How to Find Good Banh Cuon

Viet gateway foods include pho noodle soup, banh mi sandwiches, and goi cuon rice paper rolls. Now it’s time to add a fourth dish -- banh cuon steamed rice sheets. It's been on my mind for a while and this past week, the Los Angeles Times published my story on one of the Vietnamese favorite.

As a “Banh Cuon 101” it is a primer that gives people the low-down on a great Vietnamese dish, plus, it spotlights several spots to find it in the granddaddy of Little Saigons located in Southern California’s Orange County. I grew up there and grew up reading the Los Angeles Times “Food” section. It’s been a few years since I wrote for them so this banh cuon primer holds special meaning for me.

People then started asking where they can find banh cuon in other places. A few referenced eating banh cuon in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, there are vendors on the street (the lady above operated on a sidewalk in Saigon) or cooks in tiny shops that specialize in the traditional steamed version of the thin rice sheets. Banh cuon in Vietnam is perfect for a casual snack. That’s not the case in America.

As the title of the LA Times piece says, I covered a lot of banh cuon territory but for those of you who want to know how to apply the Little Saigon lessons to your own situation and location, these tips will help you.

Where to look for Banh Cuon

Banh cuon takes a certain level of craftsmanship so it’s not as easy as making a sandwich or rice paper roll. For that reason, it’s limited to areas where there is a sizeable Vietnamese-American population. As the list below indicates (obtained from Wikipedia), most of the big Vietnamese-American communities are in California. There are over 140,000 Vietnamese Americans in the Garden Grove, Westminster, Santa Ana, Anaheim, and Fountain Valley area. Those are neighboring cities, too!

Vietnamese people can be found practically anywhere there’s a nail salon but when it comes to banh cuon, you need a community or Little Saigon sort of place with enough demand and labor. I scoped out a few Little Saigon spots in the O.C. for the Los Angeles Times piece. Here’s how I start when I'm looking for banh cuon spots – Google the name of the city and then banh cuon, then filter them.

How to narrow your choices

Among the search results, prioritize places with “banh cuon” in the business name. For example, “Los Angeles banh cuon” led me to Banh Cuon Hainam Saigon in Alhambra (near Los Angeles).The fact that banh cuon is in the name means they specialize in it.

Doing a similar search in Falls Church, Virginia, I found Banh Cuon Saigon and Banh Cuon Thang Long, which are near each other so they must compete. Viet businesses love competition.

Note that misleading results may come up if a Viet restaurant menu includes banh mi and goi cuon. That was the case when I search for banh cuon in New York and New Jersey. To be sure, peruse the menu for banh cuon.

Banh Cuong Tay Ho will likely pop up among search results too. That’s because it is a franchise with locations in many Viet areas in America. For that reason, the menu is similar but the consistency wavers from location to location. Banh cuon is awkwardly translated as “flour sheet roll” by Tay Ho so you have to get over it.

“Lo Banh Cuon” should get an extra star because it signals a place that specializes in banh cuon on a quasi-industrial level. In Vietnamese, lo (say "law") means oven and signals a place where a craft and/or trade is practiced. For example, “lo banh mi” should excel at making Viet-style bread!

At a lo banh cuon, you should be able to buy by the pound but also grab pre-packaged deals like the ones above.

"Banh Cuon Thanh Tri" promises good things. Any banh cuon business that offers Thanh Tri-style rice sheets (via their name or on the menu) should produce super thin, northern Vietnamese style rice sheets from the village of Thanh Tri near Hanoi. It’s the mark of banh cuon craftsmanship in the minds of Viet banh cuon aficionados.

Below is a Thanh Tri style rice sheet I purchased from Banh Cuon Luu Luyen in Southern California's Little Saigon. Note its translucency.

A San Jose example is Banh Cuon Thanh Tri. Not as obvious in Houston is Thien Thanh – which popped up on Yelp for banh cuon and on closer inspection of their signage provided by Justin, it’s a Thanh Tri specialist.

Alternative Banh Cuon Sources

There are restaurants that don’t scream banh cuon in their business names, but you may see banh cuon or banh uot on their menus. When you do, order it because it’s unusual and they may do a great job.

Examples include: Quan Hy on Bolsa in Little Saigon has great central-Viet style banh uot thit nuong (below) but know that on weekdays, they often run out by the end of the lunch rush. At Ba Bar in Seattle, they soak and grind rice for the batter, which is why their banh cuon program is only at certain locations on certain days.

You may want noodle soup at Pho Tau Bay LTT in Santa Ana, CA, but it advertises on the front window that there's "banh cuon trang tay" (banh cuon made by hand). The couple below shared a big bowl of pho and an order of banh cuon!

Aside from restaurants and formal banh cuon shops, you may come across banh cuon at Vietnamese tofu shops, delis and bakeries where you’d get banh mi. In such situations, you’ll see grab-and-go banh cuon packaged in containers for a convenient meal. Inspect to see what the fillings are – pork and mushroom, shrimp, or plain rice sheets.

They’re not going to be super duper fresh like you'd get from a lo banh cuon or a banh cuon restaurant. But, they are fine to eat at room temperature if they are soft. Otherwise, transfer the banh cuon to a plate and microwave them for about 30 seconds until barely warm.

Homemade Banh Cuon

I grew up on and still gobble up my mom’s homemade banh cuon, which she bangs out in small (8-inch) nonstick skillets. She currently uses my recipe in Into the Vietnamese Kitchen on page 270, in case you have the book. When we first came to America, she didn’t have access to rice flour and used cake flour, as you may have read in Vietnamese Food Any Day.

Nowadays, her skillet banh cuon are gluten-free and delicious. We go out for banh cuon but we also adore her homemade ones, which are generously filled with pork, shrimp, and mushroom; in the photo above, the banh cuon toppings include homemade matchstick-cut gio lua silky sausage, chicken breast floss , cilantro and Trader Joe's fried onion.

Homemade rice sheets are thicker and more rustic, but they taste good too. I’ve successfully made steamed ones but they’re super laborious so I’m fine with the skillet kind!

I don’t mind getting all the banh cuon I possibly can. Hopefully, this guide will help you source your own too.

If you have favorite banh cuon spots (or comments on the places mentioned above), please share your experiences.