Banh Mi 🥖 & Viet Coffee ☕️ @Joo Chiat under $10?!🤑

Looking for an affordable food find in the hipster and trendy streets of Joo Chiat?! Look no further at Joo Chiat Caphe . With Banh Mi starting from $6 and Vietnamese coffee starting from $3.50, you can easily have a complete meal under $10 (ps: no gst and service charge sweet 🍭)!!

Actually, I never tried Banh Mi until I visited this place 😅. The closest alternative that I always go to is Paris Baguette’s croissant sandwiches till they recently removed the sandwich + drink promotional set. Since then, my friends and I were on a lookout and we can easily say this is the PERFECT alternative to our old usual spot!

👩🏻‍🍳Shop name: Joo Chiat Caphe

🌟Overall rating: 9.5/10

💸: $

🍽️Dish, Rating:

⭐️ Honey-Glazed Grilled Chicken Thigh 🍯🍗 with Homemade Chicken Pate Banh Mi ($7.80) 9.5/10

This was AMAZING… My biggest pet peeve about eating baguette is that it is usually quite hard and stale. The baguette here was toasted to PERFECTION and was crispy yet easy to bite. Complemented with the tender and juicy chicken thigh, creamy texture from the chicken pate and ending off with the refreshing and crisp vegetables, it was just such a harmonious mix of texture contrasts. And did I mention about the flavour? It was literally a flavour explosion 💥 , you have savoury notes from the baguette 🥖 , richness from the pate , sweetness from the chicken 🍗 , spiciness from the chilli 🌶️ , sourness from the pickled vegetables 🍋and lightness from the fresh vegetables 🥗 . It was just the perfect melody of flavours and you can’t stop once you take a bite. I’m kinda drooling 🤤 just thinking about it again, can’t wait to visit again. Honestly, I deducted 0.5 points purely because this is just the beginning of my Banh Mi journey and I believe that there is another out there even better than this (prob in Vietnam)! But this definitely set the standard bar real high and based on my friends’ opinions, this was so far the BEST Banh Mi they tried in Singapore 🇸🇬!

Tip 💡: Give the Classic Chicken Cold Cut with Homemade Pate ($6) a miss! My friend tried this and thought that it was lacking a bit of flavour and had to add extra chilli sauce. If you are looking for a flavour packed banh mi, just go for the Honey-Glazed Grilled Chicken Thigh with Homemade Chicken Pate Banh Mi ($7.80)! You will not regret it 😋

⭐️ Iced Vietnamese Sock Coffee w condensed and evaporated milk ☕️🥛($3.80) 7.5/10

Contrary to Lemon8 reviews, as someone who drinks coffee siew dai, I found the coffee to be not too sweet. It has a hint of almost hazelnut flavour 🌰 but was a bit diluted for my liking. I still think it was a great complement to the Banh Mi, especially when you eat the chilli seeds and need something to cool down 🥵, this was the perfect remedy. But… I wouldn’t go to the store just for the coffee alone.

Bonus 🌟: If you prefer your coffee to be stronger, go for the drip coffee option instead!

🛋Ambience & thoughts:

I visited on a Saturday noon, with relatively limited seats, the restaurant was almost full. To secure a seat, I highly recommend coming earlier or avoiding the peak lunch hour. Overall, I still really enjoyed the ambience, reminded me of the local eateries at shophouses in JB, very rustic yet at the same time, had some hip and modern cafe-like elements such as the menu designs and neon signboards. The chairs and tables were also quite new and clean compared to most local eateries in Singapore which I greatly appreciated! For the affordable price point and amazing banh mis, if you are around the area, you definitely should not miss this!

📍Address: 263 Joo Chiat Rd, Singapore 427517

🕐Opening Hours: Tues-Sun 9am-5:45pm (as of 12 June 2023)

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