a chicken sandwich, bitten into, not nearly as nice a picture as tasty as the sandwich isThere’s been an explo­sion of Viet­namese places to eat in Welling­ton in recent years and we are def­i­nite­ly not com­plain­ing about that. But with so many options, how do you choose where to go?

For this post, I’m going to com­pare two places that are right by each oth­er on The Ter­race. Both are around $8 and offer deli­cous­ly crusty baugettes. But I often walk past Nam D at 43 the Ter­race and laugh at the queues. Suck­ers, don’t you know there’s bet­ter Bánh mì to be had two doors down with­out the crowds?

A dis­claimer: I don’t like pâté. So I don’t want it on my sand­wich. If you do like it, how­ev­er, you might pre­fer to go to Nam D where it’s offered as stan­dard on all of their sand­wich­es. Wraps & Rolls , mean­while, only offer it on their tra­di­tion­al pork option (as opposed to the grilled chick­en, grilled beef, grilled pork or braised pork). And Nam D do also put home­made but­ter on their rolls, and Lorde knows I love but­ter.

But while they heat the bread with the but­ter, Nam D does­n’t cook their meat fresh so it’s served cold. At Wraps & Rolls, they’ll grill your meat and have you out the door in the same amount of time it takes to reach the front of the queue at Nam D. And they’ll put chilli sauce on your order, instead of throw­ing in jalapenos.

Plus, if a sand­wich isn’t enough, you can grab some of their sum­mer rolls, or deep fried good­ness in the form of chick­en karaage or spring rolls from the cab­i­net. Mean­while at Nam D, their spe­cials of the day includ­ing things like prawns will be piled up on the counter. Sure they may go fast, but would­n’t you rather that your seafood was kept chilled?

Nam D has the advan­tage of being eat-in, and offer­ing smooth­ies and Viet­namese cof­fee. And it looks pret­ti­er, all sleek blonde wood and artis­ti­cal­ly piled-up cans. And you can get a longer sand­wich rather than just extra fill­ings if you wan­na upsize. But for me, Wraps & Rolls is the win­ner on the day. Feel free to have at it in the com­ments and tell me how wrong I am though.