Tien Hung Market & Deli on West Colonial Drive is one of those places that does two things at once without apology: it’s a full Vietnamese grocery on one side and a small counter-service deli on the other, and both halves are worth your time.
I found it by accident a few years ago, hungry and a little turned around in the Lakeview Village strip mall corridor west of downtown — that stretch of Colonial where the signage gets denser and the food gets better. I stopped in for a soda and left with a banh mi that made me reroute my lunch plans for the next six months.
The sandwich is the reason most people make the trip. It’s built on a proper French roll — light crust, airy interior — and stuffed with your choice of protein. I almost always get the classic combination, which layers a few kinds of Vietnamese pork cold cuts with pâté, pickled daikon and carrot, cucumber, jalapeño, and cilantro. The ratio is right. Nothing overwhelms anything else. The whole thing runs somewhere around four to five dollars depending on what you add, which is either the best deal in Orlando or close to it.
If you go on a weekday morning, the deli counter is usually quieter and the rolls are freshest. Weekend afternoons can get crowded — mostly Vietnamese families and regulars from the neighborhood doing their grocery shopping — so the deli line moves slower. I’ve done both and honestly don’t mind the wait. There are worse things than standing in a Vietnamese grocery store deciding whether to pick up a bottle of fish sauce or some pandan leaf extract while your sandwich gets made.
Beyond the banh mi, the deli also does hot foods — congee, bún bò Huế on certain days, and a rotating short list of prepared dishes by the pound that vary week to week. I’ve had the braised pork belly over rice and it was exactly what it needed to be: fatty, savory, a little sweet, with enough sauce to make the rice worthwhile. These dishes are displayed in the steam trays near the counter and usually sell out by early afternoon, so earlier is better if you want options.
The grocery side is worth a slow walk if you cook at all. The produce section carries produce I can’t find easily elsewhere in the city — bitter melon, long beans, fresh turmeric, taro in various forms. The dry goods aisles are dense with Southeast Asian pantry staples, and the prices on things like rice, noodles, and sauces are noticeably lower than what you’d pay at a mainstream grocery. I regularly pick up my fish sauce, tamarind paste, and rice paper here.
Parking in the lot is usually fine, though it fills up on Saturdays. The deli counter doesn’t take reservations, obviously — you walk up, point at what you want, and pay cash (they do accept cards now, but cash is faster). Dress is whatever you’re wearing. Nobody is performing anything here.
West Colonial has a lot of Vietnamese restaurants and markets along it, and I’m not claiming Tien Hung is the only place worth knowing. But for a quick, inexpensive lunch with quality that consistently holds up, it’s where I send people first. Four dollars and a ten-minute stop is a reasonable ask, and the payoff is real.
