Quan Hapa refines menu, atmosphere on Vine Street

David Le and his business partners, brothers Duy and Bao Nguyen, are known for the traditional Vietnamese fare at Findlay Market’s Pho Lang Thang. But the trio wanted to bring Asian street food to Vine Street.
 
Quan Hapa, an Asian gastropub, opened the week before Christmas. “Hapa” is the word for someone who is part-Asian, which is perfect because the restaurant’s fare is a mixture of the best dishes and drinks from Korea, Vietnam, Japan and Hawaii.
 
The restaurant is small, but comfortable and relaxed, with its menu displayed on a chalkboard.
 
In the few months it’s been open, Quan Hapa has already adapted based on early feedback. “We felt that things were a bit confusing when we first opened,” Le says. “For the first few months, there was a bit of a lack of identity in our food and the atmosphere.”
 
Le and his partners no longer serve “street food” on $16 plates. Instead, the food is served in baskets and condiments can be found on the tables. They also revamped the price points of many of their dishes to try and find the balance between the perception of value and the amount of food, Le says.
 
Le and the Nguyen brothers aren’t chefs, so they’re working with Billy Grise, a trained chef, to fine tune every dish. And you won’t find Pho Lang Thang’s bahn mi at Quan Hapa.
 
Some of Quan Hapa’s popular dishes include a Vietnamese-style Ramen, a Japanese-style pancake and Bun Bo Hue, which is a traditional soup from the Imperial city of Hue. As far as drinks go, diners like shochu, which has a Korean or Vietnamese vodka, fresh squeezed juice and soda water in it, Le says.
 
“As the first Asian restaurant on Vine, we wanted to introduce people to traditional Asian fare,” Le says. A few months after Quan Hapa opened, Kaze joined them in Over-the-Rhine.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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