When Banh Mi Boba Tea & Crêperie closed its doors for remodeling several months ago, Asian-food junkies were all atwitter about whether or not the tiny eatery would actually reopen. Nowhere else in town could you get an eel crêpe, that’s for sure, and customers eagerly watched the small Central West End storefront for signs of life. In late March, BBC did in fact reopen, with a new name (BBC Asian Café and Bar), a larger menu and a full bar. Not only is the new BBC double the size of the original, but co-owners Lina Kim and Hip Mahesak now offer table service in their modern, chocolate-hued dining room.
You didn’t just add liquor and expand physically, you expanded the menu. Hip Mahesak: In addition to the good, easy-to-grab Vietnamese sandwiches and crêpes, we added [more substantial] items like kalbi, more home-kitchen cooking. We added noodles and some of our favorite tapas. The menu is sprinkled with a few Mediterranean items.
Why add the Mediterranean food? HM: Oh man, our menu, before, was already kind of all over. I would say it was organized chaos, because we do like a lot of different foods, so we wanted to … not limit ourselves to just Asian food. It’s not heavy on Mediterranean food – just sprinkles of it. We love this baked goat cheese dish, so we decided to add that. We already had gyros before we did the expansion, so we’re like, let’s just add a few Mediterranean items that we like. [They became] a hit.
On this menu, there’s also Japanese, Korean, even some Laotian. Where are you getting your inspiration for these dishes? HM: Although Lina is of Korean heritage, she grew up in Uzbekistan, so her food range is completely different from a typical Asian, even if you grew up in America. Me, I grew up here but I’m from Laos. It’s food that we actually grew up with and food that we’ve adapted to.
Tell me about that shrimp ceviche. It’s definitely unique. HM: The shrimp ceviche is equivalent to a Latin ceviche. It’s cooked in lime juice. Except in the Laotian way, we cook it in the juice and then you squeeze the juice from the shrimp back out to make a sauce. And that’s when you add in all the anchovies and the additional items. Traditionally it’s served cold, but we go ahead and serve it warm. We add dill and fresh mint and a cooked, burnt rice. It’s definitely a different taste.
When I tried it, I thought that the fish flavor was from typical bottled fish sauce, but it’s not. HM: It’s a special dried anchovy; we let it cook and it becomes almost a saucy broth once the process is done. The longer it ages, the better it is. My mother makes it. Just like with kimchi, it’s one of those cultural foods that the longer it stays, the better it is and it’s a recipe that’s always passed down. You aren’t able to get it in a store.
And the kalbi, people are used to seeing short ribs on a menu, but this is Korean-style. Lina Kim: It’s a Korean tradition[al] dish. It’s very popular in Korea. We precut and marinate [the short ribs]. It’s a unique preparation. We marinate with fruits like pear and additional seasoning like soy sauce, garlic and onions, and you marinate about two to three days.
Oh, the bibim bop too; I love that dish. Again, it’s supertraditional. It’s interesting – you’re a fusion restaurant in that you have a lot of different Asian dishes, but you keep each one close to tradition. LK: St. Louis has a lot of fusion restaurants. When they try to actually fuse Asian food, they Americanize more. We are fusion, but every dish is very traditional. We want to bring more traditional flavors.
HM: Our menu reflects our customer base. Our menu is a collective of favorites … and we try to keep it as authentic as we can.
You’re not professional chefs, so how did you get into the business? HM: When you initially … start a business, you think, “I want my own store, and I want to cook what I like, and I want to feed my friends and share.” Then you get to the business side. Do you have a chef? Do you have this, do you have that? We just took it back to the roots. Ninety-nine percent of Asian restaurants … don’t have a professional chef. It’s home cooking. It’s mom and pop, auntie and uncle, sharing their food with their customers. We thought, “Maybe we don’t need a chef.” We cook and share what we love and what our customers say they want to try. That alone has sustained us.
BBC Asian Café & Bar
243 N. Euclid Ave.
St. Louis
314.361.7770
This article appears in May 1-31, 2009.