Tiger Bread Bakery & Café — Restaurant in Melbourne

Bizarre racist experience.

Context: I’m Vietnamese- both parents are Vietnamese- and, like them, I’m specifically South Vietnamese, which I’m guessing from their work chit-chat.

Saw a limited time promotion for discounted Viet iced coffee. So, heck yeah. “One Vietnamese iced coffee please”.

The workers mostly spoke in Vietnamese while working, making disparaging comments about Chinese people and calling them bullies. I ignored it, the donuts looked more interesting & I don’t have full context, maybe a worker is mixed Chinese & this was their in-joke banter?

But when my drink was ready, this one woman was holding my drink hostage. Spoke to me slowly and aggressively: “This is a promotional price, AND IT WILL END. The full price will be $5.50.” She repeated this twice, rephrased, then added: “IF YOU BUY THIS AGAIN IT WILL BE AT THE FULL PRICE.” She wasn’t yelling but was aggressive.

Bemused, I just stood there not responding holding my card out the entire time, not processing the dialogue in the moment. I was expecting- order, ‘$3 please’, swipe & go situation.

Later, it hit me: did they think I was Chinese?? and assumed I’d come back after the promotion demanding the lower price? I can’t confirm about the racism but would bet my savings on it, regardless, super poor customer service.

Cô ơi, xin giữ sự kỳ thị của cô...

It breaks my heart to post this, because I was coming here for years and it was my favourite banh mi in melbourne - i went today for the third time since the new owners, and it has been steadily down hill. Bread is dry, meat is dry, missing the egg butter, not much pate, and i paid for extra meat and seemed to just get extra carrot, because its stuffed with carrot but barely any meat (and extra meat banh mi is now $12) - i dont mind the price but I would hope for fresh meat, generous condiments (pate and butter, which are lacking) and most importantly fresh bread.

I really hope they get it together, because it is a real shame to see it go down hill. I thought it was just an off day, but this is my third try on the new people and its the worst time yet.

Sadly, do not recommend, and would love to know where the previous...

Decided to grab lunch from Tiger Bread Bakery & Cafe today. With every Banh Mi place I go to, I always order the cold meats (listed as ‘Vietnamese Pork Roll’ on their menu) as a baseline.

It was fantastic. The tiger bread crust was nice and crunchy that offered a hint of sweetness where it was caramelised. Bit different to your typical banh mi bakery. Could not fault the mayo, pate and salad.

It will not be your cup of tea if you’re into crispy pork (because it’s not in the menu). Also, the grilled pork roll on their menu is not what westerners will expect, as it’s actually similar to a grilled pork meat loaf aka banh mi nem nuong. The markdowns seen in other reviews are a little unfair.

They probably need to rename that item as the area gets more gentrified so it’s easier to understand for non-Vietnamese...