Fr: Daniel Doan*Paula Le*Kimmy Nguyen
VIETNAMICAN - Hợp Phan: Đầu bếp Việt nấu đồ “Mễ” ngon hơn “Mễ"
Người Việt - Sau khi thoát chết trong một tai nạn xe hơi, anh Hợp Phan nhận ra rằng cuộc đời rất ngắn ngủi, nên phải cố gắng thực hiện được đam mê của mình. Đó là nấu ăn.
Sau khi vượt qua những gian nan ban đầu, anh Hợp giờ đã trở thành đầu bếp nổi tiếng, xuất hiện trên nhiều chương trình truyền hình quốc tế nhờ tài nấu đồ "Mễ" ngon hơn "Mễ".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSfrrWgtEoI
Orange County, Calif.
Blending of Cultures Visible in the Food Trucks
By JENNIFER MEDINAAPRIL 7, 2011
To see how radically demographics have changed in Orange County, Calif., just look at what’s for lunch.
Nowhere are the shifts more evident than in the abundance of ethnic restaurants with menus meant to please varied palates.
In
the Vietnamese cooking of Hop Phan’s family, avocados were meant for
sweet, not savory dishes. But in high school, his Mexican friends handed
him a taste of the fruit mashed with salt and spicy beef in a tortilla.
The shock of that first bite of a taco quickly turned to awe, not to
mention a love affair with cultural culinary tourism.
Hop Phan, the Dos Chinos food
truck owner, is a Vietnamese refugee who grew up in a Mexican
neighborhood in Santa Ana. Its menu reflects his past.
(Credit
Monica Almeida/The New York Times)
Soon
after they settled here, with thousands of other Vietnamese refugees,
Mr. Phan’s father opened a string of restaurants that served pho, the
traditional noodle soup. But his son had little interest in doing what
generations of Vietnamese cooks before him had done.
So
last year, Mr. Phan, now 35, began creating fusion dishes like coconut
curry chicken with sour cream and roast pork with salsa verde, and
taking them on the road in a food truck he has christened Dos Chinos.
That’s Spanish for “two Chinese,” but more to the point, “Chino” is how
many Spanish speakers refer to anyone Asian.
“Anyone
who lives here gets it,” Mr. Phan said. “I don’t think anyone who grew
up in Orange County would the word find ‘Chino’ offensive — that’s what
they call us, so we might as well embrace it.”
Less
than a year after it began, Dos Chinos is in high demand when it stops
in front of bars, corporate parks and strip malls round Orange County, a
place far more diverse than when Mr. Phan was a child.
More
than a third of the population is Hispanic, and Asians make up nearly
one-fifth of the county — a growth of nearly 40 percent in the last
decade, according to the new census. In some inland cities, like Buena
Park, Fullerton and Anaheim, the vast majority of the population is
Asian or Hispanic.
“My
son is the only Mexican kid I know who says he wants rice and beans
when he really means edamame and sushi rice,” said David Gonzales, 39,
of Fullerton, a new fan of Dos Chinos, referring to his 3-year-old son,
Jackson. “He eats food I never tasted growing up.”
When
he started his mobile business, Mr. Phan said his parents just “laughed
like you wouldn’t believe,” telling him their friends “would never want
to eat here.” And really, they don’t.
But
Mr. Phan’s truck is particularly popular with the under-30 set: people
who may think that sriracha-tapatio-tamarindo cheesecake is not all that
unusual.
Some
of Mr. Phan strongest memories of life in America are food-related.
There was the country fried chicken during his family’s brief stay in
North Carolina when they first immigrated. And nopales (cactus leaves)
and ceviche, raw seafood marinated in lime juice. He laughed, almost
embarrassed at his admission: “What we thought was adventurous is just
normal now.”
