Green Cilantro

Came to eat dinner today Tuesday January 5, 2016 at 6:37pm when they are supposed to be open to find out they are closed lights off and all. No info about why.

Nothing special. I was expecting a great tasting banh mi sandwich, but it was just disappointing. I even had chicken bones in my sub. Friendly worker, but will go elsewhere next time. :(

A nice little Vietnamese restaurant with a small billboard menu.
Cold cut banh mi sandwich…3.5 stars. There are basically two types of baguettes used in banh mi sandwiches; one with a thicker crust and denser interior (your typical French baguette), and the other, a lighter crust and interior (more reminiscent of a toasted hoagie). Green Cilantro uses the later. All the proper ingredients are present: pork loaf, liver pâté, fish sauce, jalapeños, pickled carrots and dicon, and of course, cilantro. Thank goodness there’s no cheese… must be a Calgary/​Canada thing? However, GC does add a fried egg. This can either be good or bad but it did not influence my rating, as you may request to have it omitted. For the record, I kept it… wasn’t use to it… didn’t care for it. A fried egg in a burger seems like a no brainer, but mixed with fish sauce and liver pâté was just a bit too weird for my palate (it goes better with the sate and grilled meats)…others may enjoy it. My only gripe was the pork loaf… GC has theirs cut into sticks instead of the traditional deli-​style slices. When they do this, you won’t get pork with every bite (unless you’ve got a big mouth) and it feels like there isn’t enough of it, either. A decent sandwich but not the best.
Spring rolls…5 stars. One of the best egg rolls/​spring rolls I’ve had in a Vietnamese restaurant here in Calgary. No cabbage filler here! They’re not wrapped with the traditional rice paper, but with the typical flour wrappers. The egg rolls are filled with ground pork and carrots, the way they SHOULD be! Glass noodles are usually part of the mix but I can’t remember seeing any. These are small egg rolls but definitely worth buying. The accompanying dipping sauce is much spicier than most, so be careful if you can’t stand the heat.
Won ton soup…5 stars. Doesn’t get any better than this. When you can smell the dish in front of you, that’s usually a good sign. The broth is clear but full of flavor. The won tons are even better; some of the most flavored won tons I’ve ever had… you could say they’re a little heavy on the sesame oil but that only enhances the flavor of the shrimp and pork filling, so I’m okay with that.
Sate Chicken vermicelli…2 stars. Despite a vermicelli sauce that’s absent of the usual pieces of carrots and pepper flakes floating about, all the ingredients you’d expect to see and taste are present. GC uses the thicker variety of vermicelli noodles, almost spaghetti-​like. I prefer the shoe string variety cause they’re not as slippery and hold the sauce better, but to each his/​her own. The biggest issue with this dish is the sate chicken. I don’t know if it’s the marinade or the cooking (or both), but the chicken has an awful color to them. They weren’t whitish or even yellowish but rather greyish… i almost mistook them for pork! Whatever they did to the chicken it wasn’t good. Nor did they taste very good. This would easily have been a 5 star dish had they charbroiled or grilled the protein.
To be continued…