Banh Mi Battel-Dorchester MA#2

What: #2 BBQ Beef Banh Mi

Where: Banh Mi Ba Le

1052 Dorchester Avenue

Dorchester  MA 02125

How much: $3.00

Banh Mi. The motivation to leave the house on a slow winter day.

(readers, cue Jim Rayden - The Vietnamese Baguette Song) (clicking on link should open YouTube in a new browser tab so you can hear my selected audio track playing, but you will have to click back on this tab to return) (this finally works again)

This day's travels took me to Quincy, but I hit Dorchester on the way over. The is another Ba La down the road in Dorchester as well as another down the road in Quincy that I have already reviewed. I understand there is also a Ba Le out in Worcester MA.  I will try to get to these unreviewed ones as soon as I can.   I'm not sure if or how any are related (honestly, I'm not sure what Ba Le means or is, but there are a heck of a lot of Banh Mi places around the country that are named Ba Le.  Readers can you help? Perhaps Bakery or ((the Viet equivalent of Deli))? ).

The Dorchester location had much in common with the Ba Le in Quincy (which is not very far away).

Banh Mi University graduate?  Oh yes!  Magna Cum Laude. Note the white deli wrap and elastic as one would expect and  I also got a "Golden Bag" like Pho Viet in Allston MA. Yes, that is my usual luncheon dining table in the picture.  Bread was very,very good, but not perfect.  It was crusty on the outside as expected, with a slightly thinner crust than others I've had, which was not a bad thing at all. But it just lacked that slightly chewy inside that I prefer.  The meat was there in quantity and tasty.   The shape of the beef pieces was rectangular, very tender and slightly larger than average.  Plant material was excellent.  Cilantro was crisp and not one hint of darkness on the leaves, though I would have preferred a bit more.  Carrots and daikon also very crisp and tasty and generous.  The cucumber was short and very thin, needing two to cover the sandwich. There were even some scallions.  The smear of mayo was a little light.  I asked the counter person for spicy. I did get jalapenos, though you can't see them well in the picture.  They did not seem too hot.  The first bite had a no bite, but  the burn hit me with the last bite. The burn did not last very long.  Sandwich size was comparable to most.  The thing that really hooked me was a sweet taste that contrasted with the hot and salty.  It seemed to be something in the liquid poured on top of the sandwich. You can see a bit of the evidence in picture three.  Most of the juice seem to run down and may have been the reason why the last bit was the tastiest. Service was very fast. The line was four deep when I got there and people were ordering five and six Banh Mi at at time.  The trays of ingredients were huge and had to be based on the volume of business I saw. The place was clean and parking on Dot. Ave was not as bad as I thought it would be. A great value for the money.

I'd give it 5.0B/6.

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I guess I'll be back to Dorchester very soon to get to Lee's and Chau Bakery.  Hau Giang seems to have closed and will be renamed.  I called the phone number on the sign and the woman who answered said they would open mid-January.