Sunday at the Museum: Modern approach on Asian cuisine

by Derek Yen, Winged Post Opinion Editor

Sunday at the Museum at the Asian Art Museum has a modest clientele: patrons come and go as they take breaks from the exhibits or embark again to a new gallery.

Sunday’s decor is colored cream on beige, evocative of milk poured into black tea. White lamps of whiter light illuminate wood-paneled walls; snow-white chairs and tables stand on birch legs; a long table of white wood dominates the center of the cafe. On the far wall is a reminder of the cafe’s location—three framed works of calligraphy.

This Wednesday is only the second day of the cafe’s operation: after the Asian Art Museum’s old cafe, Cafe Asia, closed on Feb. 6, preparations began for the creation of a new cafe. Sunday at the Museum, which opened on Apr. 3, was created as a collaboration between chef Deuki Hong and Boba Guys cofounders Andrew Chau and Bin Chen.

Sunday’s unique culinary pedigree is evident in the scope of its eclectic menu. In addition to Asian cuisine mainstays such as peanut chicken noodles, there are modern innovations, such as a “Bunh Mi” sandwich.

On the drink menu, loose-leaf pots of Tieguanyin and Hojicha are alongside Boba Guys’ classic milk tea, matcha latte and Hong Kong pantyhose milk tea.

The avocado toast seems representative of the cafe’s diversity: tomatoes and avocado from the new world with a miso dressing on Hokkaido milk bread. Its taste is difficult to describe—tomatoes, sharp and clear as their red and yellow skin; creamy avocado and silky bread; both flavors united by mediating miso, tangy yet smooth.

Sunday at the Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesdays to Sundays, at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.