“We’re banh mi lovers,” says Susan Diep, co-owner with her husband Michael of Wow Banh Mi on Oldham Road. “This is the dream of our family. We always wanted to have a Vietnamese place so we could share how bánh mì should taste.”
For those unfamiliar with this particularly exceptional sandwich, it’s a fusion of Vietnamese and French cuisines, first created when Vietnam was under French colonial rule in the 1860s.
The French, of course, brought with them the baguette. Initially a luxury item, due to the high price of wheat, the Vietnamese began adding cheaper rice flour to the mix, the added bonus of which being that it made the bread fluffier.
Original fillings were more along the lines of the traditional French jambon-buerre, or pâté. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the bánh mì began taking on Vietnamese flavours, though it kept some of the French influence with the use of pâté.
Now they’re stuffed with everything from crisp pork belly to roast chicken to fried tofu, and always with the addition of pickled carrots, daikon radish, coriander and hot sauce.
Wow Banh Mi are, obviously, expert practitioners of this king of sandwiches, serving them from a pretty ‘kiosk’ inside their restaurant on Oldham Road, which opened in late 2023.
Susan and Michael have lived in Manchester for more than 40 years, with Michael working in banking IT and Susan running her own nail salon and beauty businesses. But this was their passion project.
They’ve since made a place for themselves in this area of town, which is increasingly home to some of the best east and south-east Asian food in the city, with cuisine from Hong Kong to Vietnam to Thailand.
It’s not all about the sandwiches, of course.
The Vietnamese national dish of phở is also expertly executed here too; huge, steaming bowls of soup with noodles, tofu, meatballs, brisket and seafood, as well as fresh summer rolls, papaya salad and traditional Saigon-style ‘broken rice’ with served with a pork chop and a fried egg.
There’s also a massive range of bubble and milk teas, from salted yolk and cheese teas to the ever-popular matcha.
One of the increasingly great food neighbourhoods in Manchester – sometimes referred to as Little Hanoi – Susan and Michael’s place is a real gem. Seek it out.
Order through Uber Eats and you can buy one, get one free on summer rolls, chicken skewers bánh mì, salt & pepper tofu bánh mì from 3-19 July.
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