Madam Khanh, if you’re in a hurry and just want the answer.

I know that isn’t the popular answer. Banh Mi Phuong has had the Anthony Bourdain quote attached to it since 2009 and it’s the name every guide leads with.

But I order from Madam Khanh most times I’m in Hoi An, and the two or three people I know who actually live in town do the same, and I think the reason is simple enough to explain in a paragraph.

But I’d also say that neither of them is the best banh mi in town, which is the thing I promised to come back to in my Hoi An food guide and the reason this is a separate post.

Quick Answer: Madam Khanh banh mi is the better of the two. Her house sauce and the chilli oil are the reason, and you’ll wait five minutes, not thirty. Banh Mi Phuong has better bread, toasted over charcoal at the front of the shop, and the mixed banh mi thap cam is very good, but it sits at 4.3 on Google, the lowest of Hoi An’s serious banh mi shops. For the best banh mi in Hoi An overall, four smaller shops score higher than both: Banh Mi Ha, Banh Mi Co Ba, Banh Mi Mr Hieu and Phi Banh Mi.
The two, side by side:
- Banh Mi Phuong, 2B Phan Chau Trinh. 6:30am–9pm daily. 4.3 from 16,600+ reviews. 25,000–50,000 VND.
- Madam Khanh – The Banh Mi Queen, 115 Tran Cao Van. 6:30am–10pm, but 6pm on Thursdays. 4.6 from 11,900+ reviews. Around 40,000 VND.
Four shops I’d rather send you to:
- Banh Mi Ha, 360 Nguyen Duy Hieu. 4.9. Cheapest, best herbs, hours unreliable.
- Banh Mi Co Ba, 40/14 Tran Cao Van. 4.9. Vegan option, no coriander in anything.
- Banh Mi Mr Hieu, 644 Hai Ba Trung. 4.9. Air conditioning and cold beer.
- Phi Banh Mi, 88 Thai Phien. 4.8. Homemade chilli sauce, meat marinated overnight.
What I order:
- Banh mi thap cam, the mixed one, everywhere. It’s the version that shows you what a shop can do.
- Chilli oil on the side, always, so you can judge it before it’s in the bread.
- Crispy pork if it’s on, and Mr Hieu does the best of it.
Three things that will actually affect your sandwich:
- Bread comes in batches, early morning and late afternoon. Time your visit around that.
- Look at the pate. Pale and smooth came from a tub. Darker and coarser was made in the shop.
- Eat it where you buy it. Ten minutes in a bag and the crust is gone.

Why I’d Go to Madam Khanh

Hoi An banh mi is wetter and heavier than the northern version. More pate, and a house sauce that every shop mixes its own way and doesn’t talk about. That sauce is the whole regional difference, and hers is the best one I’ve had in town.

The chilli oil she serves alongside is the other reason. Ask for it on the side. It’s closer to a sambal than to the thin chilli sauce you usually get, and even if you’re not a chilli person it’s worth a spoon on the plate to taste on its own.

Best banh mi in Hoi An Madam Khanh — Juicier, saucier, and Hoi An’s best chilli oil

The rest of it is practical:

Five or ten minutes of queueing, against thirty.
Open until 10pm most nights, which makes it the one that’s still there when you’re walking back from the river.
And she’s been at the same counter for over thirty years, which in a town where shops turn over constantly counts for something.

The one thing I’d fix in my own head if I were you: don’t expect a beautiful shop. It’s a counter, a few streets north of the Old Town, easy to walk past. The ladies work fast and there isn’t much ceremony to it. And if you only have one banh mi in you and you want to understand why people make a fuss about this sandwich in Hoi An specifically, hers is the one that explains it.

Banh Mi Phuong Hoi An: What the Queue Is For

It’s the bread. That’s the honest answer and it’s a good enough reason on its own.

They toast the rolls over charcoal at the front of the shop, which you can watch while you wait, and the crust comes out crisper and holds up longer than almost anywhere else in Hoi An.

If you care about bread more than filling, Phuong is your shop and I’d stop reading here.

Order the banh mi thap cam, the mixed one, which is pork, pate, egg and the rest for somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 VND depending on how you build it.

The queue at Banh Mi Phuong hoi an food tour 5 scaled Vietadvisor — Charcoal-crisp bread matters more than the filling

Banh Mi Phuong Vietadvisor — Charcoal-crisp bread matters more than the filling

What you’re paying for it in is time. Twenty to thirty minutes at lunch, and again in the early evening. There’s a number system. You order, you get a receipt with a number on it, you stand nearby and listen.

Assembly is quick and impersonal because the line has to keep moving, and the filling can come out thinner than at the small shops. There’s a big second floor with seating that a lot of people never notice.

Go at half seven in the morning and most of that disappears. Same bread, five minute wait, and the pate hasn’t been sitting out. That’s what I’d do, and it’s the single most useful thing in this post.

At 4.3 from over 16,600 Google reviews it’s the lowest-rated of the banh mi shops on this page, and I don’t think that means it’s bad. It means it sells thousands of sandwiches a day to people arriving with very high expectations, and some of those expectations don’t survive a thirty minute wait.

The queue at Banh Mi Phuong hoi an food tour scaled Vietadvisor — Long queues ruin expectations, go early instead

The queue at Banh Mi Phuong hoi an food tour 2 scaled Vietadvisor — Long queues ruin expectations, go early instead

The Banh Mi Phuong menu, and what to order

A banh mi in Hoi An costs 20,000 to 35,000 VND at the smaller shops, which is under a pound and a half. Phuong runs 25,000 to 50,000 depending on filling and Madam Khanh’s is about 40,000. Avocado is usually 10,000 extra where it’s offered.

On what to order, the mixed one is the right default everywhere. Ask for banh mi thap cam and you get pork, pate, egg and whatever else the shop puts in, which is the version that shows you what the shop can do. Crispy pork is the other one worth seeking out, and Mr Hieu does it best of these.

They also do a grilled pork one and an egg one, both fine. There’s no vegetarian option built into the menu, though they’ll leave meat out if you ask, and doing that in a fast queue is more trouble than it’s worth.

The Banh Mi Phuong menu and what to order 3 Vietadvisor — Always go for the mixed: Bánh Mì Thập Cẩm

The Banh Mi Phuong menu and what to order 2 Vietadvisor — Always go for the mixed: Bánh Mì Thập Cẩm

Why the Banh Mi Phuong reviews sit at 4.3, and the 2023 food poisoning

That rating is lower than every other shop on this page and it’s worth understanding.

Part of it is volume. Selling a couple of thousand sandwiches a day to people who arrived with Bourdain-level expectations will generate a lot of three-star reviews that are really reviews of a queue.

The other part is September 2023. Over two days, 313 people fell ill after eating there, 103 of them foreign visitors, and 273 were hospitalised. All were discharged. Testing found salmonella and bacillus cereus in several ingredients including the char siu pork.

Quang Nam authorities fined the shop 96 million VND, suspended it for three months and made it cover medical costs. The owner apologised publicly, it reopened, and it has run normally since.

I still eat there. What I took from it applies anywhere in Vietnam: banh mi puts cooked meat, pate and raw vegetables together and then leaves it at room temperature, which is why the country gets a run of these incidents every hot season. Buy it, eat it, don’t carry it around.

Side by Side

	Banh Mi Phuong	Madam Khanh
Address	2B Phan Chau Trinh	115 Tran Cao Van
Opening hours	6:30am – 9pm	6:30am – 10pm, Thursdays to 6pm
Rating	4.3 from 16,600+	4.6 from 11,900+
Price	25,000 – 50,000 VND	around 40,000 VND
Wait at peak	20 – 30 min	5 – 10 min
Better at	Bread	Sauce, chilli oil, speed
Seating	Big room upstairs	Small area
Vegetarian	Not really	Not really

Four Shops I’d Rather Send You To

All four score higher on Google than either famous shop, and three of them are cheaper.

Banh Mi Ha

360 Nguyen Duy Hieu, 4.9. Street chairs inside a Chinese assembly hall. Very generous with the herbs, very cheap, and the one I go back to.

Two warnings: it opens when it opens, and it’s on the opposite side of the road from where the map pin sits.

Banh Mi Co Ba

40/14 Tran Cao Van, 4.9. Down an alley a couple of minutes from Madam Khanh. Family run, proper tofu version, avocado for 10,000 more, and no coriander in anything, which makes it the shop I’d name for vegetarians and for anyone who can’t stand the stuff.

Banh Mi Mr Hieu

644 Hai Ba Trung, 4.9. Air conditioning, indoor seating, cold beer. Crispy pork is the order. It’s pricier than the street shops and it does get tour groups, so go for the room, not the bargain.

Phi Banh Mi

88 Thai Phien, 4.8. The homemade chilli sauce is what people rave about and the meat is marinated overnight. Opinions divide more here than anywhere else on this list, so treat it as a maybe.

Vegetarian and Vegan Banh Mi in Hoi An

Banh Mi Co Ba is the answer for both. There’s a tofu version with cucumber, lettuce and chilli sauce, avocado for 10,000 VND more, and the owner is used to allergy questions. It’s also coriander-free across the board.

Mr Hieu has a decent range of vegetarian fillings if you want a table and air conditioning with it.

Both of the famous shops can do a version without meat if you ask, but neither is really set up for it, and at Phuong in particular you’re explaining yourself in a fast-moving queue.

How I Pick a Banh Mi Shop Anywhere in Hoi An

Any list goes stale, because shops change and the bread changes daily.

Time it around the bread, not around your hunger

Rolls arrive or come out of the oven in batches, early morning and again mid to late afternoon. A banh mi built on a roll that’s been under a cloth since ten is a different sandwich.

If you’re standing in front of a shop at three and the bread pile looks tired, come back at five.

Time it around the bread not around your hunger 3 scaled Vietadvisor — Freshly baked batches make or break the sandwich

Time it around the bread not around your hunger 2 scaled Vietadvisor — Freshly baked batches make or break the sandwich

Look at the pate before you order

Pale, smooth, uniform means it came in a tub. Darker, coarser, slightly crumbly means the shop made it.

Hoi An shops use a lot of pate, more than anywhere else in the country, so this is the biggest single tell between an average banh mi and a good one.

Look at the pate before you order 3 scaled Vietadvisor — Dark and coarse: the secret to great banh mi

Look at the pate before you order 2 scaled Vietadvisor — Dark and coarse: the secret to great banh mi

See whether they toast

A pass over charcoal or a grill firms the crust and warms the pate through. Phuong does it, most of the small shops do it, and the ones that don’t tend to be the ones set up for coaches.

Time it around the bread not around your hunger scaled Vietadvisor — Good banh mi is always toasted first

See whether they toast the banh mi 2 scaled Vietadvisor — Good banh mi is always toasted first

Take the sauce on the side if you’re going anywhere with it

The Hoi An style is wet. This is the mistake I see most often, and the bread is the part you’re paying for.

Which One, Depending on What Time It Is

Seven or eight in the morning: Phuong. Fresh bread, no queue, and the best version of that shop.
Lunchtime: Madam Khanh, or one of the four above.
Nine at night: Madam Khanh, unless it’s Thursday, when she closes at six. Phuong’s opening hours end at nine.
Thursday evening: Mr Hieu or Phi, both open into the evening.
If you’ve only got one: Madam Khanh, chilli oil on the side.
If you’re here three days: Madam Khanh first, Phuong early the next morning, then Banh Mi Ha on day three once you’ve got the two famous ones to compare against.

If you’re here for three days there’s no reason not to eat at both. Eat Phuong first, at lunchtime, after half an hour in a queue, and you’ll form your whole opinion of Hoi An banh mi from the worst version of the best-known shop. Everything after gets measured against it, which is how people end up saying the banh mi here is overrated.

If you want the wider food picture, the dish-by-dish version is in my Hoi An food guide, the sit-down places are in my five Hoi An restaurants, and what’s open when Madam Khanh isn’t is in the Hoi An at night guide.

Best banh mi in Hoi An: Banh Mi Phuong vs. Madam Khanh?

Why I’d Go to Madam Khanh

Banh Mi Phuong Hoi An: What the Queue Is For

The Banh Mi Phuong menu, and what to order

Why the Banh Mi Phuong reviews sit at 4.3, and the 2023 food poisoning

Side by Side