|
|
 |
|
East meets West for some tasty results
• by Bill Burge • Photo by Josh Monken
|
 |
|
|
Knowing a thing or two about Asian food, I was somewhat confused when I heard a new restaurant was opening in the Central West End called Banh Mi Boba. I knew banh mi was the traditional Vietnamese sandwich on a French baguette and boba was the Taiwanese boba tea. So when I found out the mainstay of the menu was actually Japanese crêpes, I knew I would have to see what this place was all about.
The full name of the restaurant is actually Banh Mi Boba Tea & Crêperie (BBC). Located on Euclid, on the first block south of Maryland Plaza, BBC is an extremely small storefront that is easily missed. On my first visit, the young woman working the small counter informed me that the concept is to offer a mix of various Asian street foods.
Savory Japanese crêpes are a bit sweeter than their Western counterparts, using as they do the same batter as for sweet crêpes, and the most obviously Asian offering is the spicy unagi (smoked eel). The crêpe was folded in half over a layer of what tasted like mozzarella cheese and rolled around a filling of unagi, cucumber, avocado and a sauce that I think is a mixture of soy, mirin and sugar, which the Japanese call kabayaki. With little cucumber in the mix, everything in the crêpe had a sameness to its texture, and the sweetness of the crêpe coupled with the cheese and smoky-fishiness of the eel was particularly off-putting.
A second crêpe, the BBQ pink pork, was outstanding. Starting again with a cheese base, it was filled with pork, spinach, onion and garlic sauce. This time the sweetness of the crêpe coupled with the sweet Asian marinated pork worked nicely, and the pork added a chewy contrast to the softness of the other ingredients.
Another section of the menu, “other yummies,” is a mixture of things like salad, udon and appetizers. Pork udon was literally a prepackaged pop-top heat-and-serve variety; topped with the same house-cooked pork, it tasted strongly of miso. Shrimp shumai, or Japanese dumplings, were obviously frozen and had an unexpectedly mushy texture because of the thawed rice within. A seafood crêpe called okonomi yaki looked like a potato pancake but was actually a mixture of cabbage and, as for the seafood we could identify, shrimp, mussels and octopus. It was topped with Japanese mayo and tonkatsu sauce, which tastes like a thickened Worcestershire.
My favorite dish was the Banh Mi Special, a unique version of the aforementioned Vietnamese sandwich thanks to a house sauce made from a mixture of sriracha and daikon juice rather than the traditional nuoc mam. It gave the sandwich a fiery taste that complemented the various textures, from the soft meat fillings of pâté, pork belly, ham hock and head cheese to the crisp jalapeño, pickled daikon and carrot to the crusty French bread.
For dessert, crêpes are again the mainstay. The Japanese Triad consisted of a crisp crêpe topped with red bean, green tea and black sesame ice creams. All were unique, but the sesame was the unanimous favorite, as it had a wonderfully nutty flavor. A thicker, crunchy ice cream crêpe was rolled into a cone; stuffed with cake, Frosted Flakes and caramel and topped with a potently sweet mango ice cream, it was another Asian study in contrasting textures. I became immediately addicted.
Of course, no visit is complete without boba tea, and the traditional boba milk tea, with its strange mixture of nondairy creamer and black tea, was surprisingly tasty. The boba (tapioca balls), however, seemed a bit strange as they had a sort of mucus-covered gummy bear quality that left me feeling uneasy. I hit on a winner, however, with a combination of taro milk tea and sweet red beans; the meaty nutlike beans were the perfect complement to the chalkiness of the taro.
Overall, Banh Mi Boba is more fast food than street food because of the strange East/West clash of the menu items, but in an area crawling with college students – and with the most expensive menu item around six bucks – I’m sure BBC will enjoy a great deal of success.
The Real Deal Archive
View Complete Archive
|
|
|
|
