To visit my brand new nephew, I had to take a trip to america’s heartland – Columbus, OH. When I landed, we headed right out for a quick lunch at North Market. It’s like the West Side Market in Cleveland, or the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, or like a ghetto version of the Ferry Building. But then every market is a ghetto version compared to Ferry Building. There is a farmers market outside on Saturdays. Inside, there are a wide variety of food vendors.

My bro picked out Lac Viet, a little vietnamese counter. Their menu only has thirteen items, which is awesome. The more focus, the better! They also have a proper restaurant in the suburbs. The prices here are dirt cheap. Their banh mi is supposed to be out of this world.

It was a thousand degrees out so I could not bring myself to eat pho. But my nutjob of a brother did. Yum! The broth was great, which is always my sign for excellent pho.

I ended up having something I’ve never had before. I love vermicelli bowls, and I equally love rice plates. But I always get one or the other. On the Lac Viet menu, the vermicelli bowl/rice plate items are listed as being together with a particular topping, with your choice of rice/noodles. I thought this was for picking either rice or noodles. So I ordered grilled chicken with noodles. Then he replied with, so no rice? And I said no, just noodles. And then I said, wait, I can get both? And he said of course! I didn’t know you could do this! So that’s what I got in the end, a combination vermicelli bowl/rice plate with grilled chicken. And damn, it was glorious. There were noodles, broken rice, all the veggies that come with the vermicelli bowls, nuoc cham, and heaps of delicious grilled chicken. It was a surprising delight! Now, every time I go to a vietnamese place, I’m going to want this!

We didn’t get to eat a proper lunch in ohio, so we had to eat a little snack before heading back to Indiana. My bro lives in Columbus, so I asked him where toe at. He pointed us to his favorite sushi spot but when we got there, it hadn’t opened yet. We could not wait one more minute to eat, so we hopped on over to the Tim Hortons instead. J got two little egg salad wraps. I got a turkey sandwich on a bagel. And a donut. Don’t forget about the donut. My sandwich was awesome, by the way. It had some delicious honey mustard on it, much to my surprise.
I told you this is a coffee place, so similar to our dunkin donuts, you can get your own tim hortons roasts and brew it at home.