City Paper's recent "Annotated Guide to 2011" delves into all sorts of tantalizing topics, including the sudden rise of bánh mì—now "the District’s overpriced and overly Americanized lunch du jour." Read all about it here. How will the Vietnamese hoagie fare in 2012? Stick your predictions in the comments.

Signage posted on the front door at the former Ba Bay this morning only adds to the mystery surrounding the contemporary Vietnamese eatery's sudden demise this week, vaguely attributed to "circumstances beyond our control." A broken water heater can't really be the reason, can it? Photo by Chris Shott

George Washington University's plans to renovate the soon-to-be-vacated Kaiser Permanente offices at 2100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW spells doom for the longstanding Froggy Bottom Pub, home of cheap beer, pizza and pho. At least in its current location. In a year or two. But proprietor Hien Bui tells the GW Hatchet that she is looking for [...]

D.C.'s newest Vietnamese sandwich joint, BONMi, opens at 11 a.m. on Monday at 900 19th Street NW. The operators will be giving away some 2,500 tickets for free lunches to be redeemed after opening week. [UPDATE: A rep for the restaurant clarifies that the free lunch certificates are solely for tenants of the building at [...]

One thing that sets downtown D.C.'s latest bánh mì eatery, the playfully titled BONMi, apart from say, ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen, its Chipotle-backed contemporary: all the meats are prepared sous-vide. That is, sealed in airtight plastic bags and dunked into a warm water bath for hours and hours and hours. "It's probably the healthiest way [...]

“I appreciate the couple of times I was there. I went to local markets—Vietnamese and Thai, and they were all very good. That to me is always great, I love to go to markets.”—Celebrity chef Jacques Pépin, one of several boldface names heading to D.C.'s upcoming Metropolitan Cooking & Entertaining Show, when asked by Washingtonian [...]

Man, it seems like every week there's a new eatery opening along the trendy H Street corridor. This week, The Big Board debuted its gourmet burger selection to the neighborhood. Next week, it's Pho Bar and Grill.  Urban Daddy has the scoop on the "nearly all-hours haven for warm Vietnamese broth," opening Tuesday at 1360 [...]

Hot on the heels of Chipotle's new bánh mì eatery ShopHouse opening in Dupont Circle last week comes word of yet another downtown restaurant dedicated to the Vietnamese sandwich. The cutesy titled BONMi is opening in October at 900 19th St. NW, offering your choice of sous-vide pork, chicken, brisket, tofu or butternut squash atop [...]

Last week, my Young & Hungry colleague Scott Reitz pondered the different variables that influence, skew, and otherwise shape a restaurant review. Well, here's a good working example to dig into: Ba Bay's lunchtime bánh mì sandwich, which Reitz wrote about recently, along with The Washington Post's Tom Sietsema in his First Bite column this [...]

UPDATED: 6:16 p.m. 11/16/2010 Cousins Khoa Nguyen and Denise Nguyen are set to debut their modern Vietnamese restaurant, Ba Bay, tomorrow at its location in the former Locanda space on Capitol Hill. The operation is outfitted with 49 seats, Denise Nguyen warns, but only 35 will be available during its soft opening. The restaurant won't [...]