The cafés in ordinary bookstores are usually unadventurous fixtures. If it’s not just a Starbucks outpost, it’s your usual blueberry scones, watery coffee, or an ultra-processed bagel with cream cheese “spread.” Books & Books in Coconut Grove, however, is no ordinary bookstore. With the help of a gregarious Aidan Friedson, masterful Phuoc Vo, and their Vietnamese food business, Banh, they are redefining bookstore bites.
Books & Books’ Grove café began selling homemade boba teas in October through Banh. In January, Friedson and Vo introduced the shop’s customers to the unctuous Vietnamese banh mi sandwich.
For those unfamiliar, the banh mi is comprised, depending on the region, of a light and crispy baguette, an introduction from the French colonial period in Vietnam, with pork, spread with housemade mayo and pâté (ground liver), toasted, and topped with pickled carrot and daikon radish, and bright green cilantro. The banh mi is undoubtedly a cousin to the Cubano, sharing love with flaky bread and the contrast between fatty meat and sharp vinegar-based additions…