A popular restaurant serving standard Vietnamese fare, Hello Banh Mi is located in the suburb of Mount Maunganui, near Tauranga in New Zealand. It is on a busy pedestrian street, and occupies two shop fronts, giving a lot of indoor seating. It was quite popular when we visited on a Saturday. We tried a variety of dishes, and thought it was OK.
It hadn't gone too busy when we stopped in right after opening, so got a chance to peruse their focused menu. One orders and pays upfront, and the food is delivered to you as it is finished. It had the standard Vietnamese favorites:
Roasted Pork Banh Mi (NZ$15) - This was an interesting sandwich, where the protein was basically roasted pork belly, very similar to Filipino Lechon. The meat was very good and provided in a decent amount. The bread was obviously freshly baked, very light and crispy. The vegetables didn't add the necessary zing and snap like it should...it didn't really seemed pickled. It also didn't come with pate...we later realized that we needed to ask for it, and would have added a lot to this sandwich.
Garlic Butter Prawn Banh Mi (NZ$17) - Would choose a different variation of meat, if had to do-over. The filling were lightly cooked sliced whole prawns, very delicate but had little flavor. Couldn't tell that it had garlic in it, except for the name.
Rare Beef Pho (NZ$21) - the weakest of the 4 dishes, it had well cooked pieces of food-grade beef. The broth was OK, decent beef flavor but a bit greasy. It definitely could have used the usual accompaniments: it had a decent amount of bean sprouts, but were missing the lemon and especially the Thai basil.
Prawn Pineapple Fried Rice (NZ$24) - the most tasty of the dishes, it was an OK amount with a decent amount of shrimp and a bit of pineapple.
Service was OK...the only wish was that the food would have come out more together more, or maybe just in a different order (with the fried rice coming out first instead of being served well after the other dishes had been already eaten). The quantity was OK as well. There is free self-serve tap water in front, and complementary wi-fi for customers. To their credit, all the food was still hot when served, which we appreciated. By the time we were done, the indoor dining space was fully occupied, signifying the popularity of this restaurant. It's definitely the location with the heavy foot traffic that serves it well. read more