Dak Lak Cafe on Yonge is a cafe that specializes in strong Vietnamese coffee alongside a selection of street snacks.

Owners Katie Pham and Amy Zhou actually opened the first location of Dak Lak Cafe in Pacific Mall in 2015 and then a second one on College St. a few years later. 

Their menu has expanded to now include refreshing fruit teas and even more food options.

This particular location near Yonge and Lawrence is very bright and airy. There's lots of seating and plenty of natural light.

More than that though, this Dak Lak location has one jumbo-sized special that I have never seen anywhere else in Toronto: a TWO-FOOT LONG banh mi sandwich.

For $35, the Roasted BBQ Banh Mi is toasted and made fresh to order. It's a beautiful behemoth the owners suggest can feed four hungry people. 

It's packed with roast pork (including crispy skin) and all its fatty parts, alongside pickled vegetables that lend the sandwich a slight sour flavour profile.

For a more 'normal' sized sandwich, the classic Vietnamese Banh Mi ($14.99) comes 'only' one foot long filled with with tasty cold cuts, Vietnamese pate and dried pork floss.

The Rice Paper Salad ($9.99) is from their street food menu. This dish is lightly spiced with homemade chili oil, long thin rice paper, peanuts, shallot, Vietnamese coriander and mango.

The Crunchy Rice Crackers ($9.99) is topped with dried pork floss which gives a little extra savouriness to the dish. I recommend eating them with Dak Lak's homemade spicy sauce for a satisfying crunchy and tasty snack.

One thing not to miss here is the cafe's signature Viet Egg Coffee ($7.50 for cold one). The rich and smoothly sweet egg yolk mix is hand-whisked and holds its texture much better in the iced version of the drink.

Consume it without stirring for one heck of a flavour blast.

For something you can't find everywhere else, the Cococino ($7.50) consists of a cold coconut slush on top of coffee espresso. It's a nice modern take on Vietnamese coconut desserts.