Sam Tran walks in the golden forest and silver sea

In the year-end conversation, Sam Tran talked about "cultural travel" where shrimp, fish, rice grains, mantis shrimp or a sprig of local herbs can travel across fields and seas to international diners.

To the right of the main entrance of Gia - the one-Michelin-starred restaurant where chef Sam Tran is tirelessly developing the menu - there is a box mounted on the wall, with a few small words: Gold forest, silver sea.

The winter sun shines down with each gust of wind, making the letters move in a "provocative" way. Many people think that Vietnam no longer has golden forests and silver seas! But Sam Tran (real name is Nhung, 34 years old) wants to prove the opposite.

After graduating from university with a degree in information technology, Sam went to Australia to study. Being a girl who loves eating out, being away from home, she missed the northern dishes the most. The second thing she missed was her father's fried rice.

In the morning, he often wakes up early, takes the leftover rice and food from the night before and stirs it on the stove. It's just that, but it's delicious, evoking the familiar feeling of home-cooked meals and family.

Unfortunately, if there is Vietnamese food in Australia, it is all Southern. So Sam cooked vermicelli soup, pho, salads… Hanoi style to eat, then brought it to his part-time job to share with everyone.

It was the encouragement of her boss and colleagues that "sparked" in her heart a small, turning point dream: opening a Vietnamese restaurant in Australia.

But during his trip home to visit and renew his visa, Sam was stuck in Vietnam due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She then went to work at a restaurant in Hanoi but felt "bored and wanted to return to Australia" when a friend invited her to open a restaurant. It was Long Tran, who later co-founded Gia.

When both pursued fine dining , many people said that Vietnamese cuisine was not suitable for fine dining. "It is true that we have a very prominent street food scene, but that does not accurately and fully describe Vietnamese cuisine," Sam said that was the reason she wanted to do this segment to clarify the obvious thing that we have unintentionally overlooked.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen chose Gia as the place to receive guests on July 20, 2023 - Photo: US Embassy Fanpage

So does Vietnam still have golden forests and silver seas? Sam talks about the seasonal menu of the same name that he developed based on Vietnam's heritage, using entirely local agricultural ingredients, spread across provinces and cities.

There, each dish resonates not only the chef’s love of food and culture, but also the story of the fruits and products conceived in the land, the story of skilled fishermen and farmers attached to the sea and the fields. Sam believes that the forest is still gold and the sea is still silver because people still have love and heart.

She mentioned a species of mantis shrimp that lives in the wild, buried deep in the sand, in crevices of rocks, or hiding in coral reefs in Con Dao that fishermen have toiled to conquer.

And there are so many secrets, other species. If you stay in one place, how will you know? Instead of imposing prejudice, Sam wants to go and experience all the wonderful Vietnam. Because it is not for nothing that a country has so many delicious dishes.

There was a period of time after returning home, when Sam was so bored, he backpacked and wandered randomly through many provinces and cities. There was no plan. Just went.

Sam went to Tien Giang, where there was a tiny, isolated island, and stayed at the home of Ba, a friendly local tour guide. There was no phone signal or internet. In the morning, the rooster's crowing was the alarm.

Every day she cycled around the islands, even to the mainland, and at mealtimes she came home to eat the meals her mother cooked. The dishes she cooked were a little bit of everything. They were delicious.

After dinner, he treated her to traditional music. The people living on that island were very happy. She attended a village wedding, ate a feast and sang karaoke together, having a great time. Before saying goodbye, Ba picked some fruit from the garden for her to take home as a gift.

Or on a trip to Hue, Sam met a Vietnamese woman who married a Thai man. That trip was the first time she had returned to her hometown since her marriage. Sam spoke to her in Vietnamese, and to her daughter in English. The two of them spoke to each other in Thai.

When eating Hue food, she could not stop crying. The reason was simple: she missed Vietnamese food so much. After so many years, the flavor and essence were still intact in her memory. Now she had come back here to eat to her heart's content.

Her story left a big "aftershock" in the girl's heart. It turns out that food can have such a big impact on people's hearts.

Sam thought back to her time in Australia. She also remembered the sound of dishes and chopsticks. "Please eat", "Let's eat"! It seemed that only Vietnamese people invited each other to eat like that!

Just add a pair of chopsticks, a bowl, sit down together, and the bad turns into good, the distant becomes close. The warm, passionate, and open nature of Vietnamese culture shines through in many details and is right in the culinary culture, in every home, and on every meal tray.

Sam says each dish contains life stories. Similarly, traditional cuisine reflects the living habits of an entire community over many years.

Drifting to a faraway, multinational, multicultural country like Australia, Sam finds the image of a Vietnamese meal warm and different. She loves the thousand years of rice and Vietnamese culture even more. From the dishes, she wants to have a lifetime trip to explore the culinary and cultural heritage of Vietnam. Like the way she searches for irreplaceable family and national cultural memories.

Gia was born. "Gia" means "home", inspired by the family meal with dishes passed down through generations. Home is both intimate, but also full of "expansion", "fluttering" with sour, spicy, salty, sweet flavors.

And as An Ni Bao Boi once wrote, it is a place where we can "get drunk, cry, let go of all shame and secrets". Happiness, sadness, joy and suffering are shared together.

"When choosing Gia as the restaurant's name, I wanted guests from far away or from somewhere to feel like they were entering a big Vietnamese family," Sam said. That's probably why at Gia, the dining tables are designed in a circle so that everyone can sit together and eat.

Later, even though the restaurant was busy, it still closed occasionally so the team could go out and explore Vietnam. Sam said that not long ago, Gia closed for two weeks to go to the West.

The group rented a car, ate and stayed from place to place. Went to floating markets, drifted on the Tien and Hau rivers. Or recently, the whole restaurant went to Bat Trang to eat a feast cooked by a local culinary artist.

Den Vau once rapped like this: "Because our country is still strange, why do we need foreign countries...". Sam said that those "going out and about" trips contributed to creating the full aspects of Vietnam's culinary map.

Once you go, you will understand why Southern people like sweet food; why Hanoi dishes are elegant and refined; why Chinese people like spicy and salty food. You will understand why Tra Que herbs from Quang Nam have such a rich and delicious flavor.

Sam gradually explains the indigenous characteristics in a common homeland full of fragrant flowers, sweet fruits and rich specialties. She also realizes that, for her, a global citizen, having set foot in another civilization, she is still inspired by her own culture to take a spiritual and culinary journey back to her roots.

Shrimp, fish and rice grains from my homeland are also very delicious!

On Tripadvisor - the world's largest travel platform, Gia receives many reviews from diners, both Vietnamese and foreigners.

The food is described as “simple, refined yet powerful”. It evokes memories of traditional Vietnamese cuisine but is so much more. One reviewer described the experience as “like a great show”.

As a self-taught chef, Gia's soul has created a culinary identity deeply rooted in flavor and culture, focusing on indigenous ingredients and spices combined with modern culinary techniques to develop into high-end dishes.

Not only does it interpret values, symbols and memories of places through taste, that culinary heritage is also strongly and sharply reinforced by the connection between food, health and happiness.

That is probably why Michelin Guide said Sam Tran is "not an ordinary culinary icon" and awarded Gia a Michelin star, the only restaurant in Vietnam to be awarded a star by a female chef. At the same time, it also awarded her the Michelin Young Chef award - the award for talented young chef.

The Michelin Guide said that Sam also "became an ambassador for Vietnamese cuisine". "Perhaps this is the most surprising and touching thing, although she never dreamed of such a role, but no one is more suitable for it," the guide said.

As for Sam Tran, in fine dining, cooking techniques are just a tool for us to tell our story in the most accurate way, not to demonstrate our ability.

In the journey of rediscovering oneself and interpreting the history of the nation's soul through the stomach, shrimp, fish, rice grains, herbs, and basil from the homeland can completely cross fields, seas, and villages to go further.

Sam wants to tell about every piece of her life, the lands she has visited, the flavors passed down from generation to generation that she has tasted. These are stories worth discovering, preserving and sharing.

"It's not just about delicious meals, but also about inspiring through the beauty and profound values ​​of traditional Vietnamese cuisine," she said.

Gia only welcomes a few dozen customers a day, mostly open at night. Sometimes the number of customers in the restaurant is not even as large as the number of employees.

Again, all the reservations were made two months in advance. When I sat down to talk to Sam, the year-end table reservations were fully booked. The prices were not cheap. Gia is a story, a testament to the fact that Vietnamese cuisine can be "fine dining".

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/sam-tran-di-trong-rung-vang-bien-bac-20250126095553513.htm