We, like you, love a medium-spicy original banh mi sandwich with a bubble tea chaser. (Clearly,
you don't order the shredded chicken.) But, Ira, our dearest and dreamiest Ira, thank you for openening our eyes to the sad, deceiptful foul-play by the no-good, very bad guys at Henry's.
We, the ladies of Gastronomista, have held to a stictly no-negativo policy on our posts, but Ira, you have turned us to the dark side. We are hereby publicly boycotting the teeny little Park Slope banh mi demons at Henry's.
But Wait! This is Hanco's: The Real Deal. (Sexy food porn by Serious Eats.)
Ira, you have opened our eyes to The Truth. And to The Lies.
For those of you who haven't been obsessively following the news and goss, Ira did some hard-core investigative reporting in the underworld of Vietnamese sandwich production, and learned that the proprietiors of Henry's pilfered everything - from exact menus to fonts to recipes - from their former employers, the good and humble folks at Hanco's.
Truth: Henry's is located precisely between point A (our gym, the site of hunger-inducing work-outs) and point B (our apartment, the respite for our hunger-sating snacking).
Lies: 3 miles on the treadmill outweighs a medium-spicy original banh mi sandwich with a bubble tea chaser.
Truth: We want one anyway. Hanco's is 4 blocks Northward from Henry's, and thusly triangulates to about 12 blocks out of our way home.
Lies: "About 12 blocks" is too far out of our way for a post-run bite.
Truth: Since we really want an effing banh mi after a run, we will forever now haul our butts on over to Hanco's, where originality reigns and hypocrisy is no more.
Lies: Anything sold by Henry's.
Final Truth: We actually listened to this particular episode of TAF while treadmilling, and we actually went out of our way uphill to Hanco's for our hand-held delight. It tasted of Truth, honesty, and all that is good in the world (especially pork).
Readers, you can listen to the whole report on the "Million Dollar Idea" episode of history's greatest radio show ever, This American Life. If you, fair reader, don't already download the free weekly podcasts, you can stream this episode here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/412/million-dollar-idea (Producers, why can we not stream these episodes??? You are so now, so futuristic, so soothsaying. And yet you don't let us stream? Why the madness?!)
Hanco's is located at 350 7th Avenue in Park South, Brooklyn. We won't even tell you where Henry's is.
