Komi Banh Mi Bar — Restaurant in Toronto

THE BASICS

There is no shortage of shops in Toronto serving up Banh Mi sandwiches these days. Komi Banh Mi Bar is one of these new shops, but in our opinion they are one of the best entrants onto the scene. Komi’s bright, clean shop is well situated in Bloorcourt Village and offers a range of excellent sandwich and rice platter options at a very reasonable price.

THE SERVICE

These are very friendly folks who take special care to ensure that their made-to-order Banh Mi will keep you coming back for more. While meats are marinated in advance, they are not grilled until an order is placed, so there are no shortcuts. But the quality of the sandwiches make the wait well worth your time.

THE FOOD

We’ve only tried their Banh Mi, an appetizer (their scumptious and very fresh grilled pork sausage roll with peanut sauce for $5.49) and some of their fruit teas. We will be ordering a couple of rice platters the next time we visit.

One of the things that sets Komi apart from the competition is that their baguettes are baked fresh in-house; and the baguettes are perfect and delicious. Komi also offers up very generous servings of meat; these Banh Mi are a full meal for all but the biggest appetites. While all the Banh Mi are delicious, here are our two favourites:

Calvin’s Style Beef is Asian BBQ-style Grade ‘A’ beef with kimchi. The beef is melt-in-your-mouth tender and suffused with delicious BBQ flavour. It’s the most “expensive” item on the menu at $11.49 - worthy every penny!

The Golden Pork Banh Mi is stuffed to overflowing with honey soy grilled pork for a ridiculously low price of only $8.85

DRINKS

Komi has a selection of fruit teas, with the option to add tapioca “bubbles”. You can also adjust the amount of sugar and ice in each tea when you place your order. We had a mango tea on our last visit and it was delicious!

THE PRICE

Komi’s prices are very reasonable, particularly in light of the high quality, fresh and delicious Banh Mi’s that they regularly serve up. These folks deserve to have a line up outside their door; hopefully more people discover them so that...

Be aware that this place prioritizes online/app orders over walk-in ones. If you're a walk-in customer, they absolutely will let your order sit on the counter for many minutes before giving it to you, and you will be able to tell by the temperature of the food when you finally get it.

The irony is that the online orders are prepared too quickly, so those sit on the counter for a long time too. As a walk-in customer, you will have plenty of time to observe this.

The staff seem to have no idea that any of this is a problem. So if they see this: Food doesn't taste as good when it has been sitting out for too long.

I like their food, but if they don't get this sorted I will just give up on the place.

Edit 2 months later: That's it! I'm DONE. Yet again my food, that was supposed to be hot, was handed to me at barely above room temperature because it sat and sat and sat while the delivery orders were processed, even though I was right there in the store. The high staff turnover doesn't help but the owners/managers must simply not care. This place deserves to go out of business. If you must get food from there for some reason, order online! Don't go as a walk-in, you'll get worse food...

Gentrification is in full swing and even immigrant businesses are catching on, and overcharging accordingly. I should have known better that a banh mi place charging over $10 for a sandwich was gonna be a scam, but I figured the food would at least be decent. Without exaggeration, I got the smallest, starchiest Vietnamese spring rolls I have had in my life thus far, by starchy I mean they stuffed it with 90% taro and next to no meat. Vietnamese is one of my favourite cuisines and I've tried many places, so I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about. I kept thinking, where in the world is the flavour in both the spring roll AND the fish sauce it came with? This is the first time I've ever been to a Vietnamese place too with completely CLEAR fish sauce, no chili or garlic pieces in the sauce, see the photo, the only reason there's stuff floating in it is because I took a photo after dipping my spring rolls. I gave 2 stars instead of 1 because of the iced Vietnamese coffee with salted milk foam, which was pretty good, but I was so incredibly disappointed by the food I don't think I'll be giving this business my money again, even...