Banh Mi Cali — Restaurant in Central Core

I have been eating banh mi all my life from Montreal, Edmonton and to many other places. There is an expectation on what it should look and taste like. This review will be a spill of what I think my first experience was impression was and maybe throw in some suggestions. Please don't take it personally as I want you to success.

There is one thing that bothered me was the size of the baguette. The width, height and overall size of their banh mi is non-standard to Vietnamese banh mi and to untrained eyes, they would not suspect anything. The baguette format we are given is not only small (in circumference), but one end of the baguette is cut in half. So really, you will be getting half a baguette. I'm not sure about you, but it does not feel right that one end of the banh mi is intact while the other end, it was cut off like someone took at bite out of it and they had to cut it to make it look neat. I strongly suggest the store use a standard banh mi baguette size that is not cut in half. Note that the middle should be larger than the ends and it should look impressive. I also would not suggest having a French roll bun size baguette. Keep it standard for any banh mi you get to ease production and not use 2 sizes as a way to charge more for less.

Regarding the prices, well, I can say that each banh mi is priced at the higher range of a typical banh mi. It's not like there is lobster, caviar or truffle inside them to justify the high in price. A banh mi should not be priced like it was a full meal as it is a snack. So, $8.50 to $9.50 is a bit too expensive when the average price is right now around $5 to $6. Again, for someone who does not buy banh mi often, they would not know that they will be paying a premium price for them.

So, I ordered the house special and charcoaled beef baguette-size banh mi. For the house special banh mi, ok, they put a lot of meat and of acceptable size inside the small baguette. The taste of the meat is ok, the pâté is ok and the butter like spread is so-so. The spread should look yellowish and taste amazing on its own. The charcoaled beef banh mi was different and possibly and in-house speciality. The taste was ok as I was expecting the taste and smell of charcoaled meat, but did not however. That banh mi had a premium price of $9.50.

Another thing that is very important is to ask the customer if they wat hot pepper / chilli in their banh mi. Some people can take the heat, but if the banh mi is for kids, they will need to dig the chilis out before eating the banh mi. Furthermore, there needs to be an option to grill our banh mi if we want as it is much better when the baguette is crispy. Again, if you will eliminate the "mini" baguette size, the menu would be simplified and not feel repetitive.

So, what can this store do to get more customers and more importantly, repeat customers? My suggestion is reducing the price per banh mi and make us feel like we are getting a lot to eat. I don't think that I would want to pay more if I can get a similar banh mi elsewhere. This is almost like a speciality shop, sort of like a bubble tea shop, so you may want to see if starting a loyalty card type of thing is worth it where customers can buy 9 banh mi and get their 10th one for free. Many people may keep going back to rack up 9 banh mi purchases just to get their...

I called in advance to place my order this morning shortly after they opened. I was told my order would be ready in 30 minutes. I arrived at the time given. There was 1 person ahead of me in line and a few people waiting for their orders when I arrived. The owner (wearing sunglasses, ball cap and not wearing a mask) was standing at the till on his phone clearly trying to take a photo to post on social media. After a minute or two, he finally acknowledged the line then proceeded to take an order from someone who was not standing in the line. After that order, he took out an electronic cigarette, took a vape and without washing his hands attended to the line. The person ahead of me was told they are out of bread and had to wait 20 minutes for their order. When my turn came up, I told him I was there to pick up my phone order, the owner pointed to the cart of raw dough and said like the guy ahead of me, I had to wait 20 minutes before the bread would be ready.

This is not the first time they are out of bread. I have called in my order 2 other times in the past and told they are out of bread and would need to wait for fresh bread.

I tried their vietnamese subs before - while the price point is slightly above average, the taste is quite different from other places in the city offering a contemporary fusion take on a classic Vietnamese staple. I was quite excited for this addition to the Edmonton food scene.

However, I will not be back again. I don't understand how a sub place frequently runs out of bread - it shows the business is poorly run and lacking time management. But most importantly, I question the food standards and hygiene if the owner can vape in front of his customers inside the store.

The city bylaws indicate that "smoking is not be allowed on or within: Any patio or building (buildings include those that are publicly or privately owned, to which members of the public have access, such as stores and restaurants)"

I hope the owner looks at these poor reviews and uses it as an opportunity to better...

Not sure if this has happened to anyone else, but wanted to share my experience to warn others.

Let me start by saying that Bahn Mi Cali was our favorite bahn mi place. We do the 40km round trip whenever we are craving it.

However, we placed an order on Saturday at 4:15pm through the website (seems to be powered by Doordash). The order was immediately accepted by the restaurant and we got a confirmation email showing we could pick it ip at 4:35-4:45pm. We arrived at 4:45pm and the restaurant was closed. We called and left messages, knocked on the door. No one. Even though the website and the sign on the door said they were open until 5pm. We were charged $57 for the 5 sandwiches we ordered. I promptly emailed the restaurant requesting a refund. 2 full days goes by with no response, so I call them back again on Monday evening. He put me on hold as he searched for my order number. He then proceeded to tell me that he could not find my order, and he was in Calgary on the weekend and the store was closed both Saturday and Sunday and he doesn't know why my order was accepted (which is VERY interesting because I gave him the order number before telling him what day it was). I asked him to initiate a refund. He refused and implied that it was not his problem that I was charged for an order we didn't receive.

Luckily Door Dash located the order immediately and refunded us.

Not sure what Bahn Mi Cali's end game is here... but it sure doesn't sit right with me. I reckon it is some sort of scam-- they accept the order with no intention of fulfilling it and if you don't go through the hassle of initiating a refund with doordash, the store keeps the money.

Needless to say, we will never come...