Ba Le Deli & Bakery (Mt.Pleasant) — Restaurant in Vancouver

I live near this shop and often pass by, and I've been really intrigued by the different vegetarian banh mi they offer, but am rarely around at lunch time to try one, but I finally got a chance and wow! I tried their vegetarian lemongrass "chicken" banh mi and it was the most amazing thing. Made with soya chunks, the vegetarian chicken was juicy with a super flavourful sauce. Fresh veggies and bread and good ratio of filling to bread. The sauce made it messy, but that wasn't a bad thing. I found it moderately spicy. I tried their standard veggie banh mi at the location on Kingsway ages ago and I recall it was also very good, so I would also recommend that sub if you're more into the classics. I will definitely be sure to stop by and try their other vegetarian subs! The prices are great here! The banh mi are quite large and they don't skimp on the filling, but they're all between $6.75-$7.75 (the veg LG chicken was $7.75). It feels like I haven't seen prices like this outside of fast food in years. They also have some Vietnamese desserts ready to grab and go. I got a 3 colour dessert and thought it was pretty good. I really liked the pandan coconut milk layer with the jellies, it had a nice aroma of pandan and wasn't too sweet. This was also a pretty substantial snack since there were a LOT of beans. On top of all that, I have never seen restaurant staff hustling like these people were hustling. Everyone in kitchen seemed to be working really efficiently to put together subs. There was a pretty constant stream of orders, both ordered remotely and people coming in, but they were really quick so the shop never actually felt busy with people waiting. I'm super impressed with everything here! One note: make sure to let them know if you’re eating in so you can get your food on a tray instead...

I was really hyped to drop by and order #11 Meatball special today with my friends. When the cashier was taking my order, I specifically ordered #11 Meatball special banh mi sandwich as my friends heard me verbally with iced coffee with milk and proceeded to payment. I thought that everything will be fine as I waited for my order to sit down and enjoy my food.

As I picked up my order, and sat down ready to take a bite of the sandwich. I noticed that it only had meatballs and no other ingredients as stated to the menu for #11. I politely asked the counter that I did not just order meatball banh mi. They did apologized and remade my sandwich. However, before handing my sandwich, the guy who made my sandwich said that it will be another $0.75. Apparently they charged me just meatball banh mi sandwich and not the meatball special pricing. It is ridiculous to have me pay again for a mistake they made on their end.

I do understand that this is a business at the end of the day, but having to get up from my seat a few times to make another payment and pick up my food from the counter is very excessive on their end. My friends and I were just so confused the whole time.

The dine- in area was very warm with no fans or any air circulation. The customer traffic wasn’t high enough for the staff to be too busy to not clean the tables, in addition to crumbs on the chairs as well.

This is my first time coming to this Broadway location. I never had problems with any other locations from the past except this one.

I do understand that this may be a small business like a mom and pop shop and this post isn’t meant to ruin their business but it’s a constructive criticism that hopefully they will take in to consideration to improve...

Ive been ordering food here for a while, even before this location opened up but Im really disappointed at the service today (nov1st,2022). I came in around 1pm and it wasn’t even busy but i was waiting for a bit because the 2 staffs was busy talking. Then I especially asked for no spicy and cut in half as how i regular order. Got my food, walked to car, started eating one half and I tasted spicy, and theres jalapeño in my sandwich( I normally check if they put jalapeños in at other banh mi places but i never do at ba le cuz ive been ordering here long enough that I trusted them). So i walked back and bring the other half back to tell them. I was nicely telling them theres spicy in my banh mi because I know mistakes can be taken and its ok, but the way they respond is what i have to go on here and put up a review. They took my half banh mi, looked at it and said they will fix it. Then turned away. No apologies or such. And redo half of my banh mi and gave me a new half. Thats it. Ba le had made mistakes before with my banh mi and they alway nice apology and gave me a whole new one. The point of my review here is not about the jalapeños in my banh mi in the first place or they didn’t give me a new one, my point is the service. Its not professional and it not how it used to be. The two people who worked at this time was chitchatting a lot, maybe thats why they got my order wrong ( i mean you can talk while u work but at least still work properly). Im giving 3 stars because im only disappointed with the service, not the food quality and...