Café Mochi owners to open VP Square on March 1
Located in the South Grand dining district, the restaurant offers Japanese ramen, bibimbap bowls, hot pots, poke, and more
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Siblings Victor, Duncan, and Mina Pham of Café Mochi, the popular sushi spot on South Grand, bring their talents in food, drink, design, and hospitality to the fore with their newest restaurant, VP Square, opening Thursday, March 1.
The Pan-Asian menu features favorites not yet seen on South Grand like Japanese ramen, Korean bibimbap bowls, hot pots, Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches, Hawaiian poke, and fruity bubble drinks with tapioca.
Shareable plates loom large on the starters menu with old favorites like house-made crab rangoon, crispy egg rolls, coconut shrimp, and more. Chef Duncan Pham puts unique twists on dishes, but his Starburst summer rolls (pictured above) reveal their secret right up front. Thinly sliced red strawberries shine through the rice wrapper that holds crab, shrimp, and vermicelli noodles together and add a fruity bite to the dish.
Entrees include two hot pots, one Sichuan spicy with greens, beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, and noodles; and the other a Thai yum tum pot with chicken, fish, green mussels, and shrimp—perfect dishes to share with friends.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
One of the house specialties, grill-marked miso cured salmon (pictured above), sits high on a bed of fresh lomein noodles cooked in a spicy cod roe broth. Duncan garnishes it with slender cuts of darkly green nori.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
The straightforward presentation of the salmon contrasts beautifully with the Hawaiian poke bowl (pictured above). The bowl presents the nuanced reds and peach of ahi tuna and salmon contrasted with green avocado cubes, topped with a generous sprinkle of white and black sesame seeds.
A fan of thinly sliced cucumber and finely cut daikon garnishes the bowl. Underneath, chef Duncan layers crispy tempura over a bed of short-grained sushi for a nice surprise in taste and texture.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Duncan credits his mother, Tinh Nguyen, with instilling a love of fine food and a passion for cooking in him. “In our culture, a woman keeps her name, and her children carry their father’s name. We are all one family—she raised seven boys and two girls; now one has died, and we are six brothers and two sisters. Three of us work in restaurants.”
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Sister Mina Pham designed the cocktail menu, which includes two signature cocktails. Passion Breeze (pictured above, left) combines passionfruit, coconut, and vodka. The Malibu Rum-based Sun Splash Punch (pictured above, right) relies on orange, banana, strawberry, and cranberry for its colors and fruity flavor. Mina will also oversee the front-of-house operations at VP Square, as she does now at Café Mochi.
“In a few weeks, I’ll be moving back and forth between two places," she says. "Victor is very business minded. He takes care of the details of running the business side while I’m responsible for training the servers, handling customers, and managing the bar. It will be much more work, but it’s our family business.”
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
The food and drink won’t be the only star at VP Square, however. The inviting space shares top billing. Victor Pham spearheaded the restoration of the spectacular golden brick 1927 building designed by architect OJ Krieg. Interior designer and long-time collaborator Tricia Heliker (pictured right) worked closely with him to bring his vision to life at VP Square.
“I started working on South Grand as a hairdresser and loved the neighborhood, the shops, the atmosphere,” Victor says. “I have an artistic side as well as my business side."
Heliker met Victor as his customer at a hair salon. “We often talked design," she says. "I worked seven years as a teacher and spent 33 years of my work life in an office. But my family, two of my brothers and my nephew, are contractors. I took interior design classes at [St. Louis Community College] and helped them with the interiors.”
When Victor decided to open Café Mochi, he tapped Heliker to work with him on design. “It worked beautifully,” Heliker says.
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
The two worked their magic again at VP Square. The unusual color palette of varying shades of greys and soft gold accented with pops of green and beige brings a high level of sophistication to the space. The mix of natural forms like the antler lights plays against more structural geometric lights. Freeform leaves hand painted and stenciled on walls coexist with the measured block drawings on an upstairs bar.
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
There’s a sweet ending to this story, and it’s not about siblings working together with friends, or about the beautiful restoration of a beloved building, although both are true. The big news is VP Square is bringing fruity smoothie bubble drinks to South Grand for the first time in seven delicious flavors, including the mango, strawberry, and honeydew drinks we photographed.
“People can come in off the street and carry out bubble drinks with tapioca pearls," Victor says. "We have custom toppings and jellies as well, so they can be customized to people’s tastes." That’s happy.
