‘Everything has a story': Little Saigon’s cuisine offers a window into Vietnamese American culture

From chè to cơm tay cầm, the district’s food scene is nostalgic for some Chapman students and a gateway for others to try something new. Panther Archives

Christine Yu was shocked to hear words of disgust at what was supposed to be a celebration of culture. 

Having brought her friends to the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations’ annual Tết Festival in observance of Tết Nguyên Đán, or Lunar New Year, the sophomore theater performance major offered them one of the venue’s many Vietnamese dishes to try. She was met with a cold reply: “I want to get food that I can trust.” 

Despite the fact that Little Saigon — a region of Orange County which includes parts of Garden Grove and Westminster — has the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam itself, its food scene has flown under the radar for many students. 

Sometimes, in cases like Yu’s, it’s even met with outright hostility. Many members of the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, myself included, have encountered repulsion or disgust from acquaintances who may see an Asian dish for the first time. Before even giving their taste buds a chance to judge, these individuals deem it too alien or too weird.

But for students like May-Lynn Le, who grew up frequenting Little Saigon, trying new foods is an essential part of growing as a person. While Le now considers many Vietnamese dishes to be her personal comfort food, she also encourages people who are unfamiliar with the cuisine to embrace it.

“You can learn a lot about Vietnamese culture by our food,” said Le, a junior screenwriting and film production double major. “Everything has a story.”

And there is plenty to learn. With approximately 200 restaurants, Little Saigon holds a massive and diverse collection of dishes that are sure to enlighten even the most seasoned veterans of Vietnamese cuisine.

I was far from a regular customer when visiting Little Saigon this September. I had visited several local restaurants, sampling dishes like cơm tấm (broken rice) and bún bò nam bộ (a beef noodle dish), and I met some friends within the district. But my most recent trek to the cultural enclave would mark the first time I explicitly went to explore the region itself — not just an incidental meal that happened to be in the area.

What I found was an immense world of delicious food, but also a chance to redefine my limited understanding of “Vietnamese cuisine” as a whole, away from more corporate renditions of dishes like bánh mì. In the best way possible, I left with more questions than answers, and something tells me that the area will only be seeing more of me in the coming months. Curiosity and appetite pair nicely that way.

Described below are only three of those restaurants, which serve as a fractional glimpse into the Little Saigon community and its ties to Vietnamese American culture.

Phở 79

When visiting Phở 79 in Garden Grove, I heard a friend describe the place as “unapologetic.” The restaurant hardly requires any fanfare or tacky presentation, because the food and atmosphere speak for themselves. Awards from Zagat — a popular dining guidebook —  line the walls, and the hearty smell of hot phở leads customers from the front door all the way to their numbered tables.

The restaurant gets its “79” from the year its owner immigrated to the U.S., but the general practice of numbered phở restaurants is used to commemorate a wide variety of people, events and culturally significant motifs. Some common “phở numbers” include 75, since 1975 marks the year Saigon fell, and any combination of eights, since they’re considered lucky numbers, especially when repeated. A large portion of phở numbers also come from birthdays or other personally significant dates. Still, other owners simply use numbers to make their restaurant easier to identify.

The service is quick: large bowls of phở take less than five minutes to show up at a table, and orders, all paid in cash, are taken at a rate that keeps customers flowing in and out at a rapid pace. At night, the whole scene reads like a modernized “Nighthawks,” with bustling rows of customers — families, couples, coworkers — all in their own little worlds at each individual table. 

Their only commonality is the enjoyment of dishes like phở tái chín (rice noodle soup with both rare and well done beef), where the thinly sliced beef pulls apart with ease and the clear beef broth leaves a hint of both an aromatic, filling umami taste and a slight muted tanginess.

The restaurant itself can be a bit elusive. It’s partially situated in an alley, but Alex Xu, a first-year graduate student majoring in International Studies, said that only adds to Phở 79’s appeal. 

“It’s the same vibe I get (when) trying to find an authentic Chinese restaurant here — when I try to get a taste of home for myself,” said Xu, who is also an international student from Hong Kong. “The places with the most genuine, authentic feel are those that feel closest to home … the atmosphere (of Phở 79) invokes (that of) a sit-down, family-style Asian restaurant.”

Thạch Chè Hiển Khánh

In stark contrast to the hearty phở dishes of Phở 79 are the assortment of cakes, puddings and other sweets at Thạch Chè Hiển Khánh, located in Westminster in Today Plaza. But according to Le, many Chapman students don’t appear to know about Vietnamese desserts.

Questions about phở or bánh mì are the default when fellow students talk to Le about Vietnamese food. That’s understandable, as the two are arguably the most recognizable Vietnamese dishes in the United States, but Le noted Vietnam’s diverse ecosystems allowed for the formation of all kinds of foods, with the sweet side of Vietnamese cuisine being just as vast and diverse as the savory.

Similar to Phở 79, the place is often packed with customers and only accepts cash. Glass displays lined with colorful reds, greens, browns and whites separate customers from the staff, who hustle from corner to corner, pulling from stacked boxes of sweets and preparing orders of chè — a sweet drink or soup that mixes together ingredients like tapioca, jelly, mung beans and coconut cream.

Another popular dish, called pandan cake, is a light green cake baked using the aromatic, tropical plant of the same name. Pandan’s dark green leaves are often used in Southeast Asian cooking to bring out a subtle sweetness. 

While most of the transactions in Thạch Chè Hiển Khánh and adjacent stores are made in Vietnamese, Xu believes that shouldn’t intimidate non-Vietnamese speakers, but newcomers should find a friend who knows the area well.

“I’m fortunate enough to hang out with people who have taken me (to Little Saigon) to eat on many occasions,” Xu said. “It’s definitely a place that you really get to know only if you have a kind of ‘tour guide’ with you.” 

Hoa Sen Vegetarian Restaurant

Located in Garden Grove, the Hoa Sen Vegetarian Restaurant is described online as “unpretentious.” It’s a homely space with warm, wood decor and plants scattered about its interior. Similarly accommodating is Hoa Sen’s menu, which showcases dozens of vegetarian dishes, from salad and hot pot to noodle and rice dishes.

When asked about the compatibility of Vietnamese food with a vegetarian diet, Yu had an easy answer: because a large portion of people in Vietnam practice Buddhism, and many of those practitioners abstain from eating meat to some degree, most dishes are prepared to accommodate a vegetarian diet anyhow. 

“(Vietnamese food) is also one of the cuisines that has the most vegetables in general,” Le said.  “A lot of our foods have layers — they’ll have a veggie layer, a protein layer — if you want them to be vegetarian, you just don’t add the meat.”

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that Hoa Sen is a popular dining spot for many in Little Saigon. Dishes like cơm tay cầm, which features a substitute chicken and mushrooms with rice in a claypot, effortlessly matches the filling, umami flavor of a meat-based dish like phở. 

The restaurant also offers a selection of salads, like gỏi mít (jackfruit salad), and refreshing drinks, like fresh passion fruit juice. Between the bright greens and oranges from the gỏi mít, the amber-yellow of the passion fruit tea and the earth tones of the cơm tay cầm, Hoa Sen uses the entire color palette in its dishes.

Of course, that assortment of hues is one of many in Little Saigon. To really appreciate the breadth of its cuisine, as Xu, Le and Yu all agreed, an open mind is essential.

“Try and push yourself a little out of your comfort zone; eat foods that make you uncomfortable,” Le said. “You’ll learn a lot about yourself and a lot about someone else.”

——

Despite having run into many new and unfamiliar dishes in my visit to the Vietnamese district, there was still a lingering hint of what I can only describe as “feeling at home” present with each meal. 

I don’t think that’s just because I liked the food. I think it’s because in eating those dishes, visiting those restaurants and seeing what Le described as “an entire ecosystem” running within Little Saigon, it becomes clear that, just as Little Saigon is a popular food destination, it’s also a place where people merely go about their day.

Little Saigon isn’t just a collection of restaurants for Chapman students to tour — it's businesses, hangout spots and homes. It’s hard not to quickly pick up on the notion that the food of Little Saigon is one passage from a much larger story.