Nep Cafe

When local restaurant group Kei Concepts opened Gem Dining as a Fountain Valley fine dining experience in mid-2019, it had no way of knowing that a pandemic would heavily compromise its potential soon thereafter. Less than a year after Gem started dinner service at night, Kei pivoted the beautifully decorated space into a dual-concept restaurant by debuting Nep Cafe, which served elevated versions of classic Vietnamese dishes during breakfast and lunch hours. Then Kei opened another two-in-one Nep restaurant, this time in Irvine with a second location of Kin Izakaya serving dinners. In 2023, Kei unexpectedly discontinued both Gem and the Irvine Kin, transforming both Neps into all-day restaurants with new dinner menus.

By 2024, the Nep concept felt like it has reached maturity, though its menus – overlapping but somewhat different between locations – are still evolving. Well-established noodle, dumpling, and bread dishes were been joined by additions ranging from a mango squid salad to a shaken beef entree with rice and greens, later adding a dry noodle version of the Bun Bo Hue soup, and five-spiced chicken with sticky xoi rice.

In most cases, everything Nep serves tastes best-of-breed (or close) compared with countless other local Vietnamese options. At the same time, recipes from Gem (including soft shell crab, hamachi crudo, and kaya pineapple cake) subsequently reappeared at Nep, remixed and generally even better than their predecessors.

During brunch hours, Nep’s menu notably eatures sizzling bánh mì skillets, seafood ceviche with shrimp chips, Szechuan noodles with broccolini, and The Dao – potato espuma, egg, and toast – as well as desserts such as a powerfully complex version of mango sticky rice (bolstered with black sesame seeds), and passion fruit panna cotta. Drinks are equally compelling, including egg coffees, marshmallow-topped tiramisu coffee, creme brûlée coffee, matcha lattes, and Soda Chanh, a sweet-salty sparkling limeade.