| Hey sandwichphiles, listen up! About 14 years ago, an unassuming Vietnamese submarine joint, known as Thi Thi (pronounced "Tea Tea") opened up its impossibly small premises in Chinatown (209 - 1 St. S.E.; phone 265-5452). About 10 years ago, a server friend of mine, who has the most discerning taste in sandwiches, introduced me to its Banh Mi – a clever Vietnamese combination of toasted French baguette stuffed with Chinese ingredients such as sweet or pickled carrots, cucumber, fresh cilantro and hot chili peppers, and flavoured with fish sauce.
Since that time, my friend has found a way of endearing himself to every high-end kitchen staff he works with by wooing them pre-shift with delicious sandwiches from Calgary’s various best-kept sandwich secrets. In short, he knows where the good stuff is. So we recently met to undertake a side-by-side submarine tasting to re-evaluate Thi Thi’s reputed quality and compare it with two of the many recent competitors that have been popping up – at an alarming, Starbucks-style rate – all over the city.
We started with a recent addition to the 17th Avenue S.W. food scene: Thai Tai Toasted Asian Sub & Grill (615C - 17 Ave. S.W.; phone 244-3060). Sharing the lineup with low-insulin Western Canada High School students, we opted for an Ultimate Sub, which boasts chicken, shrimp and beef for $6.95. No bragging rights here. Mushy mess hall beef overpowers the slivers of shrimp and blandness of the chicken, all tucked into an unreasonably sized baguette that was gooey from the first bite (two soggy last bites are forgivable, but a first bite is not). You’re tired of the flavour by the fourth bite. Not even worthy of a third-place bronze, this is the Betamax of Vietnamese subs. We recommend you stick to the Pearl Smoothies (we chose jack fruit, which has a light sweetness, like a creamy, bland mango). Or try their bubble tea, which has chewy tapioca-like pellets that are sucked through fat straws at an unpredictable, slot-machine pace, fostering a similar addiction.
Kim Anh Vietnamese Submarines is just across the avenue (626 - 17 Ave. S.W.; phone 228-2380) and, when we visited, seemed to draw a slightly more eclectic lineup of harried business folk, an off-duty server (always a good sign) and perhaps a poet or two. We enjoyed our Beef Satay Sub ($4.50) for its thinly sliced tender beef and overall intense spicy heat, pleasantly cooled by fresh, crisp vegetables. A perfect summer sandwich!
Our favourite, though, is Thi Thi’s tried-and-true Beef Sate Vietnamese Sub ($5.25). This sub is not as spicy as the above sandwich – until, of course, you bite into a whole chili pepper. The sliced beef is savoury, the flavours are distinct and clean, the vegetables crispier, and the fish sauce tastier and sweeter. Remarkably, there was not one soggy bite from start to finish. Thi Thi’s superior sub is worth the trek downtown, the circling around the block (because you might miss it at first), the money for the parking meter, and the lineup. Typically, if you are fifth in line, you are standing outside. But you’ll wait in wind, snow, rain or shine. Trust my s’wichphile friend and me. |
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