Indochine Chic: Vietnamese Cuisine Comes to Honesdale, PA
Honesdale, PA (PRWEB) March 30, 2015 -- Just in time for spring, Bà & Me http://baandme.com, a casual restaurant featuring fresh, home-style Vietnamese cuisine, opened its flagship location on Wednesday, March 25th, in Maude Alley, at 1023 Main Street.
To reinforce its vision and dining concept, Bà & Me hired French interior designer Juliette Bergogne of Maison Bergogne, and her partner Anie Stanley, a former Bergdorf Goodman set designer and proprietor of Woolheater Wares, based in Narrowsburg, New York. Throughout the space, Bergogne and Stanley have blended traditional Vietnamese design with French art deco and rustic elements.
“Juliette and Anie’s vision is so incredibly precise and singular that you cannot help but be completely drawn into the world they create,” says Nhi Mundy, a Vietnamese native and the founder and operator of Bà & Me. “Nhi wanted a unique space that expresses the intersection of France and Vietnam,” says Bergogne, “so we combined elegant colonial elements with the more rustic look of an informal canteen.”
Mundy, who has earned community praise and fundraiing support[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ba-me-vietnamese-restaurant-expansion , uses, whenever possible, fresh and local ingredients in traditional Vietnamese dishes, including lemongrass pork vermicelli, pho noodle soup and summer rolls; a selection of classic Vietnamese coffee and assorted Asian beverages round out the menu.
“You can feel confident eating at Bà & Me because everything is fresh and made to order. We try to source locally, because in Vietnam, food is naturally locally sourced. Most of our ingredients come from New York or Pennsylvania. It’s a growing trend, but we’re also doing it because we wanted to be truly authentic,” says Mundy.
The restaurant’s design features black steel tables and distressed Asian saddle stools, matched with original 1930s wallpaper that spans the adjacent area. Original reclaimed window shutters, sourced locally, mirror the architecture of Indochine Vietnam and a dark wainscoting anchors the walls. Narrow rustic counters are nestled thoughtfully along the walls, offering seating for up to six guests.
Two sculptural mid-century sconces brought back from a recent trip to Paris hang between each shutter and illuminate the room, lending a soft elegance. A custom-built kitchen café door in yellow pine symbolizes “great appetite” in feng shui. Finally, vintage photographs of Mundy’s mother, grandmother and her family in Vietnam are presented in distinctive frames, to greet guests as they enter. They echo the very meaning of the words Bà & Me, which translates to grandmother and mother in Vietnamese.
Bà & Me Café is located in Maude Alley at 1023 Main Street, Honesdale, PA 18431. Hours of operation for Bà & Me will be Wednesday through Saturday, 11 am to 5 pm.
Located in the fast-growing Upper Delaware Valley region of New York and Pennsylvania, Bà & Me is a chain of casual restaurants dedicated to serving fresh and healthy traditional Vietnamese food. Founder and Operator Nhi Mundy was born in Vietnam and immigrated to America with her parents after the Vietnam War. She grew up working at her parents’ restaurant before relocating to New York to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology. In 2012, she and her husband left New York City to live full-time in the Catskills. It was then that Mundy felt the lack of healthy, ethnic food options in the area and was inspired to create Bà & Me. Although the names sounds like the Vietnamese sandwich bánh mì, the words were chosen to honor Mundy’s family: Bà in Vietnamese means grandmother and Mẹ means mother. Bà & Me is dedicated to Mundy’s mother, who is responsible for all the recipes.
Nhi Mundy, Bà & Me, +1 8456052919, [email protected]
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