Chinatown Pharmacy Is No Longer in the Pork-Sandwich Business
We’re with Jonathan Lethem when he says that bánh mìs — the cheap Vietnamese baguette sandwiches usually stuffed with pork, pork, pork, and some veggies for good measure — are as vital to keeping working artists in the city as affordable rents. Which is why we’re sad to report the removal of the bánh mì counter in the Tú Quynm Pharmacy (also a CD shop) on the corner of Grand Street and Bowery — certainly the most bizarrely situated one if you discount Báhn Mì Saigon, located in the back of a nearby jewelry store. If this was your pâté chã go-to, know there are other sandwich fixes within a few blocks — namely Saigon, Viet-Nam Banh Mi So 1, and Paris Sandwich, which also serves waffles! But really, we’ll miss being able to fill a prescription for our heart meds while loading up on pork.
Related: Jonathan Lethem Fuels His Writing With ‘White Trash’ Sandwiches
NewsFeed
The Brooklyn Food Mag You Should Be ReadingEdible Brooklyn’s summer issue just landed in our mailbox, and, as usual, we can’t get over how good it is. The Edible… series publishes magazines about regional food around the country, but we’ve looked at some of the others and they’re strictly from hunger. However, Brooklyn is right to have a better food magazine than, say, Missoula. But we’re proud that, rather than the semi-literate foodie ‘zine we would expect, editor Gabrielle Langholtz’s staff of one somehow manages to regularly compile so much good editorial and visual content for each issue. This issue’s includes a tour of Jonathan Lethem’s refrigerator, a mouthwatering profile of a live poultry market, and a big profile of Prospect Park’s food concessions by Grub Street regular Zoe Singer. After all that, there’s a piece on LeNell’s private-label rye whiskey, and a panegyric to Frankies 457 Spuntino, published alongside an almost pornographic photo essay featuring meatballs. When you think how lame the glossy food magazines are these days, you have to wonder what their excuse is.
Edible Brooklyn [Official site]
