This new shop is expanding Hiawatha's Vietnamese options beyond ...

HIAWATHA — A new sandwich shop is trying to expand the local Vietnamese palate by going beyond pho.

Yummy Banh Mi, opened in June at the location formerly home to The Breakfast Bar, offers a curated menu of sandwiches and a selection of vegetarian soups alongside a drink menu of milk and fruit teas, plus Vietnamese coffee specialties.

With bread baked in house daily, the breadth of the menu is surpassed by the deep ties that it represents to owner Lisa Nguyen, who grew up in Vietnam but has lived most of her life in Iowa.

“I want to bring more culture, more diversity in food to the community,” she said.

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The food

When Nguyen visited other restaurants, she noticed a prevalent issue with a food common in Vietnam and other western states: They had banh mi on the menu, but it wasn’t really banh mi.

Rather, it was a sandwich made with slices of bread — not the French-style baguette bread that combines a thin, crispy crust with a fluffy, soft bite underneath to ease you into a mouthful of sliced meats and fresh vegetables buffered by rich spreads.

The sandwiches, prepared warm, are each served with mild pickled Daikon carrots, fresh cilantro, sliced jalapeno and cucumber spears.

Some, like the Saigon-style Banh Mi Dac Biet, spread on the bread a layer of chicken pate — an influence from Vietnam’s history as a French colony in the 19th and 20th centuries — Vietnamese mayonnaise, ham and headcheese with pork belly, a house sauce and soy sauce.

Vietnamese mayonnaise, a rich yellow smear, is made without vinegar and tastes creamier than American mayo. The house sauce, made with peach and apple juice, incorporates a boost of sweetness with a base of pork belly broth.

The barbecue beef option, Banh Mi Thit Nuong, is a little more Americanized, Nguyen said, with thin slices of grilled beef with an Asian barbecue sauce.

Other options incorporate a combination of meat — ham, pork roll, pork belly, fried chicken shrimp cake and more — with mild house seasonings, mayo or sauce. Diners can add an egg or meat to their taste.

Altogether, each option is a nuance in umami, offering a pleasant cross-section bite that ties multiple flavors and textures together.

But if meat isn’t your thing, the banh mi or hot and spicy soups offer vegetarian options with bean curds, vegetables, tofu and vegan tendon that replicates the beef tendon common in Vietnamese dishes, like pho.

The drinks

Boba teas, popular in Asia and other parts of the United States, are becoming increasingly common across the Corridor and Iowa. But rarely do tea shops have a robust selection of food to wash down with the drinks.

With milk tea options like jasmine and taro or fruity tea options like peach, strawberry, blueberry and watermelon, customers can get their fix with a variety of fresh tapioca boba, popping boba and flavored jellies.

Vietnamese coffee specialties also offer something new to the area with an emphasis on drip coffee made in a style similar to French press. The egg coffee, for example, delivers a foamy head with egg yolk and condensed milk.

Each coffee drink offers the ability to dictate sugar levels at the counter before preparation.

How she got here

After about 20 years living in Cedar Rapids, the owner hopes to broaden the horizons of the Cedar Rapids metro while living up to the training she was raised with.

Before moving to the United States at age 13, Nguyen helped her grandmother run a small restaurant on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City — making sauces, perfecting food and running orders during busy rushes.

But it wasn’t until now that she felt compelled to open up a restaurant of her own that reminded her of where she came from.

The former nail salon technician, 33, is diving into her first venture as a restaurant owner. While she may have left the beauty industry, she knows how to make her food both tasty and pretty.

With a hope to bring cultures closer together, she simply wants to spark curiosity in those not yet initiated into this type of sandwich.

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.