Dallas-Fort Worth is brimming with coffee shops, from the time-honored to the omnipresent new. But for years, Sandwich Hag chef Reyna Duong longed for a Vietnamese coffee shop with morning service in Dallas. Now the free-spoken chef has joined forces with Frisco’s sought-after Detour Doughnuts chef, Jinny Cho,to open ChimLanh.
Beginning Saturday, March 18, ChimLanh will become a permanent weekend operation at Sandwich Hag. It’s timed to coincide with World Down Syndrome Day, which Duong has long championed because of her brother, Sang Duong, who is also an employee.
Primarily serving Vietnamese cà phês and selections from Detour Doughnuts, the shop aims to amplify businesses owned by women of color and to reclaim Vietnamese coffee culture as a gender-inclusive safe space for everyone.
Duong can’t recall her age when she first sipped a Vietnamese cà phê, but it was likely when her family of coffee aficionados would linger over the strong drink during meals in Southern California.
“We drink cà phê like the South drinks iced tea with their meals,” she says. In many Vietnamese households, “as you’re eating a bánh mì sandwich, or phở, or bún bò Huế, or whatever the dish may be, we’re sipping on coffee.”
During her teen years, Duong would band together with friends on weekends to sneak into Vietnamese cafes in Los Angeles and Orange County, the type with age restrictions and karaoke, where the customer base was predominantly male. Duong says she would “get a lot of stares, for various reasons,” so part of her objective at ChimLanh is to “reclaim womanhood and sisterhood” and create a Vietnamese coffee-drinking community for everyone.
ChimLanh is a blend of Vietnamese words “chim,” which means bird, and “lanh,” which means witty. Duong says that in Vietnam, cafes are a place to bring and display pet birds, but for the decor at ChimLanh, she hung bird cages that are empty.
The last part of ChimLanh is a tribute to Duong’s mother, who would brag that her daughter was so sharp, so “lanh.” She recalls her mother often saying, “Her mouth is going to get her into so many places, and get her kicked out of so many places.”
Although Duong says she was often encouraged to smile in order to blunt her tongue, she sees now that her mother was proud of her disposition. Just as with Sandwich Hag, where Duong puts a positive spin on “hag” and honors her mother by cooking from scratch, she says it felt natural to bring in another piece of her mother when she expanded into ChimLanh.
It also seems natural that Dallas should have more Vietnamese coffee shops, especially considering that Vietnam is the world’s second-largest exporter of coffee beans and that the Dallas metropolitan area hosts the nation’s fourth-largest Vietnamese population, with nearly 100,000 people.
As Duong defines it, there are layers that constitute a true Vietnamese cà phê, the first beginning with beans from Vietnam. At ChimLanh and Sandwich Hag, she sources largely from Nguyen Coffee Supply. Soon, she’ll add Nam Coffee’s chicory-free beans to the menu, which were recommended to her by chef Diep Tran of Los Angeles’ Banh Chung Collective.
Additionally, Vietnamese coffees often — but not always — incorporate sweetened condensed milk or ice to temper the drink’s strength. Last, a true Vietnamese cà phê should use a four-piece phin filter. In Duong’s view, the slow-drip method is superior to French press and pour-over methods in rendering the flavor and depth of coffee beans.
Not from Vietnam, but still contributing much to Vietnamese American coffee culture, is New Orleans’ Café Du Monde. The dark roast chicory blend is used for menu’s classic and coconut cà phê sữa đá (iced coffee).
Cà phês, frappes, CocoAndré horchatas, and other vegan and non-caffeinated drinks remain the same at ChimLanh and Sandwich Hag each week, along with oatmeal pies by Haute Sweets Patisserie and strawberry Rice Krispies treats from Kessler Baking Studio. What changes each week at ChimLanh is the selection of Cho’s classically textured doughnuts in uncommon but genius flavor combinations, like sugared yeast doughnuts made puffy with orange-hazelnut Nutella cream, or blueberry jam with whipped vanilla goat cheese.
A few of Cho’s pastries will be constants, such as a hulky apple fritter, a sensuous dark chocolate-passionfruit, a simple glazed, and jumbo kolaches once described as “undisturbed nostalgia.”
Cho says the collaboration has helped her to understand what “a thriving, mutually beneficial partnership looks like.”
“I’ve spent many years giving away my time and creative work for exposure — or staying in dysfunctional business relationships with companies that approach you like they want to help you,” Cho says. With ChimLanh, however, she feels “free to care, to trust, AND get a bag. You can’t do much better than that.”
ChimLanh’s grand opening weekend will be in celebration of World Down Syndrome Day, historically celebrated with night markets at Sandwich Hag. On Saturday morning, March 18, Ka-Tip Thai Street Food will pop up with coconut pancakes, along with Dallas’ most famous Lao chef, Donny Sirisavath, who will be there with his grill. The next day, on Sunday, Bà Chằng will be on-site with cà không (braised fish) rice bowls, and Thid Jai will have jok, a Thai rice porridge, complete with a toppings bar.
On both days, Cho will have three specialty doughnuts for World Down Syndrome Day, with a portion of proceeds going to the Notre Dame School of Dallas, a private school that serves intellectually disabled children.
Everyone is invited — with a caveat. As has always been the case with Duong’s customers, the only restriction is: “You gotta be nice,” Duong says. “You can come in your PJs, as long as you’re not in your cranky pants.”
ChimLanh and Sandwich Hag are at 1902 Botham Jean Blvd., Dallas. ChimLanh opens at 9 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Sandwich Hag’s lunch menu begins at noon. sandwichhag.com.
