This is a fairly short and snappy blog post about a lunch I had last week at Keu in Shoreditch. I’d walked past the restaurant many times and it always looked to be popular. I wasn’t exactly sure what food they served, except that I’d seen something about ‘Vietnamese Baguettes’ which sounded pretty damn incredible! As you may know, I’m a bit of a sandwich fiend, so it was about time I went in there to see what was going on!

So for those of you who are also new to this, the infamous Vietnamese baguette is officially called a ‘Bánh mì’, which came about during the French colonisation of Vietnam in the mid-nineteenth century.

Being a Bánh Mì virgin, I ordered the Keu Classic, as I thought this would be fairly safe. It was filled with spiced pork belly, ham terrine, chicken liver pate and kewpie mayonnaise, and as with all of their baguettes, it included their house daikon, coriander, cucumber, spring onions and fresh chilli.

I was served very quickly even though the restaurant was busy with ‘eat in’ diners and people ordering to take out. 

The bread was a lot crispier/crunchier than I was expecting, which did make it a little tricky to eat, without having crumbs flying off in all directions! The filling was delicious and generous, with lots of meat and the flavours worked well. I hadn’t seen that there was fresh chilli in it, so I was quite surprised to get a mouth full of heat at one point, but I actually really enjoyed it. Normally baguettes in the UK are filled with ‘familiar’ ingredients like ham, cheese, tuna and so on. So this was something different, and I think much needed. My husband will be able to tell you, I’ll eat anything in bread (within reason!), so Vietnamese food in bread works for me!

Keu also serves salads and rice boxes. I noticed they also do steamed buns which I love (rice dumplings with pork mince, sausage and yam), so I just had to order one on the side!

It was thick yet fluffy, full of porky goodness, just how it should be!

There are lots of Bánh Mì restaurants in London and I’m keen to explore more. Have you been to any? What did you think?

*Some of the photos above are taken from the Keu website – the place was so packed full of people that it was hard to get any photos of the venue!