking lot. Vietnamese sandwiches were a revelation to me and redefined what I knew as a sandwich. It was a combination of flavors I hadn’t experienced before, a balanced attack of savory, spicy, sweet and all sorts of other flavors. There’s a variety of textures as well, depending on what meats and veggies you selected, stacked between crisp halves of baguette-style bun. The buns themselves are essential to a good bahn mi. I still describe the best ones as eating delicious shards of glass that are so crunchy, they sort of hurt.
Bahn mi (or Viet subs…or ‘Namwiches as I like to call them) aren’t quite as ubiquitous to Vancouver as sushi and pho but there are still plenty of places making them around town. As with sushi and pho, many of these places make their sandwiches lazily simply to capitalize on the item’s popularity. If you’ve eaten as many of these things as I have, you know there’s a right way to make these and there’s whatever they’re doing at T&T, Price Mart and dozens of places that make stale, lifeless bahn mi.
That’s why I was looking forward to trying Che-licious. There isn’t a lot of variety when it comes to Viet subs. There’s a few different combinations. If you’re lucky, there’s a grilled pork or chicken option in there somewhere but few places get more creative than that. Che-licious, on the other hand, has bahn mi with kimchi, one with duck and even one with lemongrass tofu.
Opening earlier this year, Che-licious is a Vietnamese dessert place on Denman Street in downtown Vancouver. There’s various bubble tea and Vietnamese coffee combinations as well as chè, which describes all the sorts of Vietnamese desserts. They’re the rainbow-colored cups layered with fruit, ice, jellies, sweet beans and milk.
The interior is as colorful as the desserts with bright green walls and neat, modern art-looking light fixtures supplemented by what looks like Christmas lights. This is a contrast to the warm wood tables and benches. It’s a comfortable, cozy looking space.
First to arrive is the Pork Bomb ($5.75) salad roll. It looks like any other salad roll on the outside but inside, it’s missing one major ingredient: the vermicelli. The salad rolls at Che-licious are exactly what they sound like they are…filled with salad. While I’m a firm believer of “You don’t make friends with salad!”, these were delicious. You lose the substance of the noodles but these things are packed with crunchy, fresh veggies and strips of savory pork patty. What totally makes this dish for me is the addition of…fried spring roll wrapper. Yes, that deliciously crunchy outer coating on spring rolls is cracked into the salad roll and adds another delicious texture. Great stuff…loved these.
The Ducking Good ($6.75) bahn mi reminds me of the first time I had the duck sandwich at Feenies (and then subsequently, Cactus Club) in that it makes you think why no one thought about putting the experience of Peking duck in a sandwich. The classic combination of roasted duck, ginger, and scallion works even better in a bahn mi than a regular sandwich. First of all, the bread is spot on. Crispy, almost painfully so, on the outside and soft, chewy after you get past the outer crust. The duck is very good as well although I wanted crispier skin. It hits just about all the categories of flavor, though and one of the better bahn mi I’ve had.
Same goes for the Heo Yeah! ($6.50) bahn mi, which has crispy skin roasted pork and pate. Delicious! You get a nice funky, peppery pate in there and a generous helping of roast pork. My only suggestion was that they use fattier pork so you get meat that’s more moist and juicy.
I often mention that I’m not a big fan of desserts since that’s just room that could’ve been used for more bacon but I have to admit, I ate nearly this entire Che-Licious Special ($6.50). Those layers are pandan jelly, agar jelly, pomegranate pearls, toddy palm, jackfruit, longan, and coconut milk. I understand if you don’t recognize half those things…I don’t either (what the heck is “toddy palm”?) but although I really just intended to have a few bites to try it out, I just couldn’t put it down. At first glance, it seems like just a bunch of things tossed together with some coconut milk but the flavors actually work really well together. I think this is a great introduction to fruits more commonly found in Asian food like longan (the most badass fruit ever since the name means “Dragon’s Eyes” in Chinese. DRAGON’S EYES.) and jackfruit. I asked for mine not too sweet and it came out perfect.
What was too sweet, on the other hand, was the iced coffee. Wow, okay, there’s just too much sugar in this. As with most Vietnamese coffee, the actual coffee is very, very strong. I don’t always drink coffee but when I do, I usually go for Vietnamese coffee because it has a very strong coffee flavor and aroma. Vietnamese drip coffee is what Starbucks wants to be when it grows up. Unfortunately, mine was just way too sweet. Half or even a quarter of the sweetness would’ve been great because the coffee itself seemed quite nice but just overwhelmed by the onslaught of sugar.
Admittedly, I initially thought the menu was quite expensive but after in the weeks since I visited Che-licious, I’ve realized that the standard I’m measuring against is more than a decade old. I’m just getting older and the $2.50 bahn mi simply doesn’t exist anymore, gone the way of $5 movie tickets and gas for less than a dollar a liter. The menu is maybe a buck or two than a bahn mi at your usual pho place but Che-licious uses ingredients that probably cost them a buck or two more. Plus there’s definitely more attention put into the food. Decisions about flavors and textures seem carefully considered and I have to admit that while the changes aren’t world-breaking, the small details such as the crispy wrapper in the salad roll set it apart from the competition.
Apart from my overly sweet coffee, I really liked each one of the items I tried, each one among the best example of that dish I’ve had. I’m looking forward to more creative takes on Vietnamese classics from Che-licious in the future.
