Latest news with #Viet
San Francisco Chronicle
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
The Bay Area's Vietnamese food capital just got a surprising seafood specialist
San Jose is a modern-day gold mine for Vietnamese food. It's the Bay Area's superior source for sizzling steak, chicken pho and the steamed rice rolls known as bánh cuốn. And recently, the city gained another exciting specialist. A few months ago, former San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho pointed me toward Làng Ốc Việt, a food truck slinging 'Viet mariscos.' I was intrigued, since I already happened to regard San Jose as a one-of-a-kind seafood hub. Shellfish is Làng Ốc's domain, with a particular emphasis on southern-style sea snails. Chef-owner Tuyền 'Cindy' Huỳnh is from Bạc Liêu, a coastal city in the Mekong Delta region where sea snails are in abundance. Before opening her truck last December, Huỳnh ran a sea snail stand in her hometown. The lengthy menu can be overwhelming. Several pages are dedicated to snails ($20-$25), loosely divided by preparation style — boiled, stewed, sauteed, grilled — and sauce bases such as black pepper, butter and coconut milk. Additionally, the truck offers snail noodle dishes and charcoal-grilled items like clams or squid. There's a fair amount of customizability, with the general wisdom being: the larger the snail, the higher the cost. I opted for the shiny grey conches stewed in a sweet butter sauce ($20) that had surprising tang. Its complex flavor comes from tamarind pulp, crispy pork belly bits, minced garlic and a heaping spoonful of butter. Grab a shell, wrestle out the snail with a toothpick and dip it in sauce before eating it. The texture is similar to squid, ranging from chewy to firm. But it works combined with all the elements. Garlic butter brings savory richness, pork lends a crisp texture and Vietnamese coriander also known as rau ram delivers robust pungency. Pork seems to be one of Huỳnh's secret weapons. She stuffs it into snails or sneaks it into dishes like grilled scallops ($20), which arrive as six aluminum cups of smokiness, savoriness and nuttiness. Even for Vietnamese folks, Huỳnh admits, snails can be an acquired taste. Her family members who grew up in different parts of the country, for example, didn't have much exposure to snails. My mileage with eating snails tops out at escargot. There are countless restaurants and chefs making well-known Vietnamese dishes, but few do the work to expand the public's perception of the cuisine. This truck functions as a gateway, bringing a specific slice of the Mekong Delta to the Bay Area. Formerly stationed at an auto parts parking lot in San Jose, the truck recently moved to a gated lot a few miles away. The setup is similar to a street food stand in Vietnam, with green plastic tables and low-to-the-ground stools. Huỳnh said three quarters of truck's clientele is Vietnamese, and looking around, that checks out. During service, Huỳnh is in constant motion, gracefully multi-tasking outside of the truck. She tends to the charcoal grill. She stirs pots of boiling snails. But she always makes time to share belly laughs with customers. Huỳnh is driven by passion. She came to the states five years ago and worked at a seafood shipping company. But her heart was in cooking. She worked at a few restaurants, hoping to learn the trade and eventually open her own. Her strategy changed after working on a friend's food truck. She fell in love with the model, which she claims had simpler paperwork for a newcomer to the U.S. In 2024, she launched her truck Làng Ốc Việt and tested the waters at an event in San Leandro. Late last year, she secured a space for the truck in San Jose and quickly found an audience. She's proud of what she's been able to achieve with no family support system and two kids. Huỳnh is still settling into the new location. But with a truck open until 1 a.m., patrons can expect late-night karaoke. I can't wait to return, devour snails and share my pitchy rendition of V-Pop tunes.
Yomiuri Shimbun
05-05-2025
- General
- Yomiuri Shimbun
50 Years on, Twin's Peace Mission Remembers Scars of Vietnam War; Nguyen Duc Advocates for Recognizing Lasting Impacts
Shunpei Takeuchi/The Yomiuri Shimbun Nguyen Duc walks with the aid of crutches using the leg that was once conjoined with his brother in Ho Chi Minh City on April 28. HO CHI MINH CITY — The scars of the Vietnam War, which claimed about 3 million lives, still run deep for those who experienced it. Amid this legacy, Nguyen Duc of the conjoined twins 'Viet and Duc' carries on a powerful mission of advocating for peace. This cause is strongly motivated by the memory of his brother who passed away. April 30 marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Ho Chi Minh City, which was once known as the South Vietnam capital Saigon, has transformed into Vietnam's largest economic hub, with towering skyscrapers and the country's first subway line, which opened last year. Formerly celebrated as the 'Paris of the Orient,' Saigon fell to North Vietnam on April 30, 1975, bringing the Vietnam War to its close. Shunpei Takeuchi/The Yomiuri Shimbun Duc speaks about his brother at a commemorative screening of the documentary film 'Dearest Viet' in Hanoi on Feb. 28. 'I didn't experience the war myself, but I'm a victim,' Duc, 44, said at his home in Ho Chi Minh City on April 28. He is the younger of the conjoined twins, who were believed to have been affected by the Agent Orange defoliant sprayed by the U.S. military during the war. Duc shared a leg and a kidney with his brother Nguyen Viet, and the two underwent separation surgery at the age of 7. Now walking with his right leg and crutches, Duc even manages to transport his 15-year-old twins to and from school on a three-wheeled motorbike. Despite this resilience, repeated surgeries for tumors and other ailments have left him feeling his time is limited. Despite his health challenges, he remains dedicated to sharing the experiences of war victims, giving lectures in various places. A documentary film about his life titled 'Dearest Viet' was released in Vietnam in February this year. Duc said that he feels it is his mission 'as a victim of war to continue to convey the unjust suffering caused by the continuing effects of war and to work for peace' in memory of his brother, who died in 2007 at the age of 26. Courtesy of Group Hoping for Viet and Duc's Development Duc, left, and his brother Viet in a custom-made wheelchair provided from donations in Japan The conjoined twins were born in February 1981, about six years after the Vietnam War ended, in a rural village in central Vietnam, an area sprayed with Agent Orange by the U.S. military. They became a symbol of the war's lasting scars. Duc has been in the public eye ever since he could remember. His visit to Japan in 1986 for his brother's treatment for acute encephalitis resulted in daily media coverage and served as a stark reminder that some lives continued to be affected by the pain of a war that ended more than 10 years earlier. Following the twin's separation surgery in 1988, Duc attended school alone, with his brother bedridden. Reflecting on that time, he said, 'I felt guilty toward my brother every day, which was very painful.' However, Duc was not particularly concerned with his own situation at that time. It was not until his high school years that he started to see himself as someone affected by the war. In 2004, he began working in the administrative department of the Ho Chi Minh City hospital where his separation surgery had taken place. He married in 2006, having met his wife at a friend's wedding. In 2009, he and his wife became parents to twins: a son they named Phu Si — the Vietnamese reading of the Chinese characters for Mt. Fuji — and a daughter named Anh Dao, meaning cherry blossom. Despite his children's healthy development, he confesses, 'The thought sometimes crosses my mind that they might suddenly fall sick, as my brother did.' Duc used to be uncomfortable talking about himself, but his perspective changed after his brother's death in 2007. He began to feel a desire to convey the preciousness of peace and the importance of family, and he continues to share his thoughts through lectures and social media. During the war, the U.S. military sprayed large quantities of Agent Orange to clear the dense forests where the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, also known as the Vietcong, was believed to be hiding. According to the victims association, 4.8 million people were exposed to Agent Orange, and about 3 million more, including their children and grandchildren, have suffered from deformities, cancer and other diseases. The Vietnamese government classifies individuals who were in the sprayed zones and those with particular disabilities and diseases as 'first generation' victims. The subsequent generation exhibiting similar symptoms, including Duc, are designated as 'second generation' victims. The government provides benefits to more than 300,000 people under these categories. However, third and fourth generations are ineligible for this support. The United States maintains that there is no scientific causal link to the human damage. 'There are people who cannot become economically independent and are in dire situations,' Duc said, appealing for understanding of the realities faced by war victims. He is also deeply pained by ongoing global conflicts, such as in Ukraine and the Middle East. 'War only brings loss and suffering, both mentally and physically, to people and especially children,' he said. As Vietnam experiences rapid economic growth with the aim of becoming a developed country by 2045, Duc said that the deep division between North and South Vietnamese people, which has persisted strongly since the war, is now showing signs of moving toward unity. However, he added, 'War victims like me, suffering from its lasting effects, still lead incredibly difficult lives, and the memory of the war will never fade.'
New York Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Viet and Nam' Review: A Soft Kiss Underground
Portrayed with an entrancing hush by the actors Duy Bao Dinh Dao and Pham Thanh Hai, Viet and Nam are coal miners — and lovers. They are also the title characters in 'Viet and Nam,' the director Truong Minh Quy's haunting, meticulously paced drama set in Vietnam in 2001. If you surmise Quy is up to something with these two names, you're right. From its start in the blackness of a mine shaft to an indelible image of a shipping crate adrift, the movie meditates on juxtapositions, among them: South and North, the public and the private, staying and going, darkness and light, mothers and fathers. Early on, as a television station broadcasts the names of the Vietnam War's still-missing soldiers, Nam and his mother, Hoa (Nguyen Thi Nga), putter around their home. Count the two among the families still hoping to find their loved ones' unmarked graves. While Nam, Hoa, Ba (Le Viet Tung), who fought alongside Nam's father and carries a secret, and Viet travel south to find the burial site, Nam is also making plans to leave Vietnam. His impending departure injects another kind of melancholy into the picture. (The film was banned in Vietnam for what censors saw as its dark portrayal of the country.) Quy treats the love affair between Viet and Nam with exquisite tenderness. One of the movie's scenes — startling for its frankness but also its visual beauty — finds the men reclined in the dark of the mine. The film makes clear that even though Nam and Viet must be wary they are also achingly in love. Viet and Nam Not rated. In Vietnamese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 9 minutes. In theaters.
