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Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Betsy Brody
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Wai Chhen
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 Interview with Wai Chhen, April 26, 2022 2021oh002_di_011 01:39:49 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Wai Chhen Betsy Brody wav oh-audio-dig-chhen_wai_20220430.wav 1:|18(13)|38(8)|51(15)|66(8)|85(10)|97(11)|108(5)|120(13)|134(10)|145(8)|159(11)|175(1)|186(10)|197(5)|207(13)|218(8)|230(4)|240(8)|251(2)|266(5)|278(10)|293(8)|304(7)|315(1)|326(11)|337(1)|348(11)|365(1)|375(12)|387(1)|401(1)|413(12)|425(7)|441(7)|453(4)|470(1)|482(5)|495(13)|506(6)|515(14)|525(8)|533(17)|543(15)|557(4)|569(1)|582(10)|593(4)|609(9)|618(3)|628(8)|641(3)|652(11)|663(3)|675(12)|689(2)|700(1)|712(15)|725(9)|738(5)|750(15)|766(9)|778(15)|793(14)|805(11)|817(11)|834(12)|845(11)|860(1)|871(8)|885(10)|897(11)|908(10)|919(3)|930(5)|942(11)|954(6)|965(13)|978(3)|991(6)|1004(3)|1019(10)|1032(8)|1045(12)|1058(3)|1067(7)|1079(11)|1090(12)|1102(9)|1115(3)|1131(4)|1144(5)|1158(3)|1171(13)|1183(10)|1195(12)|1208(14)|1222(1)|1234(6)|1248(14) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/159029 Aviary audio 5 Introduction Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Texas--History 37 Arriving in Dallas from Cambodia Cambodia ; Dallas ; Khmer Rouge ; Parkland hospital ; Thailand ; Vietnam War 87 Career as a chef/ Thoughts on hospitality chef ; cooking ; cooking show ; Dallad ; hospitality ; Julia Child ; Martin Yan ; representation ; restaurant 281 Growing up eating food with blended Asian flavors Anthony Bourdain ; Asia ; Asian flavors ; bitter melon ; Cambodia ; Chinese food ; cooking ; fish sauce ; respect ; Southeast Asian ; street food ; Thai 678 Culinary school and training Art Institute of Dallas ; brigade system ; Charlie Palmer ; chef ; Compass Group ; country club ; culinary school ; French ; hotel ; Scott Romano 1153 Business and Industry Dining chef ; Compass Group ; cooking ; dishwasher ; French ; front of the house ; mentor ; naan ; training ; wok 1852 Being creative as a chef chef ; chicken fried steak ; creativity ; ethnic food ; veterans ; Wolfgand Puck 2265 Growing up in Dallas during the 1980s Asian ; Dallas ; family style ; food ; Garland 2735 Decision not to specialize in Asian cuisine Asian flavors ; Charlie Palmer ; chef ; culture ; innovation ; risk ; traditional 3290 Asian restaurants in the Dallas food landscape Asian flavors ; Asian restaurant ; chef ; Dallas ; fine dining ; innovation ; mom and pop ; upscale 3557 Martin Yan and representation of Asian chefs Asian ; Asian chefs ; celebrity chef ; chefs ; Chinese cooking ; cooking show ; Martin Yan ; PBS 3753 Food and culture chef ; culture ; ethnicity ; food ; fried rice ; mentor ; tradition 3949 " ; Mom and Pop" ; restaurants vs. " ; Chef driven" ; concepts adventurous ; Anthony Bourdain ; business ; challenge ; chef ; educate ; education ; expand ; expansion ; food ; growth ; mom and pop ; training 4466 Non-Asian chefs incorporating Asian flavors appropriation ; Asian flavors ; authentic ; authenticity ; chefs ; ingredients ; respect 5002 Influence of Anthony Bourdain Anthony Bourdain ; Asian flavors ; celebrity chef ; chef ; culinary school ; culture ; food ; mom and pop ; respect 5630 Impact of social media and online review sites on the restaurant industry chef ; influencer ; negative reviews ; restaurant critic ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; social media ; tipping ; Yelp |00:00:05| Brody This is Betsy Brody. Today is April 30th, 2022. I am interviewing for the first time Mr. Wai Chhen. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and is part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shape the Story of Asian Dallas." ; All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming in for an interview. |00:00:36| Chhen Thanks for having me. |00:00:37| Brody Let' ; s start with just a little background. Where and when were you born? |00:00:40| Chhen I was born in Dallas in 1980. So it' ; s kind of a product of Parkland baby, I guess you would say what I am. |00:00:52| Brody Tell me about how you, how your family ended up in Dallas. |00:00:56| Chhen So, my mom is an immigrant for Cambodia and my dad is as well-my biological father is as well. It was during the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnam War. And when, you know, the fighting happened, everyone fled to Thailand. And from Thailand they all immigrated here to Dallas through sponsorships. |00:01:17| Brody Do you have any siblings? |00:01:18| Chhen I have an older sister and I have a half sibling younger sister as well. |00:01:26| Brody So tell me about your career. What do you do? |00:01:30| Chhen I am a chef for Compass Group USA. The division that I work for is called Eurest Dining. |00:01:37| Brody What was your path to this career? |00:01:40| Chhen I guess you know. A lot of it comes from just when I was younger, watching Martin Yan, watching Julia Child. And I told my mom, like, I really wanted to cook. Just watching him make dishes, it was just like, " ; Wow, this guy created something out of raw ingredients." ; And my mom was always been a good, very, very good cook. And so I needed money when I was in high school. She was like, " ; Well, well, the way you get money is you you need to go work." ; So my mom' ; s best friend owned a restaurant. It was off of like Park Lane and 75 area. It was called " ; Texas Broasted Chicken." ; And then on the other side of it had a Chinese restaurant, too. That' ; s all his. So during the summers, I would work, you know, washing his dishes, prepping, you know, making fried chicken and working the wok station. And from there, I just really enjoyed it, even though my mom was like, " ; No, this cannot be what you want to do." ; But I followed my passion and my love and it' ; s kind of one of those crazy things that I' ; m not a doctor, I' ; m not a lawyer. And I went with a path that' ; s more- it' ; s a blue collar job wearing a white collar shirt, is probably the best way to put it. |00:02:57| Brody What did you like about it? What, what made you feel like you wanted to be in this kind of a career? |00:03:04| Chhen I think a lot of it is just hospitality is probably the best way to put it. When people come over to your house, you always want to serve good food, and just being able to put something that you put a lot of care or thought and it' ; s cooking is intimate in its, in its own way. And I wanted to be able to share that, whether it' ; s my mom' ; s recipes or something that I' ; ve, you know, as I' ; ve worked in the industry and grown something like homogolated into my own concept. I want to be able to share those things and just watch people go, " ; Wow, that was awesome." ; And just watching people enjoy because food food' ; s universal, right? Everyone has to eat. Everyone has to enjoy something together. And it' ; s the most common thing. We all have to drink water. We all have to eat, might as well eat great food. Best way to put it. |00:03:59| Brody What is your philosophy of hospitality? |00:04:03| Chhen Well, a lot of times people say customers are always right, but there' ; s...It isn' ; t. And hospitality to me, it' ; s about the people. The people, the guests. But it' ; s the overall experience. So you, you- hospitality is about being welcomed somewhere. It doesn' ; t, I don' ; t care what race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. That- none of that should matter. Hospitality is about feeling welcome no matter where you go. And that' ; s how I feel. Food is- food is hospitality regarding that. No one cares about any of those things. It' ; s just about eating good food. |00:04:41| Brody You mentioned your mom was a good cook. |00:04:42| Chhen Yes. |00:04:43| Brody What kind of dishes did you grow up eating? |00:04:46| Chhen So I was lied to a lot when I was a kid. In the aspect of, you know, you grow up in a Chinese household thinking the food that you' ; ve been eating is Chinese food. But it wasn' ; t. It was Cambodian or Vietnamese or that that influence from the area that my mom grew up, which is in Phnom Phen. And that place was like a melting pot of immigrants as well in Cambodia. You had the Vietnamese, Laotians, Thai, in you know, even Cambodian dishes into all the Chinese dishes. Mainly, a lot of them were from the Canton or Guangzhou area that immigrated there. So all these dishes my mom made, I thought was Chinese. But it wasn' ; t it! It was Cambodian or Vietnamese or whatever it was going to be. So. She made all this, whether it' ; s like a stir fry or noodle dish. And and I would grow up and going to eat at a restaurants and go, " ; This isn' ; t... Why are we going to...why is this guy is serving this at a Vietnamese restaurant? This is Chinese food." ; Mom was like, " ; Oh, no, it' ; s Vietnamese." ; You know, so you, you tend to learn the dishes that my mom made were literally a blend. And it' ; s really cool now as an adult and as a chef, you research and I' ; ve been researching like kind of where these origins come from and there either a mix of everything, whether it' ; s from a Chinese origin or it' ; s from Thailand or it' ; s, you know, ethnically Cambodian. And it' ; s really cool because for me, who identify as more Chinese, most mainland Chinese will have never eaten this stuff or have never experienced it. And so my mom would make dishes that I had, like were like fish sauce based, because it' ; s a Southeast Asian thing, mainlanders don' ; t traditionally eat those type of like ingredients. So it was kind of cool, she would make...Oh God, the best way to put it was these like stuffed bitter melons with ground pork in it as a soup. It' ; s a South, it' ; s a Southeast Asian thing. It' ; s not a Chinese dish. And so growing up thinking that was- it wasn' ; t. So it was pretty cool to kind of just, you know, learn what my mom has taught me regarding just the basics things. Like every, every dish, stir fry has got ginger, scallion, garlic in it. And that builds the foundation of the flavor that you' ; re looking to do more traditional Chinese food and just learning from there. It was crazy that I didn' ; t think my mom was that great of a chef, like not even as a chef, but just as a cook. But the foundation she laid down is exactly what goes on in restaurants, exactly what goes on in Asian cuisine that people do. And so when I make Asian food at work, people are always like " ; Wow, it tastes authentic." ; Well, it is, because that' ; s how I was taught. And I kept it that way. |00:07:51| Brody So do you think those labels matter? You know, like, obviously, each country is very proud of its own cuisine and its own style. And the fact that you ate and enjoyed all of those things from your mom' ; s kitchen without really necessarily knowing their, you know, history or where they came from. You know, what do you think about the notion of, you know, the strict sort of separations in maybe the restaurant world between this type of food versus this type of food? |00:08:23| Chhen You know, I think as with that, it comes to a certain point where I always think that if you' ; re looking for like Thai food or if you' ; re looking for a Thai dish, it needs to be essentially the flavors of that. You can modernize it. Have a great time with it. But when you eat it, you want to be like, " ; Holy cow. It tastes like, you know, this type of Pad Thai or I had Thai basil chicken and it tastes just like it, but it' ; s a cool way of plating, it' ; s a modern way of doing it." ; I think that' ; s where nuances get lost is sometimes if people push it too far forward, you lose what its natural origin is supposed to be. A lot of food comes from super humble origins, whether it' ; s street food or something that' ; s homemade, and when you lose that, sometimes you lose identity. And food, a lot is someone' ; s culture and their identity. And if you, you know, bastardize that as, as like you did that culture who for hundreds of years have or whatever generations have kept doing it. You want to pay homage to it. I think that' ; s kind of where food and culinary world sometimes needs to kind of slow down to that part, is you pay homage to it, but you also want to move it forward. And I think we, as chefs, sometimes lose that thought and because we always want to be the next big thing, someone wants to be on a TV show or someone wants to be, you know, competing somewhere. But, you know, sometimes keeping things simple is probably the best way. |00:10:01| Brody Do you mean, sort of each type of cuisine has sort of its essence? |00:10:06| Chhen Yes. Yes. You want you know, when you know, when we make or even like Korean food, for instance, you know, there' ; s generically in there food sometimes there' ; s like sesame oil, there' ; s garlic, there' ; s pears or anything in their marinades that' ; s essentially in there. Have it in there, but don' ; t take it out so far where you don' ; t taste that ethnicity' ; s flavors. And I think that' ; s kind of where the nuances, you know, when we do certain dishes, it' ; s like, did you know there was fish sauce in it? And people like, " ; Oh, I didn' ; t know that." ; And it' ; s just paying homage to that and digging more and researching more of that particular food, eating more. I think that' ; s kind of where, you know, Anthony Bourdain said it best. It' ; s just kind of like respect it. Respect the food. And when you travel and you eat that, you understand where you see more. You understand like the flavors, what they put into it. It' ; s fine to modernize it, but, you know, just really know that what' ; s truly already in it. And don' ; t take it where you' ; re not respecting that food anymore or that cuisine or culture. |00:11:18| Brody So you' ; re coming at this from a trained chef perspective. Tell me about your education and your path that you took to that. |00:11:27| Chhen I started when I was 14, truly as a, as a dishwasher at my mom' ; s friend' ; s restaurant. And then, you know, prepping, just learning the basics of...Funny thing was they taught me to butcher chicken and throw it in this salted water. I never knew that they were brining it. They' ; re like, " ; Oh, just throw it in this big bucket of saltwater." ; But you' ; re literally brining. I didn' ; t know the terminology back then. When you were young, you were just told what to do, right? And so as I grew into that path of wanting to be a chef, I also wanted to learn terminology, because in any modern kitchen, it' ; s always French based terminology and French based ways of doing things. And so I went to the Art Institute of Dallas. And just learned and worked my way through there. Getting yelled at, screamed at, pans thrown at, you know? I don' ; t think it was as harsh, but some of the chefs really wanted during the training to experience like, " ; Hey, this is what happens in the real world. It' ; s what happens in the kitchens. Like we can be as sugarcoated, as nice as can be, but just know that this will happen to you once you get in there. I' ; m just giving the smallest taste of that." ; And to learn that the kitchen is more military based foundation. That it' ; s a brigade system. The chef is essentially the general and everyone else is just being told what to do, and your sous chefs are your sergeants or colonels or anybody below. And they- you get into that thought and so to mentally prepare myself to go, " ; Okay, I' ; m going to take this path that' ; s grueling and long hours." ; And knowing that it is a hard-working career. I kept going because I really wanted it, I loved it. I loved that thrive, that energy that goes on with it. And so, you know, graduated culinary school and then started working in just, you know, like the country clubs or other restaurants and just working my way around. And then I had this great opportunity to work for Ferrari' ; s Italian Villa in Addison and trained under James and his...And then I guess it said Stefano Secchi, who' ; s like a big-time chef now in New York, and that guy' ; s amazing. And just to kind of learn Italian food. I wanted to know origins of...What, how pasta is made, where good risottos are made. And, you know, I was very thankful that I had that opportunity to work with them and for them and just learning like Italian secrets that people tell you that' ; s in their food. And from there, just kind of work my way up to beginning to work for Charlie Palmer, a big-name chef, and work under fine dining and learning that that type of preparation where it' ; s like everything, it' ; s meticulous, everything is time consuming, everything is measured, everything is...And you learn all that. It was awesome. And to work under a chef who very passionate about his food, Chef Scott Romano, he' ; s one of those chefs that, you know, he' ; s a New Yorker, so we could all say that I' ; m very glad he spent that time and really beat it into me, of just the quality, respect the food. This is what you need to do. And I cook the way I cook now because of that man. He has made me ten times a better chef than I thought I would ever be. I think I take that and I instill into my cooks today. And I still cook in that same way of how he got on to me. But, you know, from there it was kind of like, all right, next path in my career, what is it that I really wanted to learn? And it was hotels. Mainly in the aspect of mass production because fine dining is about, you know, smaller production but more intimate. And everything about hotels is about mass production. Feeding the masses. How do you get that part done? And that was grueling, too. When you' ; re there from five in the morning to 2:00 in the morning of the next day, and you' ; re learning that...I got to peel all these cases of asparagus, but then count individually what an average case of asparagus is. Because when you do plate ups, you' ; re like, " ; Alright, cool. I got 900 plates. Each plate gets three asparagus. I need this amount, 27, whatever, 2700 asparagus." ; And you literally would spend time counting, and you plate and you go, " ; Okay, cool. This is how many here? How many there?" ; And you would on your sheet pans, meticulously separate out that each sheet pan has 25 filet mignons on it. And you know, you have it all, so when you stage it to fire it and cook it, you know that you could plate 25 filet mignons each time you keep going. And it' ; s an awesome thing to learn that because then you go, " ; Okay, I could batch cook these things, holding temps. I think that a lot of the skill sets from a hotel is amazing because you know, you need to cook chicken to 165, but because that chicken holds-sits in a hot box for at least 30 minutes, you need to cook...you can cook it to like 155, so it' ; s a little bit lower, but then as it keeps sitting and cooking, that temperature rises. And it' ; s just those things, it, it' ; s a learning trade. It' ; s something that I apply still to this day because knowing that, yes, you need it- chicken can' ; t be dry and that' ; s mainly the reasons, and...You' ; ve got to that path where, you know, as an executive sous chef of the Renaissance Hotel, I got to, opportunity to, with Compass Group. And I told myself I wanted to, to work under one more person. Kind of give myself that. Like one other person to train me and another skill set and so forth. But I went to the interview, the the chef interviewed me, he was like, " ; Well, you' ; re, you' ; re already doing the executive chef job without the title. How about this? We' ; re going to chef test you for an executive chef role and see what happens. And here I am, 12 years later, still working for Compass Group. And that, the chef, Mark Simmons, he' ; s still with us. He' ; s our, he' ; s our division chef now. And that man again, without his, on the chef side, growing me and teaching me and showing me how to open a restaurant, how to prepare, how to stage things and, without his like leadership of like, " ; Hey, do what you' ; re passionate about, have a good time with it." ; And I...never, again not be who I am today. It' ; s like he taught me more of the business side and the opening side and...That no one would ever show. Right? It' ; s kind of one of those things that I have been very blessed with great opportunities. And these people took the time and care to show me so that I' ; ll be successful. And I am successful today because of those, what would you say? Like not even just mentorships, but just what they' ; ve invested in me? That' ; s probably the best way to put it, is that their investment into me has been my way of repaying them back to be as successful as I can. |00:19:12| Brody That' ; s great. How would you characterize your cooking today? |00:19:17| Chhen Ooh, you know, that' ; s a, that' ; s very unique because with what I do with what' ; s called BNI, which is " ; Business and Industry Dining" ; is that you have to be kind of a jack of all trades in food. And the great thing, because of Compass Group' ; s vast knowledge of chefs and everything like that you, get to train with people who are inherently specialized in certain cuisines, I think some are very good with Indian cuisine where we could make our own naan bread from scratch- we have our own tandoori grills- and we' ; ll do trainings on that. And I' ; ll train people on like the wok stations because again those are inherent skills that not everyone gets to have. But you know, I' ; d say mine is probably more New American, French, Italian and Asian. Just because we have to be diverse in our food, because the dining community wants to really eat diverse food, especially if you' ; re in an environment where you sit down and you, you know, you' ; re at a complex every single day that you work, you don' ; t want to eat the same food. Oh yeah, you inherently you could go get a burger somewhere, a pizza, but that' ; s always gonna be there. But because of our...We feed, in our own way, a static population, we want to be able to keep offering something that' ; s different every single day, whether it' ; s Indian, whether it' ; s Greek, it' ; s, you know, Thai or Chinese or Korean and...that' ; s what I want to kind of give everyone is a taste of a little bit of everything. So when you do go out, let' ; s say you' ; re not comfortable with something, you' ; re now in an environment where you' ; re not, " ; Okay. I have no idea what this you know, gojuchang marinated pork belly is, but at work it was fricking amazing." ; So I' ; m, in my own way. I' ; m essentially educating people to, " ; Hey, go try this. You tried it at work, at where you work and it' ; s great. Go." ; Because that' ; s kind of where I got that inspiration from. And that' ; s kind of where I see my my food is to be is just opening doors for people to just try something different. I will never serve you bad food. I' ; m not perfect, but I' ; ll always try to give you good food that kind of give you that in to something that you' ; re not used to or something you haven' ; t tried. And that' ; s kind of where I see kind of where my food goes. Like I won' ; t say have specialized in one thing. I just try to specialize in everything, but master of none. |00:21:44| Brody Well, it sounds like your whole path...I mean, how long did that take you from the time you were 14 to to where you' ; re at now? |00:21:53| Chhen I' ; m 41, 42, 41. It took a while and it took you know, like I said earlier, it' ; s like it' ; s an investment step that people have put in me. And I don' ; t ever want to let any of them down because. I carry their time that they put in me. I want to show them that...that I' ; m not failing at anything. And that, you know, from like Chef Armstrong, who is a chef from culinary school, she is essentially like a godmother to me. And, you know, the industry beats you up because it' ; s hard. It' ; s long hours. And I' ; m like, " ; Chef, I don' ; t know what to do. This is this is crazy." ; And she' ; s, you know, religious in her own way. Not...I' ; m not. But she' ; s always, you know, reading things from the Bible or something or verses that I' ; m like, " ; Oh, wow, that really means a lot." ; And, you know, I' ; ve always had that great opportunity where for some odd reason there' ; s always been women who spend more time investing into me, into my own success, and just being able to show them that like, " ; Hey, what you did for me...I' ; m not like letting you down." ; I want to make sure that what you taught me will always carry on and like one of my mentors. Her name is Laura Gigl, and what she taught me the most is like when I transitioned from working hotel and into working for Compass, was her saying is " ; You cannot manage from a cutting board." ; And that was when, for the longest time, everywhere I went it was like, you need to be the best cook, need to be the best chef, but it was never to be the best leader or best manager. And I think that' ; s kind of where that path, where she took the time to invest into and to me and with all of the district managers and managers I have now, it was " ; No longer do I need you to prove that you can cook. I need you to become a leader and grow you to be a better manager and leader." ; I think that' ; s kind of where my path has become now. I' ; ve seen myself more as I don' ; t need to be the best at making this flavor, but I can coach this person or train this other chef to understand the nuances of particular cuisine and grow them and lead them. And that was an amazing thing to finally go, " ; Okay, cool, I' ; ll cook what I need to." ; But the best part of making any restaurant really successful is the business management side. Yeah, it' ; s great. You can make great food, but if your food cost is ungodly or your labor cost is ungodly, you' ; re losing money. You' ; re not going to make any money. I think that' ; s kind of one of the great things with working in this industry is you learn so much more about the business. And the food. Yes, the food is there. It' ; s a close number two. But you you will always be able to utilize those skills no matter where you go into. I guess you say you you decided to go to another career path or whatever you want to do, those inherent skill sets of money management is included any industry you do and it' ; s kind of cool where it' ; s like, " ; Hey, train this cook to do that job, why are you butchering that chicken?" ; You know, like Johns' ; s just standing there, teach him how to butcher your chicken for you. And so it was that it was really, truly not having to prove myself to be the best in that situation, the best cook, the best of the flavors. It' ; s to make sure that I am around and it' ; s really awesome where she took me to more to the front of the house side. And that' ; s very rare for chefs to inherently take care of the front of the house and back of the house. But it was to look at, " ; Hey, this napkin dispenser, why is it dusty?" ; You' ; re like, you' ; re like, " ; Okay, the customers see this." ; You know, yeah, the food might be great, but everything' ; s dirty around you, so you want to make sure it' ; s all clean. So it' ; s those things. Those things that you would never think that a chef has to learn even more so. Oh, but that' ; s how you learn it, because you' ; re off the cutting board is you now go, " ; Okay, cool. That oatmeal is dry. And even though it normally comes in the kitchen, you can now see it and you can see like. Like flows of how food becomes where...You see, like... Like how people order food. It might take a little bit longer. You can now send someone to kind of either help out or do whatever. It' ; s, it' ; s one of those things. You become your own conductor in your own, in your own facility in a restaurant and you be able to make those changes. That' ; s kind of a great thing with that type of learning that you' ; ll never get anywhere. I think the culinary industry or the hospitality side of it is like everyone wants to be the best chef, lets people forget that, hey, there' ; s another side of that you need to learn. |00:27:06| Brody Yeah, it sounds like I mean, from what you' ; re saying, you had some really excellent mentors, but also you never stopped trying to learn the different facets of the industry, which is different than, I think, you know, a celebrity chef or somebody like that that' ; s focused on sort of the, you know... |00:27:27| Chhen Very niche. Very, very...You know, like one thing. And I think that' ; s kind of where it' ; s very cool in the aspect that I got to learn all these things, that it was an opportunity that I...that doesn' ; t stop. Everything changes and I think it was real great with working for Compass is that because every property we open every property, it' ; s so different for the next. There is no cookie cutter. Yes, some things are the same because our inherent standards are the same- " ; Hey, these are the things that we have to do." ; But it is like, " ; Hey, this place is more funky and cool. Let' ; s design our menus of food to be funky and cool to fit the clientele that' ; s in there." ; And you adapt and so the coolest thing you adapt to the people who work in that particular building and you adapt to the things that they will or will not eat. And then you kind of work around your....I guess the best way to put it we' ; re our own...What' ; s that saying? Chefs are very good mimickers or imitators of things. We, we try to do everything to kind of blend in, so you can always have a good time with it and working for Compass has afforded that where you become that and you...You learn what your guest wants and you also be able to give kind of what they want to eat. But it' ; s about the people. I think in the end you come down to it, Betsy, is that in the end, it' ; s not about me. It really isn' ; t about the chef or me. It' ; s truly about the people that I work for or work with. You know, I think a lot of people always forget about thanking their dishwasher. Without him or her, you have no plates. You have no spoons. You have no necessities to cook with. And I' ; ve always, you know, started for me, starting in that position I' ; ve always respected the dishwasher. You treat everyone the same. And I think my success isn' ; t me. It' ; s my staff. They' ; re the ones who' ; ve made me successful, and they are the ones who need to be as much in the spotlight as I am. And that' ; s a great thing with working where I' ; m at is because I let my staff shine. I kind of stand in the background like, " ; Hey, how' ; s it going?" ; I' ; ll wave to the guests, but they' ; re the ones cooking, the ones that see you, chit-chat with you. They' ; re the ones that know that John likes his eggs over medium, you know, with him just walking up. It' ; s them. They' ; re the superstars. I' ; m just the one who is the conductor and training them. And I think that' ; s kind of where I see myself is that they need to be more of the spotlight, you know, and we always see it, right? TV or any articles about the chef, about the chef, but the chef would never be successful without the staff. And the staff are the true superstars. They' ; re the ones who work for you because they' ; re passionate about your, your creations and your dreams. And you instill that. I think that' ; s kind of why chefs are successful. The good ones are- is because they have that inherent skill set to train their staff, to live that passion and live that dream. And that' ; s what has made great chefs greater, and people who fail is because they don' ; t, they can' ; t, they didn' ; t know how to transfer that passion to their, to their staff. |00:30:52| Brody That' ; s super interesting. And it makes me think. Earlier you said you talked about the sort of military aspect of working in a kitchen, especially a large kitchen like that. How creative do you feel, within that structure, a chef can be? |00:31:10| Chhen You know, I think anywhere you go, I guess my creativity...the creativity goes as much as you want to, as far as you want to take it. You know, with my chef and my bosses, they' ; re like, " ; No, be as creative as you want. Here' ; s this box. It' ; s pretty massive. Don' ; t step out of that box, you will get in trouble. But the meantime, you have this massive box. Do whatever want. You can in this massive box." ; And I do. And it' ; s just taking these different things that we can do and showcase the fact that business dining is no longer for the chef who is retiring or where a chef goes and dies. You know, for like, several of our chefs are from like, came from big name people, working for Wolfgang Puck. I' ; m coming from Charlie Palmer. Another guy worked for Chef Uno and Tiffany Derry. And we' ; re all there together with these great skill sets and we' ; re like, " ; Hey, we get to go home." ; I have my weekends off, have holidays. And it' ; s not that cafeteria, who' ; s scooping these canned beans. We' ; re using fresh ingredients. We make our own stuff in-house and we get to have great time, but we get to go home...in a normal time, but we' ; ll never get that spotlight? I think that' ; s kind of the one thing that working in this part of the industry is we' ; ll never be a TV show. We' ; ll never be in a magazine. I' ; ll never get rated five stars. But at the exact same time, I' ; m making the normal restaurant world work harder because I get to offer you an amazing meal for like, half the cost. And people don' ; t seem to understand that. It' ; s like...You know, but we also do a lot of great things for like the community that people again don' ; t hear because you just think, " ; Oh, it' ; s just business dining." ; But like all of our seafood' ; s all sustainable, our chicken' ; s like hormone free or antibiotic free. We compost. While we work with our partners to do all those different things. We support your local farms, but again, you don' ; t... you' ; ll never hear about it because it' ; s not publicized. People think that' ; s where you go to die. You know, we' ; re rejected chefs, but it' ; s not. You get to do amazing things and play with so much cool stuff. And, you know, our bosses just like, " ; Just go and have fun." ; |00:33:31| Brody Is that because of the scale? That they can- the sort of the economy of scale? |00:33:36| Chhen Correct. It really is a lot of economy of scale, but it' ; s also where it' ; s really cool, where when we partner with a particular brand, you know, they might have their own corporate initiatives they want to hit and we are partners with them regarding those situations where, like if you want to become a so-called like Fitwel building, where it' ; s about sustainability, composting, and wellness, we will be your partner in helping you develop that because a lot of companies, they want wellness to be their big thing or sustainability to be a big thing. And we partner with them and and make sure all that happens and it' ; s really cool. And I learned like, oh, my God, you' ; re you want to do this for your wellness? We have dieticians in our company to help us hit certain dietary needs or caloric needs or gluten free or anything. So that' ; s really cool. When you come into some of our units or properties where you' ; ll see a lot of water, it' ; s always wellness driven first and then indulgence will also come along with it. But I think everywhere you go, it' ; s should always be a balance, right? Not everyone- everyone has that choice to eat healthier. Like when you want that burger, you' ; re going to get the burger, whether I want to stop you or not. And so our job is to give you a balance of both from wellness to indulgence and sustainability and so forth. |00:35:01| Brody And most of the people that eat at your restaurant are people who work in that building. Right? So but it' ; s not restricted to just people who work there. |00:35:12| Chhen So it' ; s kind of interesting. For the, for this property that I' ; m at where it' ; s my first time, I' ; ve been told it' ; s open to the public. It' ; s not like publicized that it is, but you can just walk in and just enjoy a meal, have a good time, or even have drinks or a cocktail during the happy hour. And it' ; s kind of the first time in my, in my own career, in a long time that I' ; m feeding more of a public, you know, situation where someone wearing suits is standing next to someone wearing flip flops, and then there' ; s children and then you' ; re like, " ; Okay, I never thought how to develop a children' ; s menu in 12 years." ; Here I am offering grilled cheeses and chicken quesadillas for these particular guests that we never thought we' ; d serve." ; But then, it' ; s funny. It' ; s like, it' ; s like the adults are " ; Okay. It' ; s got grilled cheese. I want to get that. Or a chicken." ; It' ; s like, " ; Those are for kids." ; But you know, it' ; s kind of cool. It' ; s just being able to feed all the demographics and different age groups and see what they eat and. It' ; s been, it' ; s been, like, a crazy ride. And I don' ; t want to get off it. It' ; s a journey that is really cool. And you learn where....Like people always think that manufacturing is always meat and potatoes, but it' ; s really not. And that people think that, " ; Oh...those guys are just the chicken fried steaks," ; but they' ; re inherently not. It' ; s really wild where you learn, again, different, different properties have different groups. And one of them that I used to work at was Bell Helicopter, out in Hurst. And when I got there, they' ; re like, " ; Man, these guys are just chicken fried steaks and meatloaf. Don' ; t ever do anything ethnic." ; And I was like, " ; I' ; m going to try it and see what happens." ; And lo and behold, it was that older generation that ate all the ethnic food because they were stationed overseas in Japan, Korea, or they fought in Vietnam or whatever may be. And they' ; re like, " ; I haven' ; t had this since I was stationed in Okinawa." ; You' ; re like, " ; Are you kidding me?" ; And so you see, the line of all the cultural cuisines was always the older generations that work at the plant, which you thought were the meat and potatoes. But they' ; re not. They were the ones who were open to eat, whatever, because it brought back their, their youth. And so, you know, the saying of " ; can' ; t judge a book by its cover" ; is totally true. So, yeah, like I said, it was just kind of one of those things where you just you keep enjoying what you do. |00:37:44| Brody What was it like growing up in Dallas during the eighties? |00:37:49| Chhen Hey, you know, like, I grew up in Garland, so it' ; s kind of redneck? Probably the best way to put it, I guess. Part of what you know, my neighborhood I grew up within didn' ; t have that many Asians except for like this one family who was like they babysat me and everyone else was, you know, Caucasian or whatever because it' ; s a very diverse neighborhood. And I always thought I was like the only other Asian guy versus everyone else. And so I got like high school and I was like, " ; Holy cow, it' ; s a lot more Asians." ; But then I felt I felt weird because I think it was never really around them. So it was really crazy, even as I kind of grew up was that I didn' ; t connect with that community 100% because I felt like I was just...I was never was ever brought up around that as much. Well, it' ; s real wild, but my closest, best friends are all Asian, and but they' ; re just as redneck as we are because we all grew up in Garland. And so, you know, we always see yourselves like, " ; Oh, well, you know, we' ; re unique in our own way." ; But I think that' ; s what makes us cool and unique, right? Every person gets to be inherently different and growing up in Dallas, where even in the eighties or nineties it was...I guess kind of hard. Eighties in the aspect of it' ; s like people are starting to see that, " ; Hey, there is like an ethnic minority now that' ; s in the Dallas area that' ; s different." ; I was never...My own personal, I was never looked down on, being Asian or being different. And that has been a blessing, I guess. Same thing with my opportunities, like career-wise as well. But, you know, as you move forward to like the nineties and I' ; m in like middle school and so forth. And again, Garland...We, just because it' ; s so diverse, everyone' ; s so used to being, seeing different people and it was never that hard feeling, not as a minority, you know, that that like, " ; Oh, I' ; m different type of thing." ; And even, I guess in the culinary world, as I guess I grow up, where they see me like " ; He' ; s got...That the guy' ; s rolling sushi, man. That guy, that guy' ; s got to be that dude." ; But I' ; m not. I can' ; t roll sushi for the life of me. I' ; d rather hire someone to do it than for me do it myself. But, you know, I never...I had a great childhood in the aspect...Just because the fact that I had great friends. They are lifelong friends. And, you know, they make up who I am as well outside of work because those guys are our brothers. And you get to see kind of because they share the same pain. Because we' ; re all minorities in our own way. But you...We try to make race, not our main focus. It' ; s about who we are. It' ; s about our pride. It' ; s about our skill set. It' ; s about what we can contribute to society to make it better. And I think that' ; s what truly matters. The color of my skin and more my hair or my eyes shouldn' ; t matter. It should be about what I can bring to make the place better. And, you know, as a chef and as a person who gets to employ people, you, you feel that because you... You take pride in what you do, but these guys also have dignity who work for you. You want them to have as much dignity as possible, even though they' ; re scrubbing your floor. It shouldn' ; t be about the skin or anything. It' ; s like, " ; Hey, man, you do a great job." ; It' ; s so they don' ; t feel that, " ; Hey, I' ; m just a janitor." ; My uncle' ; s a janitor until he retired and he put my, you know, my cousins through school. You know, my aunt' ; s an assembly line worker. My dad' ; s a mechanic. My mom, you know, was always in accounting or whatever, but it' ; s given them dignity and I think that' ; s what, my part of my other passion is that, is like giving people dignity in what they do. Because I didn' ; t...I don' ; t come from a white collar family. My family is all hard working and you take that and you, you feel every bit that this dishwasher' ; s working two jobs to be able to feed his family. Or this cook has to work doubles because she' ; s got to pay for medical bills or something like that. And you' ; re like, " ; Holy cow. Like, these people work so much harder just for the basic life necessities." ; So. Very different. |00:43:18| Brody Yeah, there definitely is a, you know, a way of thinking about the dignity of work and treating people with respect regardless of what they' ; re doing. So, you mentioned that your mom was such a good cook and that she cooked a lot of things that were of Southeast Asian origin when you were growing up, even though she told you that they were Chinese, but did you share your family' ; s food with your friends, your peers, your neighbors? |00:43:51| Chhen I think what' ; s wild is I cook more family style food at home? I think that' ; s when people get to eat the kind of like the more intimate side of me. But I do get to share that at work at times. You know, for instance, one day at...God, sometime last year I did this Taiwanese style braised pork belly at work. And it was my first time ever making it for that vast amount. I' ; ve always done it at home for like four or five people or whatever I was like, " ; All right. I mean, it' ; s the same cooking process. You just got to use bigger vessels to make everything." ; And I didn' ; t think anyone was going to eat it, Betsy, but holy shit. There was a line out the door. People were like, " ; That was amazing." ; It spread like a wildfire and I didn' ; t even get to eat it myself. I only got to try it to make sure it tasted great and it sold out within an hour and a half. Like, " ; Well, we' ; re I guess I don' ; t get to eat it." ; It was one of those few times I got to truly do something that' ; s more homestyle that you' ; ll never see in restaurants. And I brought it to more of the masses and...It done well. And so now I' ; m kind of like at home, like R& ; Ding like how to do a cool version of Clay Pot Rice or making dishes that were, as I would say, will blow your pants off when you somewhere I go eat like is is so good that will I will order it twice in one sitting and or it' ; s life changingly good because you' ; ve never seen a variation of that. And so I' ; ve been kind of going back to my youth and looking at dishes that I got to eat while I was traveling, going, " ; Wow, that was amazing. How do I now replicate that?" ; And so that' ; s kind of where I' ; m at. |00:45:35| Brody So, I mean, you' ; ve been trained with, you know, all sorts of great, you know, great chefs, Charlie Palmer and others, but you' ; ve really not chosen to be a, you know, a chef of Asian food specifically. What was your, what is your thinking behind that choice? |00:45:58| Chhen I think a lot of it was just I wanted to feel different. I wanted to be different. Not that I don' ; t ever want to do Asian food because I' ; m very skilled at it. I teach those things with, to other chefs. It' ; s just that I wanted to, when someone was to look at me as " ; can' ; t judge a book by its cover." ; I wanted to prove that to someone that I can make pasta from scratch and I could do all these different things that I' ; m not your typical Asian chef. And I think that' ; s what has always surprised people was that I' ; m not typical and I didn' ; t want to be. And I think that' ; s something that' ; s kind of cool. I think people should take more risks because it' ; s a big risk to be outside your norm. And I think people should do more of that because I think it' ; s more, I would say it' ; s more of that aspect that...What' ; s that word? That when you feel like you' ; re, that kind of freedom, what is that word? |00:47:04| Brody Liberated. |00:47:04| Chhen Liberated. That' ; s the word. You feel more liberated because you' ; re not. You' ; re like, " ; I just do it how I want." ; So what' ; s the...That' ; s the great thing is like, just like any child, right? Or anyone, I get to do whatever the hell I want. And that' ; s kind of the thought was like, why keep myself in a box? I' ; m going to do whatever the hell I want and be liberated from it and not be judged by being Asian or being anything. Judge me by the food, amazing food that I put out. And that' ; s kind of why I wanted to do it, was because I wanted not to be the same as anyone else. And there' ; s no fault in anyone who wants to stay in that path, because I think there' ; s- you inherently need those people. Because you' ; re like, " ; Hey, dude. You make these amazing noodles. Stick to this. Please don' ; t change it because I want to keep eating here." ; But at the exact same time, if you want to be, if you' ; re, if you want to be a risk taker, be a risk taker. And I think that' ; s kind of where my mom was a big influence on that. When she was like, " ; If you' ; re going to do something, do your best." ; And my sister, who is this amazing woman was like, " ; In order for you to be the best, you need to work at the best at that particular thing." ; And, and as a minority, and this is something that' ; s very unique and it' ; s so true, is that we have to work so much harder to get recognized. We have to be better than someone else to get that recognition. And so that' ; s what I did, was to be liberated, you had to be better at everything you did. And so I kept moving. I kept growing. I kept learning. And I wanted to be better at it. Because inherently you are looked at as like, " ; Hey, does he have that? Or is that person who is of Asian descent, can they handle that or can they, are they that skilled?" ; I think that' ; s kind of one thing we as minorities have to always have to be that. You can' ; t just be par. You have to be that much better. And I think that' ; s kind of where, why I didn' ; t want to be pigeonholed. Was...in order to grow, you had to learn something else, learn more skill sets and that' ; s the path I took. It' ; s a hard path. Don' ; t get me wrong. It is very...You get looked upon like, " ; Why are you not staying true to that?" ; Or you' ; re not..." ; Why are you taking that food and not keeping it traditional?" ; And I don' ; t, I don' ; t want it to be traditional. Cultures and food move forward. You know, you can' ; t keep buying the same car. It' ; s 20 years...will get old. You know, you want something new, you do something different. I think that' ; s kind of what...where not being pigeonholed helps because you can move cuisine or culture more forward. And that' ; s what I' ; ve always been an advocate of. Just like if we' ; re going do Asian, let' ; s do a progressive Asian style food. It tastes what it needs to taste like. But you could present it better, you can do different ways of like of making it. Don' ; t lock in to where, " ; Hey, dude, like, I' ; m not your mom, and we' ; re not going to make it how your mom makes it. I' ; m going to make it the the way I ate it." ; Or, or what people- I' ; m doing air quotes of what' ; s traditional because it' ; s not. " ; Traditional" ; is whatever you grew up with. And I think people keep forgetting. It' ; s like just because your mom makes beef and broccoli with carrots, my mom doesn' ; t, doesn' ; t that mean my version is wrong. And I think that' ; s the one thing with Asian cuisine, is that when you move it forward, young or old guests are like, " ; Why are you changing it?" ; Why not? Have fun with food, have fun with it. Don' ; t lock yourself in. And I' ; ll give an example, Betsy, is like Chinese music. For the longest time, everyone thinks Chinese music or even K-Pop would never ever happen if people did move that music forward. It' ; d be old, traditional like, like, you know, erhu or guzheng playing. It would be those things. But now it' ; s modern. It' ; s people....BTS is served at McDonald' ; s. So why are we not moving it forward, why are we not moving our own food? We should be proud as Asians to move our own food forward and not let someone else do it. I think that' ; s the one thing that we need to take from it, to be more passionate about is to not pigeonhole someone. Be an innovator, be a progressive person, move it, but be that ambassador of that cuisine to move that forward. I think that' ; s kind of where we lack in the Asian community is, is the Asian chefs to push it more forward. We keep having traditional that' ; s fine. Cool, keep doing traditional. But we need more people to keep moving forward and to not look down on the chefs who want to move that forward. I think that' ; s always been my experience is that that " ; This isn' ; t how my mom made it or this isn' ; t traditional." ; And so you feel that tension of...Like I think you and I talked about this before. If it was a Caucasian chef doing ethnic food from Vietnam or whatever, " ; He' ; s amazing. This guy' ; s innovative." ; But if I did it. " ; Holy cow. You ruined my mom' ; s dish." ; That' ; s not right. You should, you should be proud of me, taking our cuisine and not this other guy who just, you know, ate at restaurants all day or stole the recipe off someone. It shouldn' ; t be that you should support your own kind moving it forward and not shunning them for doing so. |00:53:03| Brody Do you think that' ; s particular to Asian cuisine? Or do you, you know, when you were working in Italian and other areas, did you think that, that kind of pattern existed? |00:53:14| Chhen I think it' ; s all...I didn' ; t see that, working in either in fine dining or in Italian cuisine. Like a lot of fine dining restaurants, have massive Asian sous chefs, chefs de cuisines, or cooks that work. And they have they are so amazing in what they do. You know, New York tends to be a good hub of people who want to push Asian cuisine forward. Texas and especially Dallas, sees it as blasphemy. And that' ; s so sad. Is that Texas inherently has the probably the most innovative in food and everything you do. Coastal cities think they' ; re amazing because they' ; re on the coast. They' ; re big cities. But people would think that Texas is just meat and potatoes, but so much cool innovation comes out of here and we don' ; t get as much credit as we do. And so when someone who' ; s like in Dallas, when we try to move the food forward, it' ; s like, " ; No, no, no, no." ; And I think that' ; s wrong. And I think we should support more of that, Betsy. And, and that' ; s the downfall. I think part of it is with Dallas in general is that, that dining scene shuns the chef who wants to move it forward and have a hard time gaining traction. They' ; re great if they keep, if they stay in their lane, but once you move one lane over, it' ; s like, " ; Oh, dear God, don' ; t. Why are you doing that?" ; I think that' ; s sad. |00:54:50| Brody So, Dallas, as you know, won, you know, " ; Restaurant City of the Year" ; in the past and has a history, I mean, of lots of people going out to eat a lot and also a history of in the earliest days of, you know, a lot of fine dining. The French influence and all of that. Where do you see Asian restaurants fitting into this larger Dallas landscape? |00:55:18| Chhen I think what makes it kind of cool is that if we finally, whether it' ; s fine dining...I think fine dining is slowly, as a trend that' ; s kind of going away. Even like your steak houses, you can wear shorts in it these days or so that " ; white tablecloth" ; part of it' ; s kind of going away. But I think it' ; s that more casual but more upscale food or ingredients. I think that' ; s kind of one thing we need to start pushing more. I think Asian cuisine will have its own setting if we finally not keep it the same all the time. I think that' ; s kind of where we need, as chefs or even the Asian community, need to take that time to get together and really like, " ; Hey, dude, like you do these great things. You' ; re doing this great things, but we' ; re all this box. Let' ; s get together and it' ; s. Move it more forward. Let' ; s not all be the same. What can we do to be different?" ; And, you know, as sometimes as a, you know, chefs are also consumers as well. You see all these things where " ; Why are we all doing the same thing? Why can' ; t we now just kind of get out of the box?" ; And, you know, I think that' ; s more the business side. I think that' ; s kind of where chefs and business people are very different is because you need the business sometimes with these, you need a businessman to help to take you more forward. But you need the chef, that ability to kind of do something a little bit different. I wish we could just be more progressive together. There are so many talented chefs in the Dallas area that are Asian that could do so many different things, but I think they too need to be liberated from that box. That they too get out of that box and work and do other things as well. I think that' ; s kind of a great thing with anyone is like, you know, you, you...I appreciate sushi chefs in the aspect that their skill set is very precise, very particular. But you put them in a rushed environment, working a fast recipe, they would fail because they can' ; t do it. They' ; re like, " ; I took 6 hours to make this, but now you' ; re giving me an hour to do this." ; They just don' ; t have that skill set. So it' ; s kind of like me the other day, I learned about myself was like, " ; Holy cow, I' ; m trying to prep for my sushi chef all these ingredients and super precise." ; I' ; m like, " ; No wonder they get paid a lot." ; Because he' ; s over there like fine dice to the like nth degree and or like strips are perfect. And I respect all that and it' ; s so amazing. Those don' ; t change because that' ; s a skill set I want to learn more of as well. But you know, be bold, be different. Like, take that risk. And I think that' ; s kind of one thing that we inherently, as Asians, is that sometimes we' ; re just too afraid to do that. You know, we want to stay with tradition or we want to stay with because risky is hard. And not that working in a restaurant is any easier. But you' ; re not adding that extra layer of risk to what you' ; re doing and say, " ; Okay, man, I' ; m going to now go outside of the box. If it doesn' ; t- I know this works, but if I' ; m about do this, something that is so totally different, is it worth it? Is it worth that extra risk factor?" ; I think that' ; s kind of one thing that everyone' ; s got to look at. I have been very blessed that I' ; ve been working, you know, I get to work for, you know, a very large company that has, you know, the ability to do that. But when it comes to " ; mom and pop" ; it is so much harder. It is so much harder for the independent chefs or independent business owners to take that risk to be different because that' ; s your livelihood. If you took a risk and you, you know, shit the bed or, you know, and it doesn' ; t work. So. I can see why they don' ; t take that risk. But I think sometimes you just need to just to be different and have fun with it. |00:59:18| Brody You mentioned earlier Martin Yan and the PBS show that he was on, a cooking show that he was on in the eighties. How important for you has representation of people that look like you been in the industry that you work in? |00:59:35| Chhen It' ; s been amazing. Because, you know, it' ; s amazing. And there' ; s also downfalls to it, right? Where people are like, " ; Oh, you' ; re, you' ; re Asian. You must be good at this." ; Right? But the other thing is, they' ; re like, " ; Okay, you' ; re Asian. You must be really fast at doing this." ; You know, watching Martin Yan and his knife skills and the way he cuts, I don' ; t think anyone young can even keep up with that man with his knife skills of butchering a chicken in, like, 18 seconds or chopping the way he chops or whatever. Those are just skill sets that he' ; s learned over the years. And but it was really cool to be able to see myself. An image of like someone who is Asian, who was on TV, and that they get to be able to be recognized for what they do and be passionate about it and you know, my lifelong dream was to be able to meet Martin Yan. I got to and, yeah, it was an amazing thing to be like....I was like, " ; Chef. Ahhhhhh." ; Like, it was like.... |01:00:36| Brody Tell me, how did that come about? When did you meet him? |01:00:38| Chhen So I was working for Compass. I was working, working in San Francisco at the time, and we were doing this event called " ; Top Nosh." ; It was like for Chase Bank and their and their like clientele and so forth. And it was so cool. They' ; re like, " ; Hey, you need to go help and support." ; Like, " ; Oh, might as well, oh, I' ; m already, you know, working here." ; And so they didn' ; t tell me he was there. And I just kind of walk there like " ; Is that Martin Yan?" ; And I' ; m like, " ; Yes!" ; And I just like want to say " ; Chef. Like, I grew up watching you." ; Of course I speak to him in Chinese. So he went, " ; Oh, okay." ; You know, it' ; s that language thing, right? Where people, at times would give you better service if you spoke in their native tongue. And so I was like, " ; Hey, Chef, you know, I...Can I take a picture with you?" ; In Chinese, " ; ke yi gen ni zhao xiang pian ma" ; And he was like, " ; Hao hao hao." ; And so I did. They took a picture of him and I together, and I was like, like, " ; You' ; re my idol. The reason why I become a chef is because of you." ; And he was like, " ; Thank you. We need more of you." ; But, you know, he said it also as like a pride in that culture. Like he was like " ; There' ; s we need to be more Chinese chefs to get to do more of this." ; And it' ; s just a very Chinese thing to say is that, you know, you' ; re proud of your culture, proud of who you are, we need more of that, more of that representation. I think that' ; s kind of where it' ; s really cool to see Martin Yan who is Chinese and he gets to represent, in a very positive light, in what we do. And so it was really cool for him to say that back to me like, " ; Hey, good for you. Like there should be more of a huaren, which is that, you know, Chinese people out there and doing this industry." ; |01:02:27| Brody What an amazing experience. |01:02:28| Chhen It was. It was. |01:02:33| Brody It' ; s just you' ; re raising a lot of questions for me about how difficult it is to, to navigate when we' ; re talking about things that are so close to people' ; s hearts, like, you know, culture, ethnicity, you know, and food. Right? So, for you, what is the culture or how is culture transmitted through food, in your view? |01:03:05| Chhen That was a good question. I think for me, how I, how I personally transfer my culture and food, it' ; s...is that, when I cook, it' ; s the DNA of the different chefs who I' ; ve worked under. It' ; s in it. It' ; s somehow in it. And it' ; s...whether a cooking process that they taught me or ingredient they showed me or something that they' ; ve invested at, like...Fried rice, right. It' ; s, it' ; s traditionally you, you know, eggs, whatever. But here we are, you know, working for Charlie Palmer, like clarified butter. Let' ; s make fried rice with clarified butter.... See what it tastes like. It' ; s fricking amazing. Make fricking fried rice with clarified butter...It tastes...Has that extra umami to it. And that' ; s kind of how I do it, is that I take something traditional but I took the DNA of who I worked for and kind of added into it, and it becomes our own. When I, you know, Chef Scott taught me how to make like his own house seasoning. I took that and I' ; ve used it everywhere I' ; ve gone. And that variation of what he taught me is in everything I make, like you eat the fries. it' ; s on it. You eat my burgers, it' ; s on it. You eat my steaks, it' ; s on it. It...But it doesn' ; t taste the same. It is one of those things that evolves. Even though I put it on everything, it doesn' ; t taste that seasoning, doesn' ; t transfer over as " ; Oh, that' ; s the same taste." ; It' ; s not. And so that' ; s the greatest thing is that, you know, when I make the food, it' ; s just a little bit of everything and a little bit of everywhere I' ; ve worked for a little bit for whoever trained me. It' ; s, it' ; s that' ; s...It' ; s in every chef. Every chef has DNA of whatever they' ; ve learned and what they' ; ve taught or who showed them. It' ; s instilled in them, because that' ; s how we learn. And, you know, whoever wants to go to culinary school, I' ; m telling you right now, it' ; s like it' ; s best, it' ; s great to learn terminology, but that you learn so much more in the industry. And I think that' ; s kind of where it makes it so much cooler is that what you learn at that particular restaurant or that particular establishment, you can take that skill set somewhere else. It might not be the right way they do it somewhere else because they' ; re going to teach you how they do things. You take that teaching method and you go to the next one, you inherently build that DNA. And my, you know, godmother chef, she always said it, but she' ; s like, " ; Steal with your eyes because they' ; ll never know you took it." ; |01:05:47| Brody That' ; s a good one. |01:05:48| Chhen Yep. |01:05:50| Brody So much of what you' ; re saying, you know, is...highlights how your journey and going through culinary school and all your mentors and experiences that you' ; ve had in the different aspects of the industry have shaped who you are and how you, you know, how you present the food that you do every day. But a lot of, especially Asian restaurants, are not run by people who have, you know, a strong sort of academic background in in cooking and hospitality. Typically, you know, a lot of, especially in the earliest days in Dallas, the restaurants were " ; mom and pop" ; restaurants where people were just trying to create a taste of home for their own families, a small business, and then ended up with a following of people who wanted that taste from home and then other more, you know, adventurous people who wanted to try a new kind of food during that time. What are the sort of differences? I mean, it' ; s two different things, apples and oranges, a chef-driven sort of restaurant concept versus a " ; mom and pop" ; restaurant. What are the key differences in your view and challenges for each? |01:07:07| Chhen I think with " ; mom and pop" ; , I think you and I were touching base earlier about this too, is that it' ; s teaching. It' ; s like teach the next generation. Teach. Teach. Teach someone to do your job. That is very different from " ; mom and pop" ; . It' ; s like they' ; re there all day long. And you' ; re like, " ; Mom, Dad, why are you there? Please teach someone." ; And. That' ; s part of the Asian culture. Whichever Asian you are, because it' ; s still to them, it' ; s like, " ; No, get out." ; And I think that' ; s the " ; mom and pop" ; is they don' ; t and they don' ; t want to teach someone because they want to hold onto that control or they want to hold on to like...Back then, it was also like " ; Oh they' ; re going to steal my money." ; While everyone' ; s gone, completely almost cashless. There' ; s no money you can truly steal or cash. So please teach someone to do some of it. I think with a more chef- driven, part of it that' ; s very different is that you learn, you know more about food law and about food- like code versus like " ; mom and pop" ; . They don' ; t know like " ; Hey, you have to the store everything' ; s six inches off the ground" ; or here' ; s your categories how you store food, chicken' ; s on the bottom and so forth. And what temperature of degree the chicken needs be cooked to or turkey or poultry. They don' ; t know that. They' ; re just " ; mom and pop" ; . I think that' ; s so different. Where...how they got anyone sick is it' ; s own crazy thing. But no, that' ; s not it. It' ; s really more of just knowledge, right? Where the " ; mom and pop" ; , they don' ; t have that and they have to learn the hard way. So that' ; s what' ; s so bad and so hard on them. It' ; s like now they' ; re learning from someone else or learning bad traits. And that' ; s why sometimes when people look at " ; mom and pops," ; " ; Hey, the place is dirty, or that place isn' ; t right." ; It' ; s not because of their own fault. Sometimes they just don' ; t know. And as chefs who' ; s worked in the industry and you go through culinary school, you learn those. That' ; s one of the things that' ; s so different is that you learn like inherently food handling and food storage and all those things that they don' ; t know. And I think that' ; s the major difference, if you split it down comes to...Is just more modernized knowledge versus just like, " ; Hey, let' ; s just make these dishes and call it a day." ; And that' ; s more the back end stuff that you' ; ll never see. And that' ; s kind of more of it. It' ; s like, you know, most restaurants you' ; ll always see the front, you' ; ll never see the back. But I think that' ; s kind of where the back side of business is very different for " ; mom and pop" ; in and a more chef- driven or westernized chef, you know more of that food code and food law that they don' ; t. |01:09:57| Brody Yeah that that' ; s a really interesting some I' ; ve been looking at a lot of restaurant reviews over the years, particularly of Asian restaurants. And it is interesting when you' ; re looking at reviews because it' ; s, what, it reflects, what people think is the ideal or what people think is authentic or what people are seeking. So, you know, many times the " ; mom and pop" ; is perceived as more, quote unquote, authentic. And whereas a more upscale version of similar cuisine is, you know, sought after by some people, but also derided maybe as an inauthentic or too Americanized. What are your thoughts on, on that straddling that? |01:10:47| Chhen You know, when I get off work, because chefs and this, I' ; m going to speak for of us as chefs, is that we want the " ; mom and pop" ; . They are, they are what influence what our cuisine becomes in the future. They, they need to be around. I enjoy that. Because they make something that I cannot replicate and I...and you need that. There' ; s nothing wrong. I think that' ; s the best thing is like, sometimes as chefs, we' ; re like, you know, this...There' ; s this taqueria in Carrollton, they make the best menudo. I don' ; t want to learn how to make it. I don' ; t care. I want to keep going to enjoy what they...And it' ; s a hole in the wall. Amazing place. I won' ; t tell you where because then everyone will be. But at the exact same time, it' ; s just amazing. They that...You want them to keep thriving because you want them to be successful. But they are why chefs get to move cuisine forward as well as you' ; re like, " ; Holy cow, I know this. This is amazing. I want to take this feeling of me eating this and transfer it now to this one thing I want to create." ; And they both are needed to keep the industry stable and the industry thriving is because when chefs get off work or cooks get off work, they want to go to the hole in the wall, eat and enjoy, while the normal dining consumer wants to go to the more modern or whatever maybe. And so, you know, you look at it as a consumer, like, I love both. There' ; s nothing wrong with either one of them because you all, you want everyone to be successful and " ; mom and pops" ; are great, not because they' ; re traditional, because sometimes they' ; ll makes something like, " ; This doesn' ; t taste, you know, just anywhere you go, any restaurant. This doesn' ; t taste right." ; But you want to make sure... You just want to eat something that, you, that you feel is authentic to them, to where their own background is, and I think that part is all is...is hard because just like I was telling you earlier, like everyone' ; s, not everyone' ; s their mom. Everyone, their experiences are very different. Some " ; mom and pops" ; make amazing food, sometimes, like, " ; Oh, man. A little bit more salt." ; But it' ; s you know, as a chef, you straddle both sides of that boat no matter what. Your legs are on both ends. And you want to have both. You want to enjoy it. I' ; m, my friends and I, and also my chef friends, we' ; re just like Tony Bourdain. You eat at the " ; mom and pop." ; you enjoy the " ; mom and pop." ; you want to go to their mom' ; s house to eat because you get to learn. You get to learn so much more about that culture, about why they' ; re so passionate about that particular dish or cuisine, because that' ; s where it comes from. Chefs all come from humble backgrounds. It comes from the " ; mom and pop." ; and you need that no matter what, like there is. You just you need it because it drives us to be stronger. It drives that culture to be stronger. And we need to share more of that. Whatever that culture or that food or " ; mom and pop" ; may be, you want to send as many people to both sides of it. Life' ; s too short to not eat good food. |01:14:24| Brody That is true. The flip side of that same question...What about, you know, especially coming from your background and having all that classical sort of French training and all of that? When chefs, particularly non-Asian chefs, are coming out of that tradition and then, you know, start incorporating Asian flavors, Asian techniques. What are your thoughts on that? |01:14:55| Chhen I think everyone should dabble into it. Think, you know, just like I dabbled in Indian cuisine or Mediterranean, it' ; s like you want to learn. I think from what' ; s different and this this is just my own story versus every other chefs is that I think sometimes some chefs just want to pull ingredients, just to throw it in. You know, so the thing of throwing pasta on the wall and make it stick, but they just use it as an ingredient. You know, for me, it' ; s like I want to use it as either like to enhance that flavor or to bring out something that' ; s different. And I think non-Western, non-Asian chefs, sometimes they just go, " ; Oh, let me just do X, Y and Z, and it should work." ; But you miss the whole, the whole middle part that like I would say the DNA or the intricacies of that particular culture' ; s cuisine. And I think sometimes what sort of chefs would throw ingredients that are Japanese, that are Korean, and then Asian, or Chinese into one dish. And you' ; re like this, " ; This isn' ; t right. This is like I' ; m eating something with furikake on it, which is Japanese with a gojuchang sauce, which is Korean." ; And then you' ; re like, " ; What are you, what are you doing here? This makes no sense to me." ; And which is real wild in my industry. It' ; s like I get to hire new chefs. And this brings a prime example to what exactly what you' ; re talking about. Western chefs or non Asian chefs incorporating Asian ingredients. So I do what' ; s called " ; chef tests" ; or " ; chef tastings" ; for people to hire new chefs to work for us and into our...with us. And for the longest time, all these chefs would make Asian food for me. And I' ; m like- before we do it, we' ; re like " ; Hey, man. Just do food that you' ; re comfortable with. Do food that you are...that is you. I want it to be you' ; re successful. Do whatever." ; And for I think six months straight, each chef that came and did a tasting did something Asian and we' ; re like, " ; Why?" ; And not because it didn' ; t taste good but it was because it made no sense. Like the like you would literally do like grits...Shrimp and grits is one dish and then you' ; re literally doing like these gojuchang marinated like pork rib. And it wasn' ; t right. And then he would like drizzle, honey or, or like garnish it with something that made no sense. And he said, " ; Oh, I made this Asian dish for you." ; Why? Your like. " ; Please." ; Like, not that I don' ; t want that. I think that' ; s great that they' ; re trying. That- I think that' ; s the good part is they are, people are trying to incorporate it. Asian food in here is very hard to make in the essence of the flavor because unless you grew up in that culture or lived in a very long time, you don' ; t pick up the intricacies of it. And just because you' ; re like, " ; Oh, this is, you know, this particular dish is great, or I want to add that." ; It might- it will change the flavor or the way the food needs to taste. And I think Western chefs who try it should, in their own way, probably go eat more, go eat more of that cuisine and you pick more of it. Llke it' ; s so sad, like even for me. Like my comfort food is noodles and Asian food, even outside at work. And because those are the flavors I' ; m so used to. I' ; m so used to eating it, and it' ; s not their fault. They didn' ; t grow up eating that food or growing up in that particular culture. I think it' ; s awesome they take the time to put into it, but like you missed the mark just a tad and there' ; s nothing wrong because I could be said the same for me about Italian food. Like " ; This guys has no idea what he' ; s doing." ; And so that' ; s kind of where that' ; s at. But that' ; s the main reason why I wanted to work in an Italian restaurant for fine dining because I want to know those intricacies of that cuisine. Because I want to pay respect to that. I did not want to be like, " ; Oh, I' ; m going to make this pomodoro sauce, completely bastardize it, and be wrong." ; Where if Italian guy comes and eats it, " ; I don' ; t know, like, man, this is way off." ; And that' ; s what I wanted to do. And that' ; s when. Taking the time and working. This is you know, not everyone' ; s path is the same, right? Every chef takes a different path. There' ; s no one...no one. It' ; s not like medical school where you go... This is your regimen, this is your regimen. It' ; s not, you know, once chefs take so many different paths. And some chefs that I' ; ve worked for they purposely went to go work at a particular restaurant or cuisine because they wanted to learn so much about it. And then they get to respect that. That' ; s what makes it different. Feel like what you were talking about, like Westernized chefs or Westerners...It' ; s like you either dabble just a little, but then you miss the mark or you have ones that are amazing, that lived in Thailand or lived in China and like know it, and then they make it. You' ; re like, " ; Holy cow." ; Like, I' ; ll give an instance where I was doing this chef test and this is just for a cook position, and we told her to make an omelet. The simplest thing ever, an omelet. And everything she made was okay, but this omelet was amazing. And me and the other chef and our food service director was like, " ; Where did you learn how to make this?" ; This omelet tastes like a Hong Kong style omelet. All I needed was rice and soy sauce and it would be set. She was " ; Oh I worked for a Chinese chef for a long time." ; And we' ; re like, " ; This explains why this omelet tastes the way it tasted." ; Because she worked for that particular person, she never made risotto or ______. She never made anything else but, this? We hired her because of that omelet that she made, because it tasted just like I was in Hong Kong. |01:20:44| Brody Wow. So that' ; s the DNA that you were talking? |01:20:46| Chhen Yeah. Everything falls into a DNA of where you' ; ve worked and where you' ; ve been. And I think that' ; s kind of like you were saying, like, Westernized chefs, it doesn' ; t matter what culture or what ethnicity it' ; s, just that, you know, you worked somewhere and you learn that culture of that food. And just because you' ; re, you know, slap chopping sort of ingredient in there, doesn' ; t matter of what- whether it' ; s masala or whatever or fenugreek? But it' ; s like just because you throw it in there doesn' ; t make it that cuisine, doesn' ; t make it Indian, doesn' ; t make it Mediterranean, doesn' ; t make it Turkish or whatever. And so it' ; s, you know, that' ; s kind of how...I want to respect that food. And I don' ; t want someone who eats it goes, " ; Nope, that' ; s wrong." ; And I think that' ; s where it also comes from- pride. When you take pride in something, when you- when what you do, especially food, because it' ; s very personal, it' ; s very intimate. When you take that pride to learn for it to be correct, you can transfer that correctness into moving it to be something different. And so kind of like, we always come back to that DNA and that and that tradition of that respect part of it. That' ; s the respect part. It comes down to is like if you respect where that cuisine comes from or how was originally made and the flavors, you then know as a chef to manipulate or mimic it to do something else. And so when you eat something, even though it looks like a teardrop of like a broth, and you' ; re like, " ; Hey, I' ; m going to make this chicken tortilla soup." ; But it comes in this like gelatinized format. And when you break it or you pour hot water and it dissolves and you eat it, even though it' ; s a more modern way of doing it. But you' ; re like, " ; Holy cow, this tastes like it came from this part of Mexico or whatever it may be." ; It' ; s because you learned the foundation of it. And I think that' ; s kind of where, chefs' ; different paths, and sometimes they don' ; t get that foundation that they need. And, you know, again, I was just blessed much younger with that that foundation. I think it' ; s harder as you grow older, just like anything you do. You don' ; t have the time or the or whatever. But, you know. You know, I, I was blessed even with Compass, working there is that there are chefs that are very good at that particular cuisine. You get to learn from them. You get to understand and ask the reasons why and why does it taste this way? Why do you why do you do it this way? And you, again, add that DNA into what you' ; re doing or think another skill set just to make sure that that food that you' ; re making, you' ; re paying respect to originally. |01:23:22| Brody You mentioned Anthony Bourdain earlier, and he has come up quite a bit in a lot of the conversations that I' ; ve been having with Asian restaurant owners and chefs. What does he mean to you and how has his work influenced the way you think about this space? |01:23:46| Chhen You know, I guess to this day, I probably can watch his very last episode of " ; Parts Unknown." ; He really brought the food industry in the light of how hardworking we are. How everything- nothing is as easy... Just because you eat this meal that' ; s amazing or could be trash. That person put their heart and soul to make it for you. And it' ; s not easy. It' ; s grinding. It' ; s you' ; re in the heat, you' ; re in the cold, you' ; re standing 14, 15 hours of the day. He, he brought...The food industry would not be where it is without him showing it. And because he is a chef, a trained chef, and he worked his ass off as a chef, he never disrespected that part of it. And it means a lot to us as chefs in general, not even is because he...He loved Asia. That' ; s his big thing. He loved Vietnam. Loved anywhere in Asia. But he lived anywhere in the world. And I' ; ve always loved watching his episodes when he goes to different parts of Asia, because he always, for the most part, as a chef and as, kind of like you and I talk about, is like he always goes to " ; mom and pops" ; or eats the street foods. Because that' ; s where the food is. That' ; s where the amazing parts is. He really- he' ; ll dabble in some fine dining here and there, like just like any chef would. But, if you watch as he...He respects that culture, which wherever it may be, wherever his travels may be. And he respected that food. And that' ; s why I love him so much, is that I use that as my- my inspiration. That' ; s why I keep telling you like that the respect of that culture, respecting of that food, it' ; s because of him. He...when you watch it, you...It' ; s like, what' ; s the thing? Was kind of in the background, but you don' ; t think it' ; s there, but inherently you do it. But I forget what it' ; s called, but you keep watching. It' ; s just like you hear what he says. He' ; s like, " ; This is whatever. This is from Turkish. Or this is the this is amazing or whatever." ; And even his videography about it, he pays respect to the culture or whatever that food or wherever he travels, or anything. And he makes...he has made the culinary world where they respect our job. That we' ; re not a servant. That we' ; re not here to just feed you and then be treated with not respect. He' ; s moved the industry forward that it' ; s a career path that people want to take. You know, for good and bad and everyone wants to be on the Food Network or whatever. But that' ; s not what the industry really is. He really made it to where it' ; s like. You were human. You know, his...In one of his episodes, one of his best friends is a chef when he was at Les Halles. Les Halles as a dishwasher, worked his way is up to be Executive Chef and he got to go back. The episode is called " ; Into the Fire" ; was him with Eric Ripert. They were working the line at Les Halles and he explained the brigade. So he explained how the restaurant worked from the supply chain to when it' ; s prepped to once gets prepped to where it gets fired on the line to where it gets onto your table. That episode made me so proud because he put the hard work out there, where all these people from dishwashers to whatever. He showed it that people never get to see that. People just think that, " ; Oh here. You know, throw something at me or just leave that there and I' ; ll pick it up." ; It' ; s like " ; You know how hard that was to get? You know how hard was that to make?" ; Or you know how long this guy took 8 hours of prepping this or whatever it may be, and you' ; re just like, " ; Whatever." ; But he put that. So where people go, " ; Holy cow, that supply chain, that work, and that everything just to be able to make a cookie or whatever or anything that' ; s house made that takes it that long." ; And he showed it to the world and it gave us that pride. Gave us people who work in that industry a sense of more pride. And that' ; s why like everyone in the industry cherishes him. I mean tons of chefs, too. It' ; s because he put it out there. Because it' ; s not an easy job. It really isn' ; t. It' ; s not an easy job. And he made sure people got to respect that. And that it' ; s a respectable career. That it' ; s not something that people look on as we' ; re just servants or we' ; re just cooks for people. |01:28:39| Brody It goes back to how you were talking about how you treat the people on your team with dignity and to look at every job as full of dignity. |01:28:50| Chhen Correct. Correct. And he did that. I mean, you watch his ep- you watch what he does and watch what he talks about. He really brings out the light of every culture that he goes to because he wants- he' ; s respecting that. And that' ; s the great thing with what he did. I think this kind of like, you know, after his passing, I think everyone' ; s like, who will fill his void of really doing his work. And, you know, it' ; s like I can' ; t watch that many type of food type of travel because it' ; s just not the same. They' ; re not Anthony Bourdain. They' ; re not...As much as like how, you know, like Gordon Ramsay, like...It' ; s just not the same. I respect that man. The guy' ; s amazing chef, but it' ; s just not the same. Even though they all, both of them came from humble backgrounds, they worked their ass off to where they' ; re at. But it' ; s just the presentation' ; s different, is probably the best way to put it. |01:29:51| Brody Yeah. The spirit of the show is different. |01:29:53| Chhen Yes. |01:29:55| Brody Since we were talking about Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain, I' ; m just curious, talking to a chef, what do you think, what impact has the sort of rise of the celebrity chef since the eighties had on the industry that you work in? |01:30:13| Chhen It' ; s made some bad parts and made some good things. People who go to culinary school who think that, " ; Oh, I' ; m going to get out and think I' ; m going to be a celebrity chef." ; Good luck. Those....It' ; s hard to come by. But, it really may open people' ; s eyes into more food. I think that' ; s the best part, is that it made it also made the public more educated in food versus being, " ; Oh, I don' ; t know about that or whatever." ; It' ; s kind of one of those things that they really have educated the common public more, which is awesome. I think that' ; s why people now you go to Koreatown in Carrollton, you don' ; t just see Koreans there. You see all kinds of people there because the chefs have opened up more to that. And that' ; s kind of what that with them doing that thing was... That' ; s the positive side of it. You know, as I was saying, the negative is just, you know, people who are aspiring to be that, it' ; s like, " ; Dude, that' ; s like one in 10 million that you get to be it." ; And it makes the industry harder for the kind of the day to day in the aspect of like, you know, you get these new students who' ; ve just gone to culinary school, thinking they' ; re going to be amazing. Dude, you' ; re peeling potatoes. Like, or, you' ; re washing dishes and peeling potatoes. You' ; re not going to be able to even get to cook yet. Because that' ; s kind of where their origin' ; s from. It' ; s like, yeah, he' ; s Gordon Ramsay or Wolfgang Puck where they' ; ve worked their ass off to get to where they' ; re at or worked under chefs that will throw pans at you, saute pans, or curse you out or or whatever. They went through all of that, and you' ; re over here going, " ; How dare you to raise your voice to me, telling me that' ; s wrong." ; Like, no. Like, you know, I' ; m not saying to be...There' ; s a difference of being disrespected and there' ; s a difference of being passionate that you did something wrong. I think that' ; s kind of where these new kids don' ; t seem to understand. I know our system, the brigade system is just like the military. It' ; s not about you. It' ; s about the work. And I think the newer generation of younger, aspiring chefs or whatever needs understand that it' ; s never about you personally. And I think that' ; s kind of where the TV makes it different, is that they think that it' ; s all rainbows and unicorns, but it' ; s really not. It' ; s and so, you know, even for me, don' ; t get me wrong, I grew up in that industry of, you know, German chefs, French chefs, and, you know, all that swearing and throwing everything around. Like our industry is changing as well. Kind of like what you' ; re saying, the Gordon Ramsay or whatever, but at the exact same time, they too have to change where in their actual restaurants, you know, there' ; s HR, there' ; s Human Resources doing all these different things. You can' ; t just fling things at someone, strike someone with a saute pan. It doesn' ; t happen. But, you know, we have to, you know, make sure everyone' ; s safe. But at the exact same time, I always tell my staff if I' ; m, you know, screaming or yelling or cursing about something, it' ; s never about you as a person, is about this product, it' ; s about that work. And so it' ; s always been that, for that. And so I guess as the industry changes to be more PC, to be more corporate, I think sometimes we lose the essence of how the culinary world has become. You know, just like anyone will say is that the culinary world has become softer. And the reason why chefs were always so great, like, you know, like that generation, is they grew up in that, that tough love. And it' ; s not as tough love as it used to be. |01:33:51| Brody What impact do you think social media- whether it' ; s like influencers and Instagram and all that stuff or Yelp and, you know, online review sites- what what impact have those types of things had on the industry? |01:34:08| Chhen I think a lot of it has good. Like there will always be good to anything someone does, right? Like someone who just, you know, make us some awesome food should be recognized for what they do. Influencers and everything should do whatever. But the bad side is, is that sometimes it' ; s just their opinion. And just because you had it somewhere else doesn' ; t mean that version is bad. And what makes it so hard for us as chefs is like, " ; You' ; re just an influencer. You' ; re not, you' ; re not a cook. You have never worked in the industry. How do you know something or how do you dictate the difference of what something is?" ; And it makes it harder. And our essence of like everyone is a food critic, you know, just everyone judges you by your Yelp review or whatever. And, but at the exact same time, some of these restaurants you go to only have like two stars on Yelp. But your like, " ; This is amazing. How do you get two stars?" ; And you read, it says " ; Oh, the guy didn' ; t have, you know, the right napkins. I didn' ; t like their fork." ; And you' ; re like, " ; Guys, that has nothing to do. Why would you write a review for that?" ; And I think that' ; s kind of where social media and like the Instagrams and the Yelp is like everyone' ; s got an opinion. Everyone' ; s got something to say to drag someone down that truly isn' ; t about...I mean, if your experience was terrible, by all means, please write the " ; Hey, this is what happened." ; Or " ; I had this chicken that was completely dry or ______ was super salty." ; Those are legitimate reasons to say something, but I think sometimes kind of like with, again, going back to Anthony Bourdain is like, that' ; s someone' ; s livelihood. You' ; re going to blast them. That' ; s wrong because you can inherently...Like, if it' ; s like, if it' ; s one thing that you see rats everywhere, by all means, please call the Health Department, get them, you know, make sure it' ; s taken care of. But that' ; s someone' ; s livelihood and someone' ; s business that you' ; re like, " ; Hey, man, that guy' ; s stuff was trash" ; and you' ; re blasting. That' ; s not right. That' ; s you' ; re like, sometimes it' ; s better to just be like, " ; Hey, can I talk to whoever the manager" ; and just be like, " ; Hey, this was a right and whatever." ; And it' ; s...because it' ; s inherently training. If the person who made it wasn' ; t trained correctly or whatever, you let them know, you take that feedback, and they can change it, and you' ; ll make it better and it doesn' ; t have to be publicized shaming of someone. I think that' ; s what' ; s so bad is these...Some people, these keyboard warriors think it' ; s awesome to just blast someone. But it...no. It' ; s sometimes just the simplest things. Just let someone know at the establishment like, " ; Hey, this was overcooked or this wasn' ; t right." ; And 99% of the time because of hospitality, " ; Let me take it. Let me remake something for you. Let me make this better." ; That usually always happens. But to just outright shun someone, that' ; s wrong to me. |01:37:13| Brody Thank you. And that also is reflected in tipping and that culture as well. |01:37:19| Chhen Kind of like with tipping. I' ; ll give you a funny story. It' ; s funny, but it' ; s also very mean. Was that our bartender at work- this one guest told this other guest to not tip her because she' ; s just a servant, was her exact words. " ; Don' ; t tip her. She' ; s a servant." ; And we' ; re like we all looked like, " ; What? Did you say, servant?" ; And no. And so that' ; s kind of the thing. It' ; s kind of like. Like, wow, I can' ; t believe you would say such a thing? And thankfully her friend was like, " ; No. No. The tipping. You have to tip her. She got us great service. She took care of us." ; And the other lady walked off after. You know? But. Yeah. |01:38:12| Brody What do you think is the root of that mentality? |01:38:15| Chhen Kind of like what you and I talked about earlier is like the service industry is about service. You serve me, you take care of me and they sometimes feel as if that, you know, we are beneath them. I think that' ; s kind of always been the service industry, right? That' ; s always been part of the perception is that you take care of me and I' ; m always right. I' ; m the one paying for this bill, so you serve me. But I think that' ; s not all people. Don' ; t get me wrong. But it does... it happens from time to time. But about 90% of the time, everyone knows, you know, it' ; s a career path people choose and people, you know, it' ; s their livelihood and, you know, we want to make sure people can have a good home and eat. |01:39:03| Brody Well, I have learned a lot from you today and I really appreciate all of your, your thoughts. Is there anything that I didn' ; t ask you today that you' ; d like to to add to this interview? |01:39:15| Chhen No, I think I' ; m good. I think everything was said or whoever shout out I needed to shout out, I did. But no thank you for, you know, talking about this, I think sometimes as an Asian, you know, you don' ; t get to say the things you need to say or have a voice. I think this is able to not only give us a voice, but also give the industry another voice besides just TV shows and so forth. |01:39:45| Brody Well, thank you for participating and sharing your story. |01:39:47| Chhen Thank you. |01:39:48| Brody Take care. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Wai Chhen, April 26, 2022
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2021oh002_di_011
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
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2022-04-30
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audio
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76a21c800fcfc8ca48d9a33d44432156
Oral History
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Betsy Brody
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Xay Senephoumy
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5.4 Interview with Xay Senephoumy, February 18, 2022 2021oh002_di_006 01:13:27 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking Lao Grocer, Asian American Xay Senephoumy Betsy Brody m4a oh_audio_dig_senephoumy_xay_20220218.m4a 1:|14(7)|24(12)|36(2)|50(5)|76(1)|93(8)|145(6)|157(6)|169(4)|180(7)|209(1)|237(1)|253(7)|266(7)|281(11)|290(7)|304(8)|314(9)|327(11)|344(9)|353(6)|366(7)|380(8)|411(13)|424(9)|452(4)|467(4)|477(14)|489(15)|502(1)|538(7)|551(4)|562(7)|572(9)|584(3)|598(2)|616(15)|629(7)|651(2)|666(4)|676(12)|685(11)|711(10)|723(3)|756(4)|764(5)|774(2)|787(8)|797(6)|810(12)|820(8)|828(6)|841(14)|849(14)|859(2)|876(13)|907(2)|928(4)|936(14) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/162895 Aviary audio 4 Introduction Asian American grocers ; Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Cooking, Lao ; Texas--History 35 Moving to the United States from Laos Colorado ; Houston ; Laos ; Nebraska ; Texas 235 Arriving in Dallas in 2000/ Opening Nalinh Market Asian grocery ; business ; chewing tobacco ; community ; Dallas ; family run restaurant ; grocer store ; hub ; laab ; Lao ; Lao food ; Laotian ; Laotian community ; Laotian food ; larb ; Nalinh Market ; papaya salad ; sticky rice ; Taco Bell ; vegetables 32.81330398611661, -96.9237610554398 17 631 Lao community in Dallas culture ; diverse ; diversity ; Lao ; Lao New Year ; Lao Temple ; Laos ; Laotion community ; New Year ; Rockwall Temple ; Saginaw Temple 893 Beginning to serve food at Nalinh Market advertising ; Asian grocery ; business ; customers ; food ; grocery store ; house party ; hub ; Irving ; kitchen ; landlord ; Lao ; Lao food ; Laos ; Laotian community ; license ; permit ; racism ; social media ; sourcing ; street food ; Thai ; vegetables ; veterans ; word of mouth ; Yelp 2058 Opening Saap Saap and the impact of COVID business ; COVID ; curbside ; Lao ; Laotian food ; marketing ; Nalinh Market ; pandemic ; pivot ; Saap Saap ; shutdown ; takeout ; training 2606 Reflections on the concept of " ; authenticity" ; and ethnic food authentic ; authenticity ; ethnic food ; Hunan beef ; orange chicken ; palate ; Taco Bell ; upscale ; western palate 2888 Food as a tool to educate and connect/ Nalinh Market as a community hub bridge ; community ; connect ; connection ; culture ; curiousity ; educate ; education ; food ; hub ; Lao community ; Lao culture ; Laos ; respect ; word of mouth 3415 Future of Lao food in Dallas authentic ; authenticity ; Bon Appetit ; Dallas ; diverse ; diversity ; educate ; education ; immigrant ; Lao ; Laos ; Laotian food ; Laotian restaurants ; neighborhood ; palate ; Restaurant City of the Year ; Saap Saap ; Thai food 3886 Senephoumy's mother's background cooking ; food ; Lao ; Laos ; Laotian ; refugee ; refugee camp |00:00:04| BRODY This is Betsy Brody. Today is February 18, 2022. I am interviewing for the first time Mr. Xay Senephoumy. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and as part of the project entitled " ; Digging In: How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped the Story of Asian Dallas." ; All right, Xay, thank you so much for meeting me and sitting for this interview. Let' ; s just start out real quickly with where and when were you born? |00:00:39| SENEPHOUMY I was born 3rd of February 1979 capital city of Laos at the trail end of the, during the trail end of the Southeast Asian conflict in Vientiane, Laos. |00:00:59| BRODY What brought you to Texas? |00:01:01| SENEPHOUMY What brought me to Texas? That' ; s a long story. In short, I came to America. My parents came to America when I was about a year and a half, less than two years old. I think we landed in Houston, stayed in Houston for two or three years or whatnot, bounced around between Grand Island, Nebraska and the Greeley, Colorado area, maybe for the next couple of years. By the time I was five or kindergarten, something like that ended up going to New Britain, Connecticut, where I was raised. Until I think fifth grade. I moved out to a podunk town called Grand Island, Nebraska, graduated high school there had to get out of there as soon as possible. We moved out to the closest Metro- Denver- and stayed there for about two years and ended up here in in the Dallas area in about the year 2000. And I' ; d been here pretty much since then. Have moved a couple of places while I was here, but I always ended up back here. |00:02:25| BRODY What was your family doing that you were moving to all these places? |00:02:28| SENEPHOUMY Um, you could kind of compare them to migrant workers. They just went to, you know, they weren' ; t formally educated in the U.S. So they just went wherever the work was. And that' ; s how the Laotian community was at the time. If one family hears about one job somewhere, they... They would ask if there' ; s other positions available for the other 20 people they know and we would just follow. We' ; re like migrating herd. Any kind of work, really factory work. I remember my mom doing. She was working for an electronic or electrical coil wire manufacturing company in Connecticut. She was doing the assembly line for that. And then after that, most of the Asian communities at the time ended up going to places like Kansas and Nebraska to work the slaughterhouses- slaughter cows. |00:03:34| BRODY Right. So you mentioned your mom. How large was the family that you were, your immediate family? |00:03:40| SENEPHOUMY My immediate family was pretty small, consisted of mom, my older sister and I, and every once in a while, dad would that would pop up in and out of the picture. Yeah. So three or four of us consistently. |00:03:55| BRODY OK. So you, you all ended up in Dallas around 2000. What was going on then? What did you do then? |00:04:02| SENEPHOUMY 2000. What I did, I was, was trying to find myself. I was young. Two years in a college. I left college because I wanted to work and hang out. I wasn' ; t sure who I was. So my ah, my parents, my mom and stepdad bought a little- they purchased a little grocery store down here, a little convenience store that was owned by another Laotian family. And I wasn' ; t really doing much in Denver, so they asked me if I wanted to come and help with the family business and I came down. |00:04:39| BRODY So they bought the grocery store. And so it was all- it was- what was it called? Oh, do you remember? |00:04:46| SENEPHOUMY I don' ; t remember the name of it. |00:04:49| BRODY But they were already serving the... |00:04:51| SENEPHOUMY No, definitely not. |00:04:52| BRODY OK. |00:04:52| SENEPHOUMY Serving food? |00:04:53| BRODY No, serving the Laotian community? Or was there a Laotian community? |00:04:56| SENEPHOUMY Yes, there' ; s Dallas. At the time that my parents moved here, where Dallas was probably, probably still is the biggest Laotian community in America. |00:05:07| BRODY Oh, really? Yeah. Why do you think that is? |00:05:11| SENEPHOUMY Business opportunities, cost of living? And I think because we' ; re jungle people, you know, we can take the heat. I can' ; t, but they can. |00:05:25| BRODY That' ; s funny. So, OK, so the grocery store, they bought it. Your mom and stepdad. And...Tell me about what that was like when they first started. |00:05:34| SENEPHOUMY Oh, when they first started, it was just a little like bodega type, little grocery store- sold veggies and imported goods that that were hard to find in the bigger Vietnamese super, super grocery stores. |00:05:51| BRODY What kind of things? |00:05:55| SENEPHOUMY Maybe some clothing, some special like wicker imports that we would use to- like kitchen utensils, things to cook with and whatnot. And it' ; s funny. One of the big things that you can' ; t find at other stores that the older ladies, they, they chew this like chewing tobacco or that type of thing. And we sold that where most places wouldn' ; t. So at the time in Irving, there was a there was a older Laotian community and we were the place to serve the older generations. |00:06:40| BRODY What is that? Chewing tobacco called? |00:06:43| SENEPHOUMY In our language and you can look it up...Yeah, we call it " ; chian maak" ; which literally translates to chewing, " ; chewing plants" ; |00:06:55| BRODY Chewing plants. |00:06:56| SENEPHOUMY But it' ; s it... |00:07:00| BRODY It was a big seller. |00:07:01| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, it' ; s...I' ; m trying not to laugh because unless you' ; ve seen it before, you' ; d understand, well, why, why I' ; m giggling. 80 year old ladies chewing tobacco. Their mouths are fuller than any cowboy you' ; ve seen around here. And they don' ; t have a spitting cup, you know, they' ; re just right there. Big old...like what looks like a half a gallon coming out of their mouths. It' ; s an amazing sight. |00:07:29| BRODY That' ; s a great image. So, had your mom or stepdad ever done anything like that type of a business before? |00:07:37| SENEPHOUMY Actually, yes. When, when I was living in Connecticut as a child. One of my aunts owned a grocery store in Danbury, Connecticut. And every weekend we would drive up there- about an hour away from New Britain, where I grew up, and we would help out at her grocery store and I would just hang out there all day. And I guess that' ; s what planted the seed. |00:08:06| BRODY Right? Kind of learned the ropes there. |00:08:07| SENEPHOUMY Yeah. |00:08:08| BRODY And it seemed doable and manageable. |00:08:11| SENEPHOUMY Yeah. You know, we weren' ; t thinking about it at the time. At the time, we were just helping family members, you know, we had nothing else to do on the weekend, go help family and cook and eat and hang out. |00:08:21| BRODY Right? Tell me about Laotian food. |00:08:23| SENEPHOUMY Oh, Laotian food. And I get asked this all the time. What' ; s the difference between Laotian food and Thai food? And if people just ask me outright " ; Can you tell me about Laotian food?" ; I say, " ; Well, it' ; s just like Thai food, but more rustic, very bold flavors, unapologetic, bold flavors." ; It' ; s definitely not made or masked for, for the, for the gringo palate. And I like, I like to give this analogy to a lot of people. I tell them it' ; s like it' ; s like trying to call Uncle Julio' ; s or Taco Bell " ; real Mexican food" ; when you know it' ; s not. |00:09:14| BRODY Right. What are the like sort of signature dishes? |00:09:19| SENEPHOUMY Oh, sticky rice. Of course, sticky rice is a must have in every household. Sticky rice and steamed rice, but mainly compared to, compared to Thai households, we definitely will have sticky rice. Thai households won' ; t. Papaya salad stands out. It' ; s made with this real stinky, anchovy based sauce that' ; s fermented for anywhere between weeks to months. The stinkier, the better. That' ; s, that' ; s just how that dish goes. Some more traditional ones would be like a laab, beef laab. Its minced meat of choice dish, whether it be chicken, pork or beef. Traditionally with Laotians, it' ; s a, it' ; s mostly beef, where the meat is the showcase, and then it' ; s mixed with herbs like onions and just, just mince, and whatever fresh herbs that we would find in our backyard. |00:10:29| BRODY Sounds really good. Oh, so what was Dallas like when you got here? |00:10:35| SENEPHOUMY When I got here, when I got here in 2000, let me rewind. When I got here in 2000, it was like a second home to me because all my all, my extended family members live here- my uncles and cousins and whatnot- and they' ; re in business themselves here. But the whole time I was with...I was living in Nebraska as a teenager. We would often periodically come, come down here to visit. So it wasn' ; t a culture shock to me. So I was ready for it and I was used to it. The only thing I was shocked me was, was the summer heat, which I' ; ve been here about 20 years worth, and I still can' ; t take it. I was raised in the snow. So this isn' ; t... |00:11:22| BRODY It' ; s a whole different thing. So you mentioned that you knew a lot of, you know, family, extended family, and that the Laotian community here was established by 2000. In terms of sort of diversity. You know, were you with, I mean, coming from Nebraska, coming from Connecticut, what were what were your impressions? |00:11:46| SENEPHOUMY Diversity wise. I was, you know, Nebraska is the majority white working class, Caucasian working class. I would assume at the time all the brown people worked at the slaughterhouse with my parents. I was used to the diversity because I would travel here a lot and, you know, I was fortunate to visit another country and go to many states when I was younger, too. But if I were to take an average Nebraskan and bring them to Dallas, the first time, which I did... Brought my best friend down to the to the Houston, NASA thing on a family vacation with us, who were about 16 at the time. And he, he didn' ; t know what to do. He was scared and shocked. It was, uh, too colorful for him, to say the least, but, you know, for regular people like that, it could be a surprise, but you know, fortunately, not for us. |00:13:01| BRODY Texas was more diverse than... |00:13:03| SENEPHOUMY Oh yeah, definitely. Very, very diverse. Very. |00:13:06| Diverse. |00:13:08| BRODY How about with connecting with the larger Lao community? Were there events or more casual get togethers? |00:13:19| SENEPHOUMY Yes. |00:13:20| BRODY At that time. There are, and there still are till this day. One of the big events is Lao New Year' ; s, which happens in April. And what they do, what they do is they do a food celebration. People just come out sing, eat, drink. It' ; s a community gathering and there' ; s about four main temples in the DFW area, and they' ; ll split the weekends. Like they' ; ll do Lao New Year party at one and the other. That way, we' ; re not favoring one part of town or one side of the community or, you know, we show some love at all the all the local temples. And that' ; s a big thing. People come around from all over the country, Lao people, a lot of different Southeast Asian people, even Caucasians. Some of my Latino friends from Atlanta fly in just for that. |00:14:18| BRODY Wow. That' ; s where is it held? At the temples, physically? |00:14:22| SENEPHOUMY The yeah, the big one is the Saginaw Temple. That' ; s the big hoedown right there. That' ; s the one everybody wants to go to. The big Rockwall Temple is pretty nice, too. They do a big thing over there as well. A couple more. I can' ; t recall the name of the other two, but yeah, those are the two big ones. But the one that people travel for is the Saginaw party. |00:14:53| BRODY So tell me about the store. When you, so when, your mom and your stepdad opened it, what was it called? And what was the sort of a typical day for them? Who were their customers then |00:15:06| SENEPHOUMY Basically just the local Irving Lao community was their everyday customers. We did the same customers every day, every weekend. You know, like I said, we just pretty much catered to the local population, to the Irving population. When they opened it, it was called Nalinh Market, because my mom' ; s brother, Nalinh from Nebraska, she my mom, convinced his family to move here with us as well to start this business. So it was named after him. His name sounded better than everybody else' ; s name. It just rolled off your tongue a little better. |00:15:52| BRODY And it was in Irving where exactly.? |00:15:55| SENEPHOUMY Irving. Irving Boulevard and Loop 12...boulevard and Loop 12. It' ; s... Right next to the to the 7-11, right off the highway. |00:16:08| BRODY So initially, you said they bought it, were they renting the space or they bought it outright? |00:16:14| SENEPHOUMY They, they bought the business and equipment from the previous owner. I don' ; t know how much it was, but. And we' ; re still renting the space out from the landlord to this day. |00:16:27| BRODY Yeah. So sort of the nuts and bolts of starting and continuing a business for such a long time. You know- what goes into that? What, what has your family' ; s experience been with sourcing and maintaining the space and so on? |00:16:44| SENEPHOUMY Initially, the nuts and bolts of it were pretty simple. We were just retailing grocery items and fresh veggies. You know, my mom would just basically repackage vegetables. She would go get them from the bigger supermarkets, chop them down in smaller quantities. Made them prettier, you know, and just dressed them up and sold them in smaller, more affordable quantities. And that was pretty much it for the first. I' ; d say, like 10 years of their business |00:17:17| BRODY And then what happened? |00:17:19| SENEPHOUMY And then what changed our lives was- Different families from different states started moving to Texas. Some old friends of our family. And my mom was known back in the 80s for making food, great food at house parties. And you know, we get her old friends moving here and they' ; re asking, " ; Hey, are you still a good cook and whatnot? I miss your food from...Remember in 1984, when our kids were little rugrats and you made this special dish at the house? Can you still make it?" ; Mom' ; s..." ; You know, yeah, I think I can still make it." ; So she was unbeknownst to her, she was coerced to make a couple of dishes for sale by her old friends and just snowballed from there. |00:18:17| BRODY Really? So did she make them right there in the store? |00:18:23| SENEPHOUMY Not, not, after the first initial request, she just said, I don' ; t have those items with me right now. Let me get them. When do you want to come back? Couple of days? The weekend? So they came back on the weekend. But those dishes, they loved them and word spread |00:18:41| BRODY The rest is history. |00:18:42| SENEPHOUMY The rest is history. There' ; s a funny detail involved in that too. Where there was no kitchen in Nalinh Market. It was just a little grocery store, a little bodega. And mom was trying to think, " ; Well, I don' ; t want to cook from the house and bring my friend this food." ; So she grabs a Bunsen burner and a little frying pan and just cooks that for that individual. And as word of mouth got around, she was using the same Bunsen burner to cook food for the next....who knows how many people, right? Just, you know, and we didn' ; t...We don' ; t even have....We didn' ; t have a food permit. We' ; re not supposed to cook back then, but she' ; s doing it for these people. And then and then she hit it big time to the point where she had to upgrade to a double Bunsen burner to keep up with requests. Yeah, and months roll by, and she' ; s still cooking, and the demand increases as the popularity, word of mouth in the in the neighborhoods is spreading, and I just I have a talk with mom. I say, " ; Mom, you have to put the Bunsen burners away. It' ; s embarrassing. Why don' ; t we? Why don' ; t we build a little kitchen back here?" ; And, you know, we started with a little makeshift kitchen. And it' ; s still, if you go into Nalinh Market today, it still looks like a little makeshift kitchen because that spot was never meant to be a restaurant. And, you know. And that that' ; s where it all began with a Bunsen burner. |00:20:40| BRODY That' ; s fascinating and a really great story. Do you remember what the original food was that she was cooking? |00:20:48| SENEPHOUMY Laab. Beef laab. Which is a traditional dish, yeah. |00:20:53| BRODY And you mentioned that, you know that the demand started to grow through word of mouth. Was it mostly Lao people who were coming? |00:21:02| SENEPHOUMY Yes, it was definitely Lao people at first. It was definitely Lao people at first. And then when we got to the point where we had to have where we decided to put just two little sit down tables, four chair, sit down tables. I don' ; t know if we were even allowed or permitted by the city yet to, to cook there. But you know, it' ; s what we did until we were told differently. Yeah, so we were, we were mostly serving people we knew- friends or family. And then it would spread out to the local Laotian residents and then as we got more popular and this is when technology kind of changed the game a little bit, Yelp first started coming out and I- they, my parents still don' ; t know this to this day. I created two fake Caucasian accounts. I remember the first one, Mr. Steve Martin, and the next one was like Mr. Sam Sampson, and I created our very first reviews for Nalinh Market, and I said, " ; I' ; ve never had this type of food before. Wow, this is great. Southeast Asian food reminds me of Thailand." ; you know, because Americans are familiar with Thailand. People saw those reviews and then the other ethnicities started coming. |00:22:38| BRODY That' ; s really interesting because, well, first of all that that you created the Yelp accounts and secondly, that the way that you went about doing it. That I mean, were you thinking that this food is really great, but this is how to introduce it to a different... |00:22:58| SENEPHOUMY Not the, not the " ; really great" ; part yet because of I was an IT guy at the time. I went to school forIT. And I started doing, you know, basic IT work at any place I can. So just the fast forward, I ended up having a 20 year IT career before I opened my first restaurant, Saap Saap. So back at the time when I created those fake accounts, I was already in the IT realm. And you know, I heard of Yelp and these review apps and whatnot, and I just said, " ; Hey, I' ; m going to give us a review. The world doesn' ; t know about us. The real world does not know about us. Let' ; s, let' ; s get this out to, you know, let' ; s expand it beyond our community." ; |00:23:45| BRODY Did that happen? |00:23:46| SENEPHOUMY Immediately. |00:23:47| BRODY Yes. Tell me about that. What was the cause and effect there? |00:23:52| SENEPHOUMY Well, we would get our first Caucasian set of customers in. My parents would ask them if they were lost or if there' ; s anything particular they' ; re looking for. And they just said, " ; Hey, we heard the food is the food is good here. I have some Thai friends, you know? Is it similar to your food?" ; And we just introduced them to our food and it was all word of mouth at the time. And it still is. We don' ; t do any marketing. We didn' ; t spend a dime on marketing then. Just as I told you, the only marketing we had was me and my free fake accounts. And yeah, it just, just, just spread by word of mouth and we started getting other, other people of other ethnicities and... Yeah, yeah, we just saw that the demand was starting to grow, and I convinced, eventually convinced my mom to get legitimate licenses and go to the city and whatnot to where we could actually have a mini full kitchen in that location and convinced her to put out a third and fourth table. |00:25:20| BRODY So when those non-Lao people started coming in, did they know what they were looking for? Did they use your family as a guide to, you know-" ; What? What is this supposed to taste like? What am I looking for? What' ; s good here?" ; |00:25:39| SENEPHOUMY Initially, they played it safe for the for the most part because, you know, everybody' ; s eaten Thai food, ordered the things that they' ; re used to, the familiar dishes, Pad Thai and whatnot, egg rolls and whatnot. And then what I did, you know, I' ; m more talkative than my parents. So when I was working my IT job, I would come and help them out on the weekends. I' ; d get hungry, free food, right? And I, I would see the same Caucasian customers returning and same Mexican customers returning. I would say, " ; Hey, I see that you' ; re eating spicier. You should try this dish." ; And suggest other dishes and whatnot. And that' ; s...That' ; s how we got them to open up their palate a little bit. |00:26:29| BRODY Right? Had many of them even heard of Laos before? |00:26:32| SENEPHOUMY Most of them...No. I' ; d say like 95 percent of the people didn' ; t. The older generation did. There would be some which I later learned after they become my friends. They were...They were veterans of the war and they were stationed in Thailand, et cetera. And you know, they said this, this reminds them so much of the Thai street food, and they were versed. But for the most part, no, we had to, we had to guide them and ease them into it. |00:27:03| BRODY Did the menu expand rapidly or it sort of stay to a small number of items? |00:27:10| SENEPHOUMY I' ; d say initially very small because we didn' ; t know what we were getting ourselves into. We weren' ; t prepared for the business side of things, so we were only able to manage what we could handle. And then after we were getting more popular with, with just a general DFW population, there are more requests for certain traditional dishes, which were easy for us to do. We just, I think we just needed, needed that convincing, you know...needed that little push. Customers asked for it and we shall provide. |00:27:58| BRODY That' ; s great. So eventually, you did interact with the city and get the permits, and all of that stuff. Can you tell me more about that? |00:28:09| SENEPHOUMY It was pretty simple. We just. Well. Probably not the best. Initially, they would come in and tell us, " ; Hey, you can' ; t do this. You don' ; t have permits for it. Where your permits?" ; " ; OK, sir. So what? What do we need to do to get to that point?" ; And they, you know they walked us through it. |00:28:29| BRODY It was pretty cooperative. |00:28:30| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, yeah, it was cooperative. And there was there was no negativity at all. They saw that we, you know, they probably saw us as an asset to the community for the things that we were doing and that they help us out. |00:28:43| BRODY Yeah. Did you experience with that in that time period, any kind of racism or any difficulties or challenges that way? |00:28:54| SENEPHOUMY I would say 2007ish, you know, there was really no racism. The markets were good, everybody was making money. I think oil was, you know, the economy was great. Everybody was happy. There was no, no public tension. You know, we get a few idiots here and there, but not nothing that would stand out. Nothing bad. All that racist stuff comes later. |00:29:25| BRODY Yeah, some people who have businesses that are, you know, Asian businesses or other immigrant businesses talk about difficulties, maybe with the immediate neighbors, neighborhood difficulties over signage or things like that. Did you experience any of that? |00:29:44| SENEPHOUMY Not really, because our location in South Irving. It' ; s a minority community, to say the least, you know. So we didn' ; t we didn' ; t really have any problems and our neighbors, like our business neighbors, they...They specialized in their own businesses, so we weren' ; t stepping on anybody' ; s toes or anything like that, and we all got along well. |00:30:12| BRODY Good. That kind of raises the question of competition. At that time, was there any other business that was selling Laotian food? |00:30:22| SENEPHOUMY Not really. There were, at the time, there might have been one or two, but they were, they were located so far, like in Fort Worth and I think maybe one in Haltom City, to where we, we didn' ; t compete. |00:30:42| BRODY Right. Did you...Were you, not competing, but did you have a relationship? |00:30:47| SENEPHOUMY Oh yeah, it' ; s such a small community. I' ; d say more, more- more of my mom' ; s knowledge. The older community just knows everybody. They know everybody. The younger people like me, we have no idea whose kids are who and whatnot until we see each other events or parties. |00:31:10| BRODY So that' ; s interesting that the community is so small that, you know, if you have a similar business that you could maybe compare notes or, you know, share information. You mentioned earlier that you were just, you know, early on sort of trying to keep up with the business side of things. What were some of the challenges and factors there? |00:31:34| SENEPHOUMY Well, I would say a lot of it would have been the accounting. I, at the time, was the only first person...I wouldn' ; t say first, my sister was kind of starting too. I was the only one in our family with the real American formal education. So my mom and stepdad who were running the business, they were just...They were just running it off of muscle memory, really. They...They didn' ; t have the accounting education to handle business the right way at that time. |00:32:11| BRODY And taxes and all of that kind of stuff. |00:32:13| SENEPHOUMY Right. The, you know, even though they didn' ; t understand all the taxes and whatnot, they would just hire a local tax person to handle that for them. |00:32:25| BRODY Great. And the status of the business now? Still, still going? |00:32:28| SENEPHOUMY Now? My sister runs that location. She' ; s considering getting out of it. Prior to COVID, we were, I would say, maybe the top three most popular Lao family restaurants...Maybe, maybe in the country. In the state, for sure. You know? |00:33:04| BRODY Tell me about what your trajectory was after that period of time, what did you do after the Nalinh Market and the initial run of that, of that restaurant and turning it into a restaurant. |00:33:20| SENEPHOUMY Um, my goal was just to expand the audience and my family was fortunate that I was, I have am IT background, so I used whatever social media was available at the time, and just wanted to reach out to different audiences just to, you know, spread the word a little more. I was still very reluctant to marketing. And I think if I was more educated on that and knew more people to help, I would say, we would have actually been, been in better business than we were. Yeah, we probably would have made an even bigger impact. |00:34:17| BRODY You went on to start your own restaurant as well, right? |00:34:21| SENEPHOUMY Yes, yes. A sidebar and we can talk about this off, off camera, off the mic, but mom and I decided it was time to two separate ways from Nalinh Market, so we had a good talk. Mom said, " ; You know, use your education. You didn' ; t go to school for nothing. You' ; ve been the IT field for umpteen years, 15 years. You' ; ve held whatever government clearances for your jobs and whatnot, you know, you have a decent future doing that." ; And I said, " ; Mom, you know, if you stop the community going to be sad." ; So it made me think and it made me realize that I had to carry on the tradition. And in short, I decided to open up the restaurant. The second restaurant, which was called Saap Saap and Mom and I ran that from 2017, January of 2017, till its closing day, few, couple of months ago, I would say November of 2021. |00:35:35| BRODY So that kind of puts you smack in the middle of COVID and all of, all of that. How did COVID impact both businesses? |00:35:45| SENEPHOUMY COVID didn' ; t really impact the original location that bad, because we' ; ve already established a good customer base- about 20 years worth of work of customers- and then the location was ideal too. It' ; s right off the highway, easy to find and whatnot. We' ; ve already had a good social media following, so the fan base was there. At Saap Saap, it impacted us tremendously and horribly. So COVID really started for the public in what? January or Februaryish of twenty, right? 2020. OK, so I' ; ve already been in business there three years and the trend was that we were very slow in the winters. We' ; re basically dead in the winters. And but that year, right before COVID, my, my doors were open every night. All the seats were full. You couldn' ; t get a seat in my place. We were peak. I had, I had the perfect staff. It took me three years to cultivate a great staff. I had everything we ever needed and my staff and I were even looking at each other going, " ; Wow, this is this is January, this is February, and people are waiting for seats here. This this is amazing." ; So we' ; re peaking. We' ; re at our very best. And then....Not even a few weeks later, we, we get hit with the COVID rules, you know? Dine in is chopped down to what, a quarter? 25 percent of the time? I' ; m a dine in location at Saap Saap, so automatically, you know, 75, 75 percent of my income is affected, is taken away. So I' ; m...from the very first or second week of the COVID rules and laws, I' ; m already so, so deep, you know? |00:37:58| BRODY It hit you hard. |00:37:59| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, I' ; m just trying to trying to fight an uphill battle. |00:38:06| BRODY That' ; s really hard timing because you were hitting your momentum, |00:38:10| SENEPHOUMY Yes. |00:38:10| BRODY ...hitting your stride. |00:38:11| SENEPHOUMY Yes. And on top of that too, we emotionally it, it just it. It took its toll on us, but we had an exit plan for Mom because we built up our staff and, in that business and especially with our family' ; s food, it' ; s so hard to get the cooks to make the food the way we do it, because there are no formal recipes. It' ; s, it' ; s our family' ; s recipes, it' ; s the school was my mom' ; s kitchen, you know, and I' ; ve, I' ; ve been clinging in on her butt since I was a little kid and that' ; s how I learned to cook. It' ; s very hard to teach anybody how to make food the way we make it, and we were able to do it with our new staff or current staff at the time. So we had an exit plan for Mom. We said, we had a team meeting, " ; Hey, can we do this without Mom?" ; Yes. " ; Do you know your job?" ; Everybody knows their job. Fine. Mom' ; s going to retire in April and we' ; ll give her some retired benefits. But she' ; s out of here. She' ; s, getting old, let her go, see the world and whatnot. And once COVID hit, those plans were scrapped. Ended up losing my, my staff, my whole staff and Mom and I were left to run the business by ourselves. Just the two of us. |00:39:42| BRODY Wow. So did you...A lot of restaurants pivoted to curbside and takeout. Is that sort of the strategy? |00:39:51| SENEPHOUMY Um, we had to...we had to adapt to it. We didn' ; t have a choice. Our- what services did we use- the carry out services like what Uber Eats and whatnot? Our orders went up, but, we that just didn' ; t help because our customer base were a dine in base and most of our customer base loved the intimacy of what we provided. |00:40:29| BRODY Yeah. Can you tell me about, you know, just it' ; s a sad ending, but to go back to the happier times when you were hitting your stride, what was your vision for Saap Saap? What was what type of place was it? What was, what did you hope your customers would feel when they were there? |00:40:46| SENEPHOUMY I, um, I didn' ; t have any plans for how I hoped the customer would feel. My, my initial vision was just to use our food as a tool to educate the community and you could say the rest of the world, expose them to, to our culture and to my people. And what better way would there be to do that than to break bread with somebody, right? Feed people. They' ; re happy. You get talking. You become buddies and the word spreads around, you know? Just to educate the community about our culture and our -through, through our food, really. And business wise, I wanted to open multiple locations like maybe three or four locations. We had another location in the works at the time right before COVID. We' ; re planning that out. We' ; re strategists, we were strategizing for about, you know, two, two or three additional locations. And I think that' ; ll work, that would have worked out well. The, the vibe of our patrons just came naturally. You know, we, we grew up in Podunk, Nebraska, where everybody knows everybody and we' ; re just comfortable talking to our neighbors. You don' ; t really get that in most restaurants that you eat at nowadays. And you know, the customers at the table don' ; t get to speak with the executive chef. Call them by first name. Say hi to them every time they eat. It was like that at our place. And that' ; s what the customers liked and wanted. And that' ; s also why the, the takeout option during COVID didn' ; t work, because that wasn' ; t our customer base. You know, they wanted to be there for, for the whole atmosphere, for the whole experience as well. Not- they didn' ; t just want to grab their food and go. |00:42:55| BRODY Right. Well, it kind of ties together what you were saying earlier that- about training chefs that, you know, that it' ; s hard to teach people exactly the ins and outs of your mom' ; s cooking or your family' ; s cooking, and it sounds like the restaurant anyway was something like being in your in your home. |00:43:19| SENEPHOUMY Yes, yes. |00:43:19| BRODY Right? With you and with your, you know, with your mom. So that makes sense. That kind of leads pretty naturally into another set of questions that deal more generally with when we' ; re talking about food from immigrant communities. Did you do things with the recipes, with the food to appeal to certain groups? |00:43:55| SENEPHOUMY Well, for our Southeast Asian community, you know, we are we offered we offered party catering and whatnot, and we felt honored because, you know, a bunch of-we were, we were commissioned for, for quite a few weddings. You know, it' ; s a major important, major event in those people' ; s lives. And for us to provide a service and to be a part of that is just something special. So we were well known for that service as well. We didn' ; t really go out of our way or out of our path to, to, to formulate a special game plan to try to reach out to certain groups, you know, we just kept doing what we were doing. |00:44:51| BRODY And then as far as...A lot of times people talk about, you know, quote unquote ethnic food as being, you know, authentic. Did you feel like you...What are your feelings around that concept of " ; authenticity" ; ? |00:45:11| SENEPHOUMY When it comes to ethnic food, I myself, before I even opened up the restaurant, before we even had our first couple of tables at Nalinh Market, I would purposely go seek out places that I knew served food that didn' ; t look like a restaurant because I knew that' ; s where the real food was at. You know, the less fancier places. Most likely that' ; s where you can get the best food, the most authentic food. I, I live in, I live in the, in, in a dichotomy where our food is known to be authentic and expect it to be authentic, but at the same time, to survive in business, you know that you have to...You can' ; t follow that 100 percent if you want the dollars to come in, you know? You have to, you have to adjust your foods to the western palate and make, make-And you guys can' ; t see this, but I' ; m rolling my eyes when I' ; m thinking about it, you know, to make Taco Bell food. You know, you just have to to stay in business. But... |00:46:37| BRODY So for your menu, what did that look like? What did that look like across the board...Changing things for the western palate? Or did it mean to include certain items on the menu that were good sellers? |00:46:50| SENEPHOUMY I wouldn' ; t do it, and that might have been part of my demise. I was stubborn about it. We' ; ve even had internal meetings about this to where, " ; Hey, you know, you have customers coming in wanting orange chicken and stuff like that." ; That' ; s just not us. And I, you know, I would put my foot down and yeah, I could' ; ve made a ton of money making orange chicken and whatever Hunan beef and whatever else. But that' ; s just that' ; s not who we are. That' ; s not the food we make. We' ; ve we become- we' ; ve grown as a business in the last 15 years because of what we do, because we make authentic food from home, from when my mom was 10, 11 years old, cooking for her 11 siblings and her parents in the jungles of Laos. You know, and we just wanted to provide those same foods and we didn' ; t want to stray from it, no matter what cost. I mean, that' ; s what we became known for. So there' ; s, you know, I don' ; t want to stray from the authenticity of what we were doing. |00:48:08| BRODY Earlier you mentioned that you wanted to use food as a tool to educate people, customers about your culture and about, you know, about the food. What are the main messages that you would have, that you did and you do want to convey to the public through your menu? |00:48:28| SENEPHOUMY Um, curiosity leads to exploration. Exploration leads to education, you know, and the education is what just brings people together. You know, the more you know about your neighbor and, and your potential friends and just better off. It' ; s just, it' ; s just going to be better off for everybody, for the world, for society. And, you know, it' ; s just a simple formula. That' ; s all I ever wanted to do with my food. |00:49:03| BRODY To connect with people. |00:49:04| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Yes. |00:49:07| BRODY Sort of thinking about your customers, both at the Nalinh Market and at Saap Saap, did it end up being a pretty multicultural, multiethnic crowd that you were able to reach? |00:49:22| SENEPHOUMY Yes, very. Yeah, we' ; ve reached just about everybody on the spectrum. I, you know, Nalinh Market, they...It' ; s just well known. Everybody knows them, so word of mouth gets friends of friends from this ethnicity to the next ethnicity coming in. I didn' ; t spend a lot of time there, because I was busy at Saap Saap, but what I experienced at Saap Saap was I had Russian people flying in from Chicago just to eat our food. We' ; d have visitors from Peru who told us that they' ; re in America because they just want to explore the best of what America has to offer. You know, and I' ; m humbled they' ; re eating at our restaurant. Just- wow speechless, right? And, you know, you know, people from Peru, people from Russia. Thai people who are visiting California, flying into California, flying into Texas here to eat our food and Canadians. It' ; s humbling. It' ; s fantastic. It' ; s a, it' ; s a neat experience. |00:50:47| BRODY Yeah, a lot of the interviews that I' ; m doing, I' ; m finding that the restaurants have served as a bridge to other communities and other types of people, and that the food, as you said, has been a really good, you know, impetus for people connecting with each other. Do you have any stories that you want to share about examples of something like that happening? |00:51:14| SENEPHOUMY Oh. Many, many, many that I can' ; t pick out specifically. Like, for example, there' ; s one guy I can think of. He' ; s been to Thailand a couple of times and probably when he was a kid, maybe a teenager. He hasn' ; t eaten that food in forever and after we opened up Saap Saap, he would eat there pretty much on a weekly, weekly basis, sometimes a couple of times a week. It made him travel more to Southeast Asia. Every like six months or so he would, he and his lady would go to a new country in Southeast Asia and come back, tell me all about it. He gets a tattoo written in Lao or Thai. On his arm, and yeah, yeah, it' ; s amazing how, you know, food can just open those doors and touch people in those ways. |00:52:31| BRODY That' ; s a great story. Another pattern that people have noticed is of, and this may be more true of Nalinh Market maybe, of immigrant businesses becoming sort of a hub for the, their own community. Did you find that to be the case? You know, I know you mentioned that the grandmas and their chewing tobacco, but are other examples of ways in which the market itself was a hub. Other examples, you know, sharing information, fliers, community events? |00:53:12| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Whenever there would be a community event like, for example, the big old Lao New Year parties, people would drop off fliers, concert fliers, long lost friends who haven' ; t seen each other in a while, they' ; ll stop by and ask us to pass messages, messages or phone numbers to them |00:53:39| BRODY Wait, really? Like, people would come to shop and say, " ; Oh, if you see so and so..." ; . |00:53:42| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Yes, exactly. And I' ; m sorry (drinks water) |00:53:49| BRODY So people would come to shop and say to your mom, " ; Have you seen so-and-so in a while?" ; |00:53:56| SENEPHOUMY Because, you know, my mom' ; s older? And, she... the people, the people of her generation from the 80s, as I mentioned earlier, they just know, know everybody who came from Laos through the same situations that she did. Long lost friends, long lost family members who are seeking the other person would drop their phone number and ask my mom, " ; Hey, if you see this person, can you give it, can you give it to them?" ; |00:54:36| BRODY Obviously, before the internet and... |00:54:39| SENEPHOUMY Even during the internet because the older people of our culture, you know, they, they don' ; t know how to navigate the technology that' ; s provided today. So, so our location still to this day would be used as a hub or a meeting point or, and we' ; ve seen this a lot throughout the years, throughout the last two decades where people would be out of work, you know, and they just need a place to hang out to feel like home. And they would do that at Nalinh Market. And sometimes we would we would hire them as an extra hand put them to work. You know, we need our walls, walls painted or whatnot or, or even just outside jobs. If we knew other Asian business owners or not even Asian business owners or customers of other ethnicities. If people were hiring, you know, we could refer them to them. |00:55:42| BRODY It' ; s great. So sort of a neighborhood hub and in your, yeah, community hub as well. |00:55:46| SENEPHOUMY Definitely. And there would be times where people will just hang out there the whole day for eight to ten hours hoping to see whoever they' ; re there to meet up with or just, just for a sense of belonging to a sense of belonging sometimes. |00:56:03| BRODY That' ; s nice. Did people come on the weekends to kind of shop for the week or was it kind of a steady stream? |00:56:12| SENEPHOUMY Oh, you' ; d get more on the weekends. During the week, we would pretty much get a lunch crowd and then just a casual grocery shopper. But before we, before we started cooking food at Nalinh Market, that was like the place to be on the weekend. Like everybody just had to be there for no reason just to see each other' ; s faces and whatnot. |00:56:43| BRODY Yeah, you' ; d run into people, maybe even more so than the Temple or... |00:56:47| SENEPHOUMY Yeah. Yeah, exactly. |00:56:49| BRODY So it' ; s really interesting. So the current landscape, post-COVID, you know, Dallas has been named, you know, " ; 2019 Restaurant City of the Year" ; by Bon Appetit magazine and one of the things that the magazine cited in choosing Dallas was the large number of immigrant neighborhoods and restaurants, that diversity and in choices. Going forward, where do you think... What do you think, in Dallas, the future of Lao food is? |00:57:29| SENEPHOUMY Well, I think going forward, it' ; s going to, the future of Lao food should expand exponentially. I mean, if we go backwards a little bit, you' ; ll see that we may be about 15 years ago, we might have had three Lao restaurants and now there' ; s probably, I' ; m guessing, 20 plus owned, family owned Lao restaurants. So the demand is there and the education of the Lao food is definitely there and reaching out to other communities and in other geographical locations in DFW. So I think that demand will keep keep growing. And I think... I don' ; t know if it' ; ll ever become commonplace, but you' ; ll see more of it. |00:58:30| BRODY Well, with the popularity of Thai food and sort of the similarities. |00:58:34| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Yes. And. The sophistication of our food is surprisingly growing. Especially in other, other ethnic groups that are non-Laotian. You have American raised individuals who, who know the distinction now between Lao and Thai food, whereas 10 years ago we didn' ; t have that. You know, and they' ; re even, they' ; re pickier nowadays, they' ; re more precise about what kind of Lao food they want. And yeah, you would have never guessed this 10, 15 years ago. It would have blew your mind if, if you ran into this kind of aficionado from, from non Laotian people. |00:59:27| BRODY Yeah, I' ; ve read that, you know, initially people who were trying to serve Lao food would need to sort of label it " ; Thai and Lao" ; or something just to give people a reference point. It sounds like what you' ; re saying is that' ; s no longer the case. |00:59:44| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, definitely. It' ; s, it' ; s still the case to a certain extent. Like even, for example, my restaurant Saap Saap, I got flak from the Laotian community from, from a lot. Hey. So, so I had a sign that said " ; Saap Saap Lao and Thai Cuisine." ; " ; Why are you adding the word ' ; Thai' ; in your restaurant title?" ; Well, not everybody knows what and where Laos is, so I have to do that to attract the people who are familiar with what the Thai culture and Thai food. It' ; s just numbers. They have a bigger population than we do. They' ; ve been here longer than us. People know about them more. So we have to do that. But like I said, the flak I was getting, you know, " ; Hey, if you' ; re really trying to stay pure, if you' ; re really trying to stay authentic and whatnot," ; you know, and I got a lot of trouble or flak for this or a lot of negativity for this. And my response is, " ; Hey, we do this because we have to." ; People who are familiar with the Thai culture. And plus it' ; s not that I' ; m not trying to be a purist. In order to get to that level, we have to find a happy medium, you know? Yeah, we just,, we have to start somewhere. |01:01:19| BRODY Yeah, I mean, it sounds, when we put what you' ; re saying right now together with what you know, the issues of- that we talked about earlier that you could sell tons of orange beef if you know, if that' ; s what you were comfortable selling. That, you know, that walking that fine line between wanting to be authentic to the mission, you know, the vision that you have and also be a thriving business? You know how everyone' ; s line is somewhere. |01:01:49| SENEPHOUMY But then again, to the people who are giving me flak, I respond the same way to most of them " ; Hey, you go open your own Lao restaurant and you could call it and do whatever you want with it." ; |01:02:02| BRODY Oh, so looking back at both, you know, both the businesses and the experiences that you have and continue to have, what are some lessons or reflections on sort of the whole experience as well as Asian food in Dallas in particular? |01:02:23| SENEPHOUMY Well, this ties in to another question you asked me earlier what is the difference between Lao and Thai food? And I tried to explain to you technically about the ingredients, but there' ; s a there' ; s an ingredient that I didn' ; t mention-the people. My mother and I, you know, we were fortunate to spend a lot of our time in in Nebraska, in the Midwest being raised Midwest. You, you pick up on the work ethics, ethic that' ; s just there. It' ; s inherent with that, with that growing up in that part of the country. And, you know, we bring that with us and we bring our, our, just the way we communicate and feel for our neighbors and that, that is a major ingredient that people don' ; t understand in this business, you know, (inaudible). That' ; s such just what you need. And we need more of that, not just in the Lao food restaurants, but just generally speaking. And I think that' ; s where a lot of our popularity came from. You know, we provided that that sense of community and then just, just having an environment where people felt good to be a part of, to be around, and it, it understandably gets easily lost when you' ; re trying to run a business, you know, it' ; s all you' ; re thinking about is numbers and money. But one of my philosophies have always been, you know, don' ; t worry about the money, just take care of the important things first. And the money will come. If you' ; re good at what you do and you like what you do, the money will come. |01:04:34| BRODY A good spirit to have. Well, those are some really great stories and really interesting reflections. Is there anything that I didn' ; t ask you about that you' ; d like to share? |01:04:46| SENEPHOUMY Probably too much that we don' ; t have time for. A lot of...Since, since this is supposed to be archived for a for a cultural influence and whatnot, a lot of the questions that were missing would probably pertain to my mother. And, you know, she' ; s a big part of this story. The work ethic that that lady is, her work ethic is untouchable. And it' ; s just crazy. People say the same thing about her work ethic all the time, and it' ; s just a history where she came from during the war and being in the refugee camps before, before coming to America. And this is a lot of other Laotian families going through the same thing. But, the character that, that the character that was instilled in her, you know, just the history in the past of coming from Laos, the way she did and the poverty and the way she had to raise her kids here in a foreign land, not speaking the language and without the education. It just it lit a fire in her and pushed her to, you know, work with whatever God given tools that you have and just make the best of it. Yeah, so I mean, if, if, if you have some questions leading towards that, I' ; ll be happy to answer. But regarding my mother, but you know, if you' ; re open to conversation with her or details, that' ; s an available option as well. I' ; m just afraid things might get lost in translation. |01:06:57| BRODY Yeah. Tell me about her journey over here. How old was she? And she already had children at the point that she... |01:07:03| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, she had three kids to take care of at the time. I' ; m guessing she was. Let' ; s see, we came about ' ; 80, ' ; 81. 63. What' ; s that... Born in ' ; 61, ' ; 81, 20 years. |01:07:24| BRODY Oh, yeah, yeah. |01:07:26| SENEPHOUMY Twenty years old. You know, in a refugee camp... |01:07:33| BRODY Where was the refugee camp? |01:07:35| SENEPHOUMY Somewhere in Thailand. On the border of Laos and Thailand? Yeah. |01:07:39| BRODY So was she separated from her parents at that point? |01:07:43| SENEPHOUMY Yes. Yes. So her parents stayed in Laos. She, when she was in the refugee camp, her- some of the family got split up as well. I think I think we got separated from my older brother. He ended up going to Australia because I think at the time there' ; s about like six or eight options where you could get deported to right or imported to go to and... My dad' ; s side of the family ended up going to Australia. My mom and our were immediate family came here to America. I think my older brother got lost in the mix somehow, and he ended up staying with my dad' ; s side of the family in Australia. You know, tough life. He had to struggle with that growing up without his real family over there. And...So currently, they' ; re there, the Australia side of the family there... They also own four restaurants in the Sydney area. |01:09:02| BRODY Oh, really? |01:09:02| SENEPHOUMY Yeah. |01:09:03| BRODY All Laotian? |01:09:05| SENEPHOUMY Yes. But they' ; re more, they' ; re more of a Thai restaurant because they have to be. They' ; re in Sydney. So, you know, they have to, they have to cater to that crowd. But I' ; ve seen their menu and they do authentic Lao foods as well. Yeah, but they' ; re very busy over there and... |01:09:30| BRODY So your brother is involved with those restaurants? |01:09:32| SENEPHOUMY Oh, no, no, he isn' ; t. But my dad' ; s side of the family is my dad' ; s brothers and sisters are in Sydney. |01:09:43| BRODY So your mom sounds like a pretty remarkable woman, so |01:09:48| SENEPHOUMY Yeah, yeah. And I' ; ve been told, you know, I don' ; t. I don' ; t realize it myself until I step back a little bit, you know? See things from a third person perspective, but it' ; s like mostly everybody I run into, says, " ; Xay. She' ; s the hardest working I' ; ve ever seen." ; From teenagers to adults, you know senior adults in their 80s. They just man, you just got to be around her for at least an hour or two. It' ; s, it' ; s, you know, you have people like that anymore nowadays. |01:10:29| BRODY She sounds amazing. How long was she in the refugee camp there in Thailand? |01:10:35| SENEPHOUMY I' ; m not sure,. |01:10:35| BRODY Roughly. |01:10:36| SENEPHOUMY I' ; m not sure exactly. Maybe anywhere between six months to a year. |01:10:40| BRODY And then the time came for it, and then she came directly to Houston. In your understanding? |01:10:46| SENEPHOUMY Yes. But before that, if we were rewind a little. I later learned in life that when she was in Laos, prior to going to the refugee camp, she was actually working as a nurse under the UN, under the UN umbrella. So she was patching up soldiers and civilians and whatnot, and she couldn' ; t have been any more than what, 17 through 20 at the time. And I think one of the one of the major factors that got her into that position was a sponsor family here in the Houston area. There was a, there was a doctor and his wife, and I think she was in the medical field as well. But they, there was like some educational child sponsorship program back then. You know, they' ; re probably like the UNICEF commercials that you see on TV nowadays. My mom happened to fortunately be the recipient of one of those programs. And, you know, she' ; s always kept in touch with that family and I to this day have never met him. I wish I could have. He' ; s already passed. You know, I know, I think I think she felt like she really owed it to their family to keep pushing. You know, it' ; s probably what is a part of that fire, you know. |01:12:27| BRODY So, they sponsored her to come here? |01:12:31| SENEPHOUMY I, I' ; m assuming they probably through, that program, helped her become a nurse. And then since she was working under the U.N. umbrella, made it easier for us to get to America through the refugee camps. |01:12:55| BRODY That' ; s an incredible story and thank you so much for sharing all of that. Well, I really appreciate your time today and look forward to learning more about your family' ; s experiences. Thank you so much. |01:13:09| SENEPHOUMY It was my pleasure. I hope I got whatever information, you know. I just hope I answered most of your questions as best as I was able to. |01:13:22| BRODY It was wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you. |01:13:25| SENEPHOUMY The pleasure' ; s mine. Thank you. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0
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Interview with Xay Senephoumy, February 18, 2022
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2021oh002_di_006
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Asian Americans
Texas--History
Cooking, American
Cooking Lao
Grocer, Asian American
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2022-02-18
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audio