Nhung and Jerald opened a restaurant selling vermicelli with tofu and shrimp paste in New York, giving American food critics the feeling of "having lunch in Hanoi".
Young American chef Jerald Head met Nhung Dao, an office worker, in Ho Chi Minh City in the fall of 2016, when he came to Vietnam to learn about Vietnamese cuisine. A year later, when Jerald was already the head chef of a Vietnamese restaurant in New York, he returned to Vietnam and married Nhung.
When Nhung moved to the US with her husband in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, forcing restaurants in New York to close and leaving Jerald unemployed. An opportunity arose for the couple in September 2020, when the New York authorities allowed restaurants to offer takeout and dine on the sidewalk.
Nhung and Jerald decided to open "MAM," a temporary pop-up stall on a quiet street across from the park in Manhattan's Chinatown, to sell bun dau mam tom (rice noodles with fermented shrimp paste), a dish associated with their dates in Vietnam and one of the hardest-to-find Vietnamese dishes in America.
Bun dau mam tom (rice noodles with fermented shrimp paste) at MAM NYC restaurant in New York, USA. Photo: Instagram/mam.nyc
Because it was an unusual dish in New York, the couple's small stall started to get busy after a quiet first week.
"Customers spread the word and shared their experiences on review sites, helping our bowl of vermicelli spread very quickly within the Vietnamese community in New York," Nhung told VnExpress . "At that time, we were targeting Vietnamese-American customers, so we didn't adjust the recipe to suit Western tastes, but tried to create a flavor as close to the original as possible."
The couple started making tofu themselves because "tofu in America is dry and hard, with an industrial taste, not soft and creamy like Vietnamese tofu," so they brought a steam tofu maker from Vietnam. Combining this with family recipes passed down from relatives in Gia Lai , they strive to make fresh, delicious, "authentic Vietnamese" tofu every day.
Nhung also made her own rice flake patties from the few ingredients she brought along, while Jerald rolled up his sleeves to make pork sausage using a recipe he learned from his father-in-law. The couple bought herbs on Grand Street, imported from a state with a climate similar to Vietnam.
But the shrimp paste, the soul of this dish, still has to be bought from a supermarket in New York. "The shrimp paste at American supermarkets is of decent quality, marketable, but not delicious enough to match the quality we're aiming for," Nhung said.
They decided to choose shrimp paste from Vietnam. "Choosing good shrimp paste in Vietnam isn't easy. After being introduced to a supplier in Thanh Hoa and trying it out, we were so pleased we felt like we'd struck gold," she recounted.
When the pandemic subsided in May 2022, they opened the MẮM NYC restaurant at the same location in Chinatown. "This is when we had the best quality shrimp paste," Jerald said.
Nhung and Jerald stand in front of the MẮM NYC restaurant in Chinatown, New York, USA. Photo: Grubstreet
MẮM NYC quickly gained popularity in New York's culinary scene. The NY Times recently ranked MẮM at number 26 on its list of the city's top 100 best restaurants.
The restaurant's vermicelli with fried tofu is served on a bamboo tray lined with banana leaves. Each special serving costs $32 and includes vermicelli, fried tofu, rice patties, grilled offal, boiled sausage, pork, and shrimp paste, along with various herbs. The shrimp paste is mixed with sugar, lime juice, and Thai chili.
NY Times critic Pete Wells called MẮM NYC "the most appealing Vietnamese restaurant in New York." He praised the shrimp paste, a flavorful dipping sauce with a few slices of chili and fresh lime, described the fried tofu as having a crispy outer shell and a cheese-like interior, and particularly loved the pork sausage.
The restaurant also obtained permission from the park management across the street to set up a row of tables on the sidewalk in the green area. "Diners sit on the sidewalk, surrounded by people strolling and cars passing by. It feels like having lunch in Hanoi," Wells wrote, adding that "shrimp paste promises to be a 'novel adventure,' because not everyone can eat it."
The article prompted many Americans to visit the restaurant to "try it out." For first-time customers, Nhung always introduced the shrimp paste as "strong-smelling and difficult to eat, but the soul of the bun dau dish."
"Even some Vietnamese people can't eat shrimp paste, but I always encourage customers to try it. If they find it too much, the restaurant always has fish sauce as a substitute," Nhung said. "Some Western customers try it and 'fall in love' with shrimp paste, sometimes ordering two bowls at a meal."
Diners enjoy vermicelli with fermented shrimp paste at MẮM NYC. Video: Instagram/mam.nyc
During Tet 2023, the couple returned to Vietnam and brought 100 liters of shrimp paste to the US, but it's almost all gone now, even though their shop is only open three days a week, from Friday to Sunday. The couple spends Mondays taking care of their child and Tuesdays receiving orders and preparing ingredients.
"Preparing the ingredients for bun dau (vermicelli with tofu) is very complicated and time-consuming. The sausage and rice patties alone require hours of preparation," Jerald explained. Each day the restaurant sells an average of 100 servings of bun dau, using up 30 kg of fresh tofu.
"Because the restaurant isn't large and the kitchen is small, sometimes customers have to leave because we run out of food," Nhung said. "We're always overloaded; customers often have to order in advance and wait in line outside for at least 30 minutes."
Nhung and Jerald believe that Vietnamese cuisine has always held an important place in the world, but its reach is not yet widespread, making it difficult to preserve its authentic flavors when exported abroad, while Japanese, Thai, and Korean cuisine are thriving. The couple intends to expand their restaurant and build a more stable team to maintain service quality and contribute to spreading Vietnamese cuisine even more strongly in the US.
"Many Americans think Vietnamese food is only cheap, but they don't realize that authentic Vietnamese cuisine requires a lot of effort and dedication to achieve the right flavor," Nhung said. "We always hope that diners in America will become familiar with Vietnamese food and have a proper understanding of the Vietnamese culinary experience."
Duc Trung
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