Banh Mi BA LE Vietnamese Restaurant/1052 Dorchester Ave Dorchester, MA 02125

The Four Dollar Lunch.  Not too common, but that's why I'm here, to find these things for you.  Now let me be clear: Cheap≠Good.  Take Taco Bell, for example.  Point made.  Moving on, this four dollar lunch is actually quite good.  It can be found at at Banh Mi BA LE Vietnamese Food Place.  No, that's not exactly what it's called, but it is more than just a restaurant, but also not quite a restaurant restaurant considering there is not one seat in the place.

So I suppose it is a take-out spot, but with more than one kind of self-serve beef jerky by the pound in big plastic bins, tapioca pudding with yucca and banana, coconut dessert, flan, and green dessert things with bubble tea balls in them in the fridge (oh believe me, that is only the beginning as far as sweets in the fridge goes), sticky rice with pork and things wrapped in banana leaves, Vietnamese Sandwiches, noodle dishes of varying types, hot foods that include fried chicken and ginger chicken, fish dishes, pork and beef dishes, sausages, spring rolls, bubble tea, Vietnamese coffee, I could go on and on because it certainly doesn't stop there, but it really needs to be experienced to understand.  Let's just say they have a lot of bases covered without spreading themselves too thin because, quite frankly, they have run out of room to spread themselves any thinner.  I mainly go here when I realize that it has been two or three weeks since I have eaten a fruit or a vegetable and get the rice noodles with fried tofu, broccoli, green beans, celery, and whatever else they have decided to throw in for the day.  Noodles are served with either soy sauce sauce or fish sauce sauce.  

The shrimp spring rolls are nice and healthy (they offer sausage spring rolls too) and are served with peanut sauce or fish sauce sauce.  The spring rolls are $3 or $4.  They have been in the process of raising prices lately from "how the hell do they make any money at this place" low to just ridiculously low.  I would suggest the chicken wings over the breast.  This breast was pretty greasy, the wings not so much.  The ginger chicken picture does it very little justice.  This stuff is great.  $3 for a small order (the same for an order of wings) or $5 with rice.  The sticky rice is best, but they don't make it all that often.  So that is a lot to take in, I realize, but this little Food Place is a lot to take in in person too.  The good thing about Bahn Mi BA LE is that almost everything I have tried here is good to very good.  The bad, and there is little bad to say, is that even with the huge amount of stuff they serve, they won't necessarily have today what they had yesterday if you happened to like it.  Or the next day, or the next, or the same day next week.  But the good here outweighs the bad by a lot, and chances are that whatever you end up trying will be good.  On top of that, it is quite a sensory experience.