Cong Tu Bot (website, instagram) will be reopening this summer as a counter service daytime cafe serving breakfast and lunch.
Co-owner and chef Vien Dobui shared that some perennial favorites such as the phở gà and bún chả will carrying over but that most of the menu will be entirely new dishes. The breakfast menu is expected to include phở, congee, fried rice, house made coconut yogurt, bánh tiêu (semi-sweet hollow fry bread) and baked goods. CTB will add lunch hours a few weeks after launching with their breakfast service. The lunch menu is still under development but will definitely include the bún chả.
As part of the relaunch, Cong Tu Bot will be switching over from Parlor to serve Portrait Coffee (website, instagram). The coffee service will be influenced by menus from Vietnamese and Chinese bakeries, Hong Kong cafes, and boba shops. In addition to cà phê sữa đá Vietnamese coffee CTB will be serving they’ll also have an iced coffee topped with kinako cold foam made with their own soy milk. Other coffee and tea items are under development.
Cong Tu Bot has managed to keep many of their pre-pandemic staff on the team which will be a point of continuity. Dobui shared that “[w]ith everything we’ve survived this year it feels very significant to acknowledge that we’re still together.”
The current renovations to the space on Washington Ave have been to create additional kitchen prep space. The reduced indoor seating area will be offset by the addition of an outdoor seating on a covered patio. A decision on when CTB will open for indoor seating will be made as the public health impacts of the delta variant become more clear.
Cong Tu Bot is expected to reopen in mid/late August.