Tell me about street food. How would you summarize it in a paragraph? Great food that is often very specialized and unique. In Asia, a food vendor doesn’t go out to the street and just prepare anything and hope to make a living at it. Street food is usually a family tradition that has evolved for generations. Typically, the menu is very limited to one or a handful of items at most and is often based on well-guarded family recipes. So when you go out to eat at a street vendor, you expect to eat a specialized dish, not a meal with several dishes.
If street food is “good food served quickly,” what similarities do you see between street food in Asia and the quick-service segment in the United States? The similarities that I see are the types of food you see at these places. They are often not foods that you make at home. How often does one make fries at home? No one in Vietnam would make pho at home. Why should you when you can get it five steps from your door and cheaper? This is why the street food culture is such a prominent part of life in Asia.
In our family, we went out for specialized dishes. I fondly remember a venison dish cooked over hot tiles. It is like Peking duck; one would never make this at home back then because there was no oven and you could never do it as well as a specialist. I grew up thinking that my favorite street food vendors were like my friends, and, better yet, they made my favorite foods!
One thing that is happening throughout Asia is that the government is chasing these vendors off the streets and into foodcourt environments because of sanitation concerns. Eventually, many will undoubtedly be moved indoors. On one level, one almost wishes this wouldn’t happen, but on another, I think it’s good because it would give longevity to the businesses. Let’s hope that the food stays delicious.
In the U.S., the street food scene has never been as vibrant. I think part of it is we don’t really have a street culture here; we don’t have lots of people walking and milling out on the streets, as is the case in other parts of the world. With a four-lane road, cars zoom by. In Vietnam, the roads are so narrow you almost have to walk next to them, and the aromas just capture your senses. We have been eating in the streets for centuries. It’s part of our culture. We grew up with it and never questioned it. Singapore and Thailand are two countries that have been able to bring street food into food courts (often called hawker centers) and somewhat maintained the same quality and tastes. These eating halls are much like our own foodcourts, only the quality is much higher and the vendors are very proud of their offerings.
Have you discovered any equipment that helps maintain quality? It’s more in the people than equipment. Training my staff is the single most important factor to delivering quality flavorful foods. We do have a pasta cooker for all the noodles and vegetables, a stove, and a grill. In fact, we’re doing an Asian menu in a kitchen I had originally built for a French-style bistro.
On the noodle soups, we are constantly watching the broths, and we hold backups in a water bath so they don’t have to be on direct heat which makes them cloudy and salty. Nothing complicated, just paying attention to all the details.
Tell me about your new restaurant concept. Since street food was such a big part of my life, I had dreamed of doing this for a long time. The restaurant culture in Vietnam was too expensive for day-to-day eating. While growing up in Vietnam, our family went out to eat only once or maybe twice a month. But we ate street food everyday, sometimes twice a day. So even though I’ve had the full-service Lemon Grass Restaurant in Sacramento for 15 years, I had always had this urge of opening a place that features just street foods. The Noodle Bar is my idea of street food in America. It’s casual and upbeat. The food is great and the price is right. Everyday I have people climb up onto the bar stools and happily dig into their pho bowls.
Our first location shares space with an existing La Bou Bakery, which is another concept we created years ago. There’s about 6,000 square feet, and the front is a bakery-café and the back is dedicated to the Asian concept. So, it’s kind of like our own foodcourt, only just two concepts. Two customers can come in together for lunch and one gets a turkey panini and the other a bowl of pho or pad thai.
Describe the menu? The menu is inspired by the best of street foods in Vietnam and Thailand. Since we’re about great food, quick service, and affordable prices, the menu is small, highly specialized but yet has enough variety. We make delicious salads, salad rolls, noodle soups, noodle stir-fries, and curries.
Any plans to expand? We have plans for expansion, but for now I want to make sure that I understand all there is to learn about this segment. I’m confident of the concept and recipes, but having been in business for some time, I’ve learned that I always need to stay focused and keep improving, adapting, and moving. Everyone loves growth and expansion, but how to do that and still stay true to your vision is the question. We will begin with one Noodle Bar for now and let the big guys figure how to roll it out on a bigger scale. Locally, we’ll probably grow the concept to a handful of other locations.
Where do you see the quick-service segment going? I think that there will be considerable growth among all the world cuisines, mostly because they have not been done before. I think you will continue to see more Southeast Asian and Indian concepts popping up across the country. For now, many of these are independently owned. Some quick-service and fast-casual chains are entering the market and positioning themselves in this new spectrum of ethnic flavors. And I think you’ll also see existing larger chains adapting their menus to reflect this growing interest in Asian flavors. At some point all these forces will collide, and we’ll probably see something of a ‘Tacobellization’ of Asian food. This, of course, presents all kinds of opportunities for everyone, from operators to suppliers to manufacturers. I think this is a very exciting time to be in foodservice.