The Brewer and the Bahn Mi: Three Tigers Brewing/Mai Chau on Prospect (Granville, OH)

Intent is as constant a force as there is in the explorer's vocabulary. The phrases are familiar and off-repeating: from "that's on my list of to-dos now" to "hey, we should check out such-and-such place this month" to "oh, yeah, that's somewhere we haven't gotten to yet." So it figures when you unintentionally visit a place several times in a short span after seemingly infinite "intending to's", it's about time to get writing about it, especially when that something's initial incarnation has evolved numerous times since we first learned of them.

Mai Chau originally started as a Granville-based food truck. Inspired by time spent in Vietnam, owners Scott and Ashley Wilkins brought their love of the country's food back to Granville starting in 2013, and both my spouse and I heard nothing but good things about their offerings from friends and family in the area.

As it turned out, we never could make it out to the truck itself before the Wilkins clan opened up their brick-and-mortar Mai Chau on Prospect eatery in November, 2015. Even more intentions built up prior to their latest venture: the opening of the companion Three Tigers Brewing but five months afterward when the space next door came available, and something of a flip of the typical fledgling brewery adds food service model.

A couple months later in July, Three Tigers announced a weekend brunch service. Geez, our favorite type of meal for my spouse and I. Twist our arms enough already, why don't you...

One and Not Done: Indochine Cafe

Typically, I like to try to get in at least two visits to an eatery before I attempt to do a writeup. There are exceptions to this rule: one lies in giving a little love to new eatery that shows a lot of promise (such as the newly opened Leone's Pizza, detailed in my last blog post.) Other exceptions to this rule lie on places that are noteworthy but aren't likely to get back to soon through distance (e.g. eateries visited during vacation travels) or a combo of special occasion and cost (a place such as San Francisco's Boulevard, where we had a special Christmas dinner a few years back.)

One last exception is sort of a gut call, and in this case it's mainly due to one dish that just simply knocked our proverbial culinary socks off. This dish has guaranteed we'll be back soon to this relative veteran of the area's culinary scene: Whitehall's Indochine Cafe.