Saigon Sandwich is a tiny, perpetually busy counter on Larkin Street in the Tenderloin's Little Saigon, and one of the city's most beloved banh mi shops. The Vietnamese sandwiches — crusty baguette filled with pâté, cold cuts or grilled meat, pickled carrot and daikon, cucumber, cilantro, and chilli — are made fast, taste fresh, and cost only a few dollars, which is why the line often spills onto the pavement.
There is essentially nowhere to sit; this is grab-and-go food. Order, pay cash, and eat on the move or take a bag back to a bench. The few blocks of Larkin Street around it form the heart of San Francisco's Little Saigon, dense with Vietnamese restaurants and shops — a reminder that the Tenderloin, for all its hardships, is also a vital immigrant neighbourhood.