Banh Mi Near Me in Rosemead: Mr. Baguette, Huell Howser's Valley Boulevard Stop

Mr. Baguette bakes its own French baguettes and makes its own ham, pork meatloaf and head cheese, then builds every banh mi to order at 8702 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770, near the corner of Walnut Grove Avenue. The counter opens at 6 am and closes at 6 pm every day of the week, and the house #1 Special costs $8.49. For anyone typing banh mi near me between Rosemead and El Monte at breakfast time, this is the bakery where the bread itself is the reason to come.

The shop sits on the Valley Boulevard commercial strip in Rosemead, with Walnut Grove Avenue as its nearest cross street, roughly a block west of Rosemead City Hall and the county library. Metro Line 76 runs along Valley Boulevard and stops at Valley and Walnut Grove, so riders coming from Alhambra, San Gabriel or El Monte can step off almost at the door and be back on a bus with a warm sandwich in a few minutes.

Drivers get a small private lot, which one longtime regular credits for making the shop easy to reach, but another recent reviewer warned that it can get very busy with limited spaces in that lot. The same first-timer mentioned small groups of men who gather outside to smoke, not uncomfortable but worth knowing if you plan to eat on the spot. Most customers simply take their order back to the car.

The company says its journey started in 2003 with a plan to bring authentic Paris-style baguettes to Southern California with a French-Vietnamese touch. When Huell Howser filmed an episode of Visiting at this Rosemead shop in 2005, he said he had come because Jonathan Gold was raving about the sandwiches in the LA Weekly. The episode still streams on PBS and is listed in the Huell Howser Archives at Chapman University.

On camera, president and CEO Brian Tang and his colleague Quan Ho explained that Tang had come from the jewelry business and that his family in France owned about 45 stores. Asked how much they sold, Tang answered 5,000 a day, minimum, and Ho put the crowd at more than 1,000 customers daily. The menu was already in English and Vietnamese, and a vegetarian ham banh mi was on it even then.

Twenty years on, the original Rosemead counter has three siblings: Monterey Park on Atlantic Boulevard, South El Monte on Garvey Avenue and Westminster in Orange County. The company now runs a central commissary and says it makes its bread, pastries, meats and drinks in-house rather than buying them in. Food writer Cathy Chaplin noted back in 2009 that the shop charged a dollar more than its neighbours because of those loaves, and judged the splurge worthwhile.

The #1 Special, which the shop calls its most popular sandwich, is 12 inches of ham, pork meatloaf, fromage de tete, pate and mayo with pickled salad, chili, cilantro and cucumber, for $8.49. The #2 Pate and Pork Meatloaf, #7 Ham Lua and #8 Pate and Ham sit at the same $8.49. The #3 Saigon Bacon pairs Saigon-style pork belly with pork meatloaf for $9.74 and is listed as one of the top sellers.

Hot fillings start with #5 Grilled Pork, julienned and marinated with a hint of lemongrass, at $9.74, and the hand-rolled pork #6 Meatball in marinara, also $9.74, which skips the pickled salad and cucumber. The #9 Lemongrass Beef costs $10.99. Every sandwich comes on the classic crisp French baguette; switching to the sesame or the soft buttery French loaf adds $1, and a croissant adds $3.

Vegetarians get three choices at $8.99 each: #15 veggie ham made in-house with a touch of veggie sauce, #16 veggie turkey and the newest, #17 shredded veggie chicken. Breakfast sandwiches run from the #14 Pate and Egg at $8.49 to the #11 Ham and Egg, #12 Cheese and Egg and #13 Meatloaf and Egg at $9.49. All of them are wrapped with chili and cilantro, so ask to leave the chili off for children.

Plenty of people never order a sandwich. A plain French baguette costs $2.00, and a sesame baguette or soft French loaf costs $3.50. One reviewer comes solely for the sesame loaves, made fresh through the day, and carries them home to go with dinner. The pate chaud meat pies, in pork or chicken, are $4.50 and are described by the shop as a morning crowd favourite.

The iced milk coffee or black iced French coffee is $6.50 for a 6-ounce concentrate, with whipped cream for 50 cents more, and the hot version is $4.79 for 8 ounces. In 2005 Tang told Howser the blend mixed French and Italian beans, and a regular at the counter told Howser it beat the coffee he remembered from Vietnam. Thai tea, fresh orange juice and mango or strawberry smoothies are $6.00 each.

The newest item is the baguette roll, a bite-sized loaf sold in sets in the store. The A set at $9.49 lets you pick three mini sandwiches from the cold cut, egg and veggie list, and the B set at $10.49 swaps one of those for Saigon bacon, smoked bacon, grilled pork, meatball or lemongrass beef. It is the easiest way for two people to taste several fillings without buying three footlongs.

The customer mix has barely changed since Howser filmed. In the episode a couple loaded up for a drive to Santa Barbara, explaining the sandwiches hold up for half a day, and a man born in Vietnam to Chinese parents ordered nine to take home for his family. A student from across the street said she walked in because she could smell the bread. Today the to-go menu sells duck liver pate for $5.50, house mayonnaise for $3.00 and pork meatloaf for $4.50.

Skip the American-style sandwiches numbered in the twenties. They swap the pickled carrot, daikon and cilantro for lettuce and tomato, put the pickle and mustard on the side, and cost $10.99 to $11.99, or $2.50 more than the #1. Be aware, too, that a few recent reviewers found the crust too hard and the fillings dry. Ask for extra pate and mayo, and eat the hot-filling sandwiches first if you are buying for a car trip.

If the lot is full or the line backs up to the door, cross Valley Boulevard to Lee's Sandwiches, which Google lists from 5 am to 9 pm on Mondays, three hours past Mr. Baguette's closing time. One longtime Mr. Baguette regular says the meat portions here are bigger than the few slices at Lee's, so it is a fallback rather than an upgrade. The company's own South El Monte branch on Garvey Avenue keeps the same 6 am to 6 pm hours.

A short walk east along Valley Boulevard leads to the Rosemead Library, which moved to its current building next to Rosemead City Hall in May 1967. Its roots go back to June 1916, when the Savannah Branch of the county library opened in one room of a school at Valley Boulevard and Rio Hondo Avenue. The library burned down twice, in 1921 and 1927, before settling here, and reopened after a refurbishment on May 31, 2011.

The library houses LA County Library's Asian Pacific Resource Center, a Spanish-language collection, a tool lending library and an EV charging station, and it sells Metro TAP cards. It opens noon to 8 pm Tuesday and Wednesday and 10 am to 6 pm Thursday through Saturday, and is closed Sunday and Monday. That makes a Saturday morning sandwich followed by an hour in the reading room an easy, free half-day.

Mr. Baguette, 8702 Valley Blvd, Rosemead, CA 91770, near Walnut Grove Avenue. Open 6 am to 6 pm daily. Counter service with takeout; small private parking lot; Metro Line 76 stops at Valley and Walnut Grove. The online ordering page through Clover asks you to select a pickup time. Party trays need a minimum of 10 sandwiches, which can be cut into halves or thirds with vegetables inside or on the side. Phone the shop to set one up.