Dixie House Cafe

Dao and Nguyen have plans to one day open up a quick-service Vietnamese noodle shop based on the Chipotle model. Despite their success at Lotus, Dao said she and her husband still have a few tough critics to win over. Reporters visit restaurants unannounced and meals are paid for by RedEye. Since they opened in 2012 in a bright payday loans no credit check airy storefront on the cobblestone portion of Maxwell Street, you, too, pay day loan can get your fix of toasty banh mi sandwiches, fresh spring rolls, and fruit smoothies.

Vietnamese cuisine gets most of its flavor from fresh vegetables like cucumber and daikon radish as well as seasonings like lemongrass, ginger, and chilies. Banh mi sandwiches, traditionally the comfort food of Vietnam, are made from toasted French baguettes scooped out and filled with meat or fried eggs and crunchy vegetables. One of the vegetarian picks, the Veggiecado, is loaded with golden fried tofu, slices of avocado, vermicelli, crisp carrots, daikon, cucumber, jalapenos, and house mayo (order without mayo to make it vegan).

Meat eaters can satisfy their appetites with offerings like pork belly, ginger chicken, and beef. Make sure you complement your banh mi with an order of spring rolls, which are packed with your choice of fried tofu or steamed shrimp, crispy shallots, lettuce, cucumber, carrot, and daikon.

All this is wrapped in delicate rice paper and served with a superb pineapple peanut dipping sauce. These spring rolls achieve the perfect balance of flavor and texture, and are great choices to start with or to satisfy those looking for a light, health-conscious meal.

Top it off with a hot, sweet Vietnamese coffee or a smoothie in flavors like lychee, mango or avocado. Entering our junior year in college, we were left with the dilemma of continuing to follow through with our academic pursuit and journey down a safe albeit mundane path, or adventure into the unknown and vulnerable arena of creating and running our own business. We chose the latter, obviously, but not before completing our degrees, handing it to our parents, and never looking back.

In those final two years, while both working and attending class full-time, we spent our nights researching and developing the food menu. Much of the basis of the menu were based on traditional recipes Kim and I grew up on. The challenge was to make it palatable to unfamiliar taste buds, while also retaining the authenticity of the recipes, all in a convenient to eat form.