A New Café Has Captured the Heights with Tex-Asian Sandos

The Houston Heights has welcomed another new restaurant, focused on Tex-Asian food, bringing a new twist to the already diverse cuisine Houstonians have become accustomed to.

Vuji Café officially opened its doors to the public in late June and has already become a local sensation. Founders Ian So (of Chicken & Rice Guys) and Tristan Nguyen took over the space that was formerly home to a bubble tea shop owned by a friend of theirs. So says that when they learned their friend would be selling her space, they jumped on the opportunity. Now, with just seven sandwiches on the menu, Vuji highlights various countries in Asia.

“I’m passionate about the food from my culture—sharing it with others—and pushing the envelope in that perspective,” So says.

The team’s first focus was on Vietnamese bánh mì, but after a research tour in the Houston area (so just a whole lot of eating), the two felt like the sandwich lacked the variety they wanted. This experience, as well as So’s trips to Asia with his wife, led the founders to realize they wanted to bring a unique twist on Asian sandwiches to Houston’s food scene.

“We were inspired to take all of those Asian cultures and flavors, and bring it all into one store,” So says. “If you take a look at our menu, we have Filipino flavors, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, everything.”

But that still leaves the question: what exactly is “Tex-Asian”? So says the answer is actually a practical one. In the beginning, the café experimented with milk bread, but then tried Texas toast, which they found could hold a lot of the bolder flavors they were going for—creating the Tex-Asian fusion.

The menu development was done in partnership with chef Kevin Villanueva. They wanted to make good food, but also take into account that people enjoy Instagrammable content. They feel that trends sometimes lead to over-complication, but at the end of the day, the goal should be to have menu items that genuinely taste good. And for them, that’s grandma’s cooking.

Vuji Café took that and ran with it, building on traditional recipes that the restaurateurs grew up with. So says two examples of this include the century egg and Hainan chicken sandwiches. The former is a remix of the classic egg salad with yuzu avocado mash, salted duck egg, and a century egg, which is preserved and comes out black. Meanwhile, the Hainanese-style chicken is lathered with savory ginger scallion sauce.

You can also order the bulgogi rib eye, which is basically Korean barbecue in a sandwich, with marinated rib eye, galbi sauce, grilled corn cheese, cilantro, and kimchi. The negitoro tuna includes sushi-grade tuna belly, loin, scallions, and furikake seasoning with tempura seaweed chips, garnished with salmon roe. For the tom yum tofu sandwich, the team tosses tofu in lemongrass tom yum sauce and coconut milk, and adds a Japanese senbei cracker.

Vuji also has a classic grilled cheese with a chicken option for an additional cost. And customers with a sweet tooth can indulge in the ube pandan, a sandwich of marshmallow, Japanese wafers, and an ube pandan filling.

“I love that Houston is so diverse, and that [the menu] just works,” So says. “I think everybody here just eats so adventurously.”

Offering such culinary adventures doesn’t come without difficulty. So says that while typical fast-casual concepts most likely have around 100 ingredients on the menu, Vuji Café averages about 300 different ingredients that come from all over: H-E-B, fish suppliers, and Houston-area Asian stores. So says the hardest part is making sure that their items are up to par with cuisine everywhere else in Houston.

Their efforts have paid off. Vuji Café has been met with great feedback from the community. So says since opening, every weekend keeps getting busier and busier, which is teaching him lessons along the way, too. Due to the unexpectedly high demand, there have been mistakes, but he and his staff are taking it one step at a time to keep improving the customer experience.

Vuji Café’s menu might expand by a couple items in the future. Now that they know people are receptive to the flavors they offer, they want to take it to another level. They’re currently playing around with different concepts, like a sandwich that will be a combination of tom yum flavors, ginger scallion, and grilled beef in a crying tiger sauce (sweet fish sauce with lime juice), along with some truffle oil in the mix.

“I want us to be a positive experience for our customers,” So says. “They come here, eat food, have a fantastic time with friends and loved ones, and that’s it.”