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An authentic Vietnamese restaurant in Brazil’s largest city

An authentic Vietnamese restaurant in Brazil’s largest city

Wednesday, July 02, 2014, 20:17 GMT+7

A Vietnamese expat has been running his restaurant, offering delicacies from his home country, in Sao Paulo, the municipal city in Brazil’s most populous state, for over half a year.

The restaurant, called “Miss Saigon,” is located at 1374 Alameda dos Jurupis, in Moema District, and features a traditional Vietnamese three-wheeled pedicab, called a “xich lo,” as decoration.

The “xich lo” depicts a young Vietnamese woman wearing an “ao dai,” a traditional Vietnamese gown. The lampshades in the restaurant are also very cleverly made, as they are authentic Vietnamese conical leaf hats, going by the name of “non la” in Vietnamese.

The restaurant, which opens from 5:00 pm to 10:30 pm every day except Monday, was inaugurated in November of 2013.

The owner is Vo Van Phuoc, a successful businessman in the Vietnamese community in Brazil.

Phuoc and his family have lived in the South American country over the past 30 years.

Promoting delicacies from home

Phuoc decided on the restaurant name “Miss Saigon” because it strongly reminds him and his fellow Vietnamese expats of their home country and is also easy for Brazilians to pronounce and remember.

Like some 95 percent of Vietnamese expats in Brazil, Phuoc and his wife first earned their living producing and trading bags and promotional gifts and selling stuff in flea markets.

“I’ve always cherished my dream of opening my own Vietnamese restaurant. I really love cooking, particularly Vietnamese dishes, and my wife and kids usually compliment me on my cooking skills. Now in my fifties, I’d like to try my hand cooking for other people,” Phuoc shared.

Preparation required him and his wife to travel around for an entire year. The couple also spent sleepless nights over their decision, as they were not sure if Brazilians would appreciate Vietnamese food.

However, confident that they knew Brazilians’ tastes quite well, Phuoc decided to give it a go.

Initially, as he and his wife served as the restaurant’s chefs, his menu was limited to simple Vietnamese dishes, including “pho” (noodles served with beef, chicken and broth), “banh xeo” (rice pancakes), “bun bo Hue” (spicy beef noodles from the central Vietnamese city of Hue) and “bun thit nuong” (rice noodles with grilled pork).

Most of the ingredients are available at an Asian market in Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil. His family also grows several kinds of herbs themselves.

As Brazilians prefer salty food, the restaurant’s Vietnamese specialties are typically saltier than those in Vietnam, Phuoc shared, regarding this as one of his secrets.

Phuoc’s Miss Saigon Restaurant has become increasingly well known in Brazil’s media, as ‘sao-paulo.restorando.com.br’, a popular Brazilian website on restaurants commented that the eatery’s unique flavor of “pho,” and the rich nutrition, freshness and lack of greasiness of its Vietnamese specialties are integral to its success.

Phuoc cheerfully shared that the amount of “pho” his restaurant is now selling has jumped from two bowls a day at the beginning to up to 40 bowls a day now.

However, he admitted that he has yet to make a profit due to exorbitant expenses, including US$10,000 just to pay a month’s rent and salaries to his eight staff members.

In May 2014, Phuoc hired two young chefs from Vietnam, with 10 years of Saigon restaurant experience each, to work for him.

Miss Saigon immediately launched a new menu, adding over 20 new Vietnamese delicacies such as grilled fish, seafood soup and seafood fried rice.

During the 2014 Tet (the traditional Vietnamese Lunar New Year), the Vietnamese Embassy in Brazil chose Miss Saigon to hold a reunion gathering of 120 Vietnamese expats in Sao Paulo.

“Miss Saigon is a great place for Vietnamese expats to both enjoy Vietnamese dishes and exchange and tighten their bonds,” the Vietnamese Ambassador to Brazil, Nguyen Van Kien, commented.

Phuoc shared that following Miss Saigon's success, he will consider launching the second restaurant in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city.

His youngest son, 20-year-old Vo Thien Tam, is majoring in hospitality at Anhembi Morumbi University in Sao Paulo.

Tam said that he also loves cooking and will help his father run the new restaurant after graduation.

Beatriz Marques, editor-in-chief of a cuisine magazine in Sao Paulo, remarked that she found her meals at Miss Saigon to be a really intriguing experience.

“Though I’ve never been to Vietnam before, I’ve fallen in love with the extremely fresh, delectable Vietnamese dishes at Miss Saigon. I think all these Vietnamese delicacies will be popular in Brazil. As Brazilians also have noodles served with soup, they will find “pho” both familiar and inviting,” she added.

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