New restaurant introduces sushi, Vietnamese food to Solon restaurant scene

SOLON — After growing up working in the kitchens of his relatives’ Iowa City restaurants, one man is introducing sushi and Vietnamese food to Solon with a place of his own.

Soon, owner Sang Tran hopes Uncle Sang’s Sushi & Kitchen brings to others the same kind of comfort that he’s known at home for decades.

Uncle Sang’s plans to open Sunday, July 2, 2023, starting with a small menu that will grow over time.

The food

While this new restaurant may be starting with a small menu, your stomach won’t be leaving unsatisfied.

A simple appetizer section starts you out with familiar favorites plus a few new twists. Choose from scratch-made spring rolls, crab rangoons and shrimp or vegetable tempura. If you want to try something new, opt for the pineapple rangoons or Mama Eggrolls with juicy pork.

Next, take your pick from a fully realized Vietnamese section or sushi.

With one pho option so far, Tran has boiled the comfort food down to a fully-fledged classic that makes decisions easier. Soft rice noodles are served in a beef bone marrow broth cooked overnight and delivered to the table with a savory aroma.

Each bowl of broth with meatballs and steak is topped with onion, cilantro and sides like bean sprouts that offer a balancing crunch to each bite. Noticeably, this restaurant’s pho is made with higher quality ingredients, like a thicker New York strip steak that isn’t dry or chewy after being cooked.

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“Pho and egg rolls are something we’re proud of,” Tran said. “It’s a comfort food for a lot of people.”

With time, he hopes Solon diners find comfort in them the way he does.

The New York strip steak also is available on its own, served teriyaki style with broccoli, bell peppers, onions and mushrooms over jasmine rice.

For another Vietnamese option that’s unfamiliar only in name, try the Co’m Ga Xoi Mo. The fried chicken quarter, served alongside savory fried rice and fresh slices of cucumber and tomato, features bites of crispy chicken skin that practically bring the taste buds to life through a honey-sweet drizzle of sauce.

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Many of the classics that have brought his family joy over the years aren’t secrets by any means, he said. But they require time, attention and care to make properly. Vietnamese foods also tend to be more texture-oriented, he said, ensuring a lot of his favorites “go down easy.”

With input from Tran’s relatives, who own Three Samurai and Sumo in Iowa City, Uncle Sang’s offers a respectable sushi list with a variety that doesn’t stray far from popular reference points for the cuisine.

Add basics like the California roll to another entree, or make sushi a meal in itself with specialties like the Captain Crunch with fried shrimp and calamari, the Dragon Roll with shrimp and avocado, the Godzilla with crab and eel or the Sumo Roll with tuna, salmon and yellow tail fish.

Alongside nigiri rolls, five of the eight house specialty sushi rolls feature tempura fried shrimp, presenting an accessible entry point for those new or apprehensive to sushi.

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A full bar complements the curated selection of authentic classics with warm sake and Asian imported beers.

Eventually, more hearty soups and classics like Bun Thit Nuong, a grilled pork with rice, will be added to the menu.

How it started

Originally from Can Tho in southern Vietnam, owner Sang Tran has lived in Iowa most of his life, growing up in Iowa City.

Brought to Iowa City as a seventh-grader in 1999, the 35-year-old spent his most formative years working in restaurants started by his brothers-in-law, including Three Samurai and Sumo in Iowa City.

Now with two children of his own, Tran left a job as a UPS supervisor to take his own restaurant plunge. After a lifetime of serving customers at other family businesses, he hopes to apply the care he’s honed to his endeavor.

With no saturation of Asian restaurants in Solon, he said the former space of the Brass Fountain on East Main Street presented the perfect opportunity. Much of the interior, newly renovated from the former, old-fashioned soda fountain, will remain the same.

Uncle Sang’s brings new life to the space for the first time since the Brass Fountain closed in December.

“I love the people,” Tran said. “It’s a new challenge for me. I always like to step into something new.”

He knows people in Iowa love sushi. Now, he hopes they’ll come to share his love for Vietnamese food, too.

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