A Vietnamese restaurant just opened in a little red shipping container in a laneway in Toronto
Published July 7, 2025 at 3:47 pm
A tiny Vietnamese restaurant inside a little red shipping container with a patio on top just opened in a back parking lot in Toronto.
Com Nuoc is a small Vietnamese takeout spot that just opened in a laneway. They serve rice and noodle dishes as well as sides like spring rolls and an egg “meatloaf” with pork, wood ear mushrooms and glass noodles. All meats are marinated for 24 hours, and all sauces are made from scratch.
The most surprising part about this tiny new restaurant apart from its size is who’s behind it: Thanh Thai, the chef partner at Raku, a top Japanese restaurant that has locations in both Toronto and New York.
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“Com Nuoc is a passion project that I really hope to see through as it represents my culture, and I really want to share that to the streets of Toronto,” Thai tells YourCityWithIN.com.
“The space is exactly how I envisioned a Vietnamese stall to be. It will slowly become a grab and go quick service restaurant style in the winter.”
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For noodle dishes, there’s rice vermicelli with grilled pork or chicken, mixed greens, pickles, sweet fish sauce, or a vegetarian rice vermicelli with lemongrass tofu, oyster mushroom, mixed greens, pickles, sweet soy sauce, and soybean dipping sauce.
Rice dishes come with pork, chicken or chicken meatballs. Their spring rolls come with shrimp, or you can opt for a vegetarian option with tofu and mushrooms.
The restaurant operates out of a bright red shipping container that’s just barely big enough. For seating, there are stools out front in the parking lot, and there’s also an ingenious teeny tiny patio right on top of the container itself.
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“There’s definitely a challenge running a restaurant in such a tight space especially with storage, both dry and food storage,” says Thai. “Fortunately I have access to my other restaurant to help with logistics and prepping of food.”
Com Nuoc is now open at 639 Queen St. E.