Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City

These are so spicy.

Jeez!

Those are hot, man.

Isn't water "nuoc"?

Nuoc?

Nuoc?

Nuoc.

You want some nuoc?

Yes, please.

[Laughter] And you, too?

Nuoc.

Ed Kenney, voice-over: Chefs are always looking for inspiration for their next dish, but sometimes that exciting new thing is hidden deep in old traditions.

Every dish has a story.

Food brings people together and has the power to conjure up cherished memories.

Jack Johnson: ♪ Oh, you're such a pretty thing ♪ ♪ I'll take you, and I'll make you all mine ♪ Kenney: I was born and raised in the Hawaiian Islands, one of the most diverse communities in the world.

Johnson: ♪ We will watch you from the clouds ♪ ♪ We can't stop it, anyhow ♪ ♪ It's not ours ♪ Kenney: In this show, we'll meet a guest from Hawai'i, learn about their favorite dish, trace it back to its origins, and have some fun along the way.

Johnson: ♪ Oh, you're such a pretty thing ♪ ♪ I'll take you, and I'll make you all mine ♪ Kenney, voice-over: By following the stars, Polynesian wayfinders arrived on these tiny islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean centuries ago.

Since then, others have made it to these shores-- explorers in search of discovery, businessmen in search of financial gain, tourists in search of adventure... and refugees in search of a new home.

Honolulu became the safe harbor, welcoming people as they traveled the world.

As the population of foreigners increased, Honolulu's ethnic groups established their own communities.

Chinatown was one of these places.

We're coming down to Chinatown in Honolulu, where there's been this recent wave of new chef-driven restaurants.

Andrew Le is one of the new wave of Hawai'i chefs.

What's up?

What's up?

Kenney: It's so peaceful in here...

I know, right?

on a Sunday.

It's nice when it's so quiet.

Do you pretty much live here?

Pretty much.

Yeah.

I think I've seen pictures on Instagram with you, like, sleeping.

Clothes on, I hope.

Yeah.

[Laughter] What I love about this restaurant is that it is truly authentic.

I feel like it's a reflection of you and your family.

I mean, obviously, the food is good, but I think there's that intangible something-- the connections, the meaning, the soul.

So it started, like, about 5, 6, years ago.

2011, we did the pop-ups, farmers market, and we worked together as a family.

I think I went to the first pop-up ever.

That was with our friend Martha, Yeah.

and it was a whole-hog pop-up.

That was wild, man.

Oh, God, we were walking out of that going, "Open a restaurant already."

I had no idea what was going on.

Yeah.

Let me ask you, what is your favorite food memory growing up?

My favorite dish growing up is definitely my mom's soups, specifically pho.

Yeah.

Kenney, voice-over: Vietnamese food is one of my favorite cuisines.

The juxtaposition between this crystal-clear, deep beefy broth and the bright herbs-- it is so fresh and light; really vegetable/seafood focused, lots of bright herbs.

Oftentimes, it's the same broth, and then you can choose what condiments you want, if you want braised brisket, you want tripe, but it's basically the same dish.

It wasn't until the Les opened The Pig & The Lady that I got to taste all these different types of Vietnamese soups.

I mean, in the last few decades, there's been quite a few Vietnamese pho restaurants pop up.

Yeah.

That's true.

Yours year after year is always full Yeah.

with a line out the door, Yeah.

and it probably goes back to these broths.

Yeah.

Plus, like, my mom has a very special palate.

She's, like, a super taster.

Yeah.

She comes from, like, a nonformal training.

She's the youngest of, like, 13 kids.

She didn't have any cooking experience.

All of a sudden, you're kind of displaced out of Vietnam in a foreign country.

You know, the only thing to kind of comfort the situation was to, like, kind of make food that you kind of grew up eating, so she kind of, like, let her palate kind of guide her.

These weren't, like, family hand-me-down recipes.

When she got here, she was yearning so much for that food... Yeah, yeah.

that she kind of taught herself.

Mm-hmm.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

I guess this means that we're probably gonna have to go to Vietnam to-- Yes.

to compare your-- your mama's version to the-- I mean, that would be amazing.

You know, it's been I don't know how many years since she's been to Vietnam.

What if we get there, and it's nothing like what she makes here?

That's the question, isn't it?

Yeah.

My point of reference is, like, her, so I'm excited to see how it's done in different regions in Vietnam.

Kenney, voice-over: Part one of the Mama Le tour takes us to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City, where we're gonna get to taste some of the influences that have shaped Mama Le's distinctive Vietnamese broths.

1995, my wife and I spent the year backpacking the globe, and we found ourselves in Saigon.

It had just opened up in 1994.

President Clinton had raised a trade embargo, and--I got to tell you-- a lot has changed in 21 years.

Kenney, voice-over: Our guide on this entire Vietnam trip is the lovely Ha.

She is originally from North Vietnam and has an in-depth knowledge of Vietnam's history and food scene.

Vietnam is relatively small in geographical area, but they have 54 ethnic groups living here speaking different languages, and then it's been occupied over the last hundred years by so many different world powers.

All of us know that the French were here.

The Americans were here during the war.

There's Japanese influence.

Chinese have been here, and they're still here, so you see this melding of all these cultures, and it's reflected in the food.

Our host on this Mama Le food tour was Andrew's first cousin Quynh.

It turns out that Quynh's father was Mama Le's brother.

She just loved sharing Saigon food with us.

Le, voice-over: Pho Dau is a pretty famous restaurant here in Ho Chi Minh.

So how you been?

I haven't seen you in, like, 5 years, 5 years.

5 years.

This is a northern-style pho.

Ah.

Yeah, Hanoi-style.

Back home, pho is, like, well-loved, you know, by everyone, so it's-- Oh, yeah.

People love it.

I'm very happy to learn that, too, from Mom.

It's a very special recipe.

It's like a treasure.

Actually, I never had pho like this before.

In America, it's mostly, I think, more southern style.

Wow.

[Speaking Vietnamese] Mm.

The spice is very tame in this one, yeah?

Not too much cinnamon or star anise.

It's more... Um... [Speaks Vietnamese] perfectly balanced, though.

It's different.

Different?

Yeah.

Mom's style pho is kind of like a combination of both northern and southern style.

It's savory.

The flavor kind of lasts a long time like this.

Her pho is the same thing, but there's a good amount of spice in there, too.

Mm-hmm.

People like different regional soups, yeah?

They eat the bun bo hue.

People love it.

Mm-hmm.

Crazy!

Oh, yeah?

They love it, yeah, and they never had bun mang vit... Mm-hmm.

you know, or mi quang.

Mi quang.

They never had any of that... you know, so it's, like--it's exciting for me because I grew up eating that, but, you know, you kind of take things for granted--yeah?-- when you kind of grow up with it.

Le, voice-over: Just the opportunity to be able to sit down and have a bowl of pho with her was, you know, the perfect kind of way to catch up.

Kenney, voice-over: Day one, we commenced the Mama Le food tour, set out to go and eat at Mama Le's favorite restaurants for some of those quintessential dishes that she remembered growing up.

Le, voice-over: Went to the market, Ba Chieu Market.

It's pretty intense.

Ha ha ha!

You know, there's a lot of action going on, you know?

You're looking around.

There's food everywhere.

It's sensory overload, and, you know, being able to kind of experience that-- looking at people who do this day in, day out, you know, just to see kind of, like, different scenes of life in Ho Chi Minh-- it's pretty awesome.

Kenney, voice-over: It's not the huge market.

It's a smaller market that's really locals.

We didn't see any tourists while we were there.

Kenney: So you show us.

Pham: I show you how to-- You show me.

Yeah.

Kenney, voice-over: The main reason we came to this market is to try banh xeo, which is Vietnamese pancake or crepe made with rice flour and egg, and it's stuffed with shrimp and bean sprouts.

Kenney: God.

Le: See, this is the thing about Vietnamese cuisine.

They're so painstaking, like, the prep.

Look at this, small shrimp.

Everything seems to always be served with this mixture of fresh herbs.

It's my favorite thing about Vietnamese food.

Le: What's that called again?

Diep ca.

Diep ca.

Mm-hmm.

It's, like, so lemony and-- Oh, that flavor, I know what it is.

Oh, yeah.

I know that.

Green mango.

Diep ca.

It tastes like green mango.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

And then there's the mints and the basils and the cilantros.

You mix this all together in a dip or drizzle nuoc cham, which is the sweet-sour fish sauce chili condiment.

So good.

Ha ha ha!

What does this mean?

Ha ha ha!

So good!

Kenney, voice-over: Banh xeo epitomizes southern Vietnamese cuisine.

It hits all the notes.

It's vibrant, fresh, robust, crispy, pungent, herbal.

In one word, it's alive.

Le: I grew up eating this and have a lot of good memories, but it's different when you eat it in a market like this.

Yeah.

It changes the experience completely, right?

Totally.

Oh, yeah.

Oh.

With mopeds going by.

I know.

Yeah.

Hi!

[Laughter] Le, voice-over: It's a completely different experience.

You know, I feel like I'm getting something that's very authentic.

[Vehicle horns honking] Kenney, voice-over: 1975, the fall of Saigon.

American public opinion forces President Ford to declare an end to the Vietnam War.

Le, voice-over: Their country was chaos, you know?

A lot of Vietnamese were trying to escape.

Some of my family members, they were able to escape, but there was no communication between them at all.

My dad, he was a translator for the Special Forces.

He had to go to the embassy every day.

He said he went there, like, at 4 a.m. all the way until, you know, midnight every day just to try to find some help.

He didn't know what to do.

That's the only thing he could do.

He saw a black car and noticed that it was American... and so he just, like, jumped right in front of it, saying that he was part of the Special Forces.

Whoever was in the car cracked open the window, and he said that, "You have 3 hours to do "whatever you need to do, but you need to come back "to this gate, go to this guard, give him this paper, and you can get on the plane."

Kenney, voice-over: There are so many different kinds of pho, so the noodle soups in Saigon-- I could spend a month here and not even have them all.

So one of Mama Le's favorite places was not your typical Vietnamese food.

It was actually Chinese food that has evolved in Vietnam, which, I think, is probably a good reflection of Vietnam in itself.

We also had a chance to sit with Quynh's daughter Ngoc...

The last time that you were here with Alice, you and her, like, sweating a lot.

Yeah.

Quynh was laughing at me today.

You know, in the south, they only have two seasons-- the hot and the hotter one.

Hot and hotter.

Ha ha ha!

Le: This is one of my mom's favorite places to go.

This is called mi vit tiem... Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

which is a duck noodle soup, and then, like, the duck legs are marinated with, like, 5 spice... Yeah.

I can smell it.

shoyu, sugar.

Deep-fried first and then braised for a long time.

Yum.

Udons?

Mien?

Is this called mien?

Mi.

Mi.

Mi.

Mi, yeah.

It smells so good.

So this is more like a Chinese influence, yeah?

Is there a lot of Chinese influence?

Yes.

Yeah?

This place, District 5, is the place that most of the Chinese people living here now.

Actually, they're originally from the north.

Oh, wow.

Oh, the broth is so good.

It's so good, isn't it?

Yeah.

This tastes exactly like how Mom makes it.

Really?

Yeah.

Do you make this?

Yeah.

We make this at the market.

Yeah.

Yeah, every so often.

I've had it where you made.

Yeah.

Kenney: The duck was just fall-off-the-bone tender.

It was like duck confit in the finest French bistros.

It was different from Chinese food that I know of and at the same time was different from the Vietnamese food that we've been eating.

Vietnamese is really bright and herby and light.

Chinese food oftentimes is kind of heavy.

This was, like, right in between.

So this originally came from the north.

What's the difference between pho in the south and in the north?

You had northern pho.

Yeah.

We had northern pho today.

It is a lot more different.

The flavor is different?

Yeah.

It's more light, lighter than the flavor here...

In the north.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

and they put lots of herbs in the bowl...

In the southern style.

Yeah.

and they don't have the hoisin sauce.

You know, they only use the chili sauce.

Typically, I think, you can pinpoint where, like, the soup comes from just based on the sweetness level-- yeah?--and the spice level, too.

In the south, the flavor is more sweetened.

More sweet.

Yeah, yeah.

And in the central, it's really spicy.

Yeah.

Kenney, voice-over: If there's one word that explains the feeling I get in Saigon, it would have to be "cadence."

There's just this rhythm, this flow.

Nothing's too fast.

Nothing comes to a complete stop.

When you're on the road, there's motorbikes and scooters and vans and bicycles and cyclos everywhere, but everything's kind of just moving and going in and out, and people may stop and slow down and sit down at a cafe, have a coffee, and get back up and go do it again.

Our guide Ha organized lunch at a very unassuming yet well-renowned soup spot.

We went to Pho Cao Van, which is a 60-year-old pho shop that is run by Mr. Tran.

Hashi?

And spoon.

Take it.

Here we go.

Kenney, voice-over: He is a prophet that moved here from Hanoi in the forties.

It was a time when the French were in control, and they would tax you for just existing, and he had friends down south that said, "Come down here," and he started making pho because he saw that as his way to make a better life.

How old are you?

93 years old.

93?

93 years old.

Like, 92 is Western age, but in Asian age it's 93 because you count from when you're still in the mother, your mother's womb.

Yeah, yeah.

Year one.

Yeah.

And he still works every day.

Every day.

Every day.

All day every day.

God.

You have the secret for the pho, and you make it taste good.

He's the secret of the flavor.

Yeah.

Kenney: So this is southern style.

Southern style because he's add extra condiments to fit to the southern Viet--yeah.

This is sawtooth.

Yeah.

Chinese coriander, we call.

Neo gai?

Ngo gai.

Ngo gai.

Ngo gai.

"Gai" it means, like, spike.

Yeah.

I love this.

You see?

Look.

This is super good.

It's just cooked beef and raw beef?

Yes, and one more thing that I find is very original in this shop is, the old men still use wood fire oven to cook the stuff.

The charcoal.

No, not charcoal.

Wood.

Kenney, voice-over: Over the years, things have changed.

People started cooking over charcoal or even electric.

He's tried, and his customers have complained and said it's not the same.

Wood is very expensive and hard to find, but he insists on boiling his broths for 24 hours over wood.

Le: I feel like this is, like, very recognizable for me, you know, eating this type of pho because mainly the type of sweetness that we have in the U.S. Mm-hmm.

is mostly like southern style pho, yeah?

Mm-hmm, and with all the vegetables, like bean sprouts, and herbs--yeah.

It feels like we're thousands of miles away eating pho in Vietnam, but I feel very natural.

It's like, oh, there's hoisin, sriracha, this type of herbs.

These are so spicy.

Ha ha!

Jeez.

Those are hot, man.

Isn't water "nuoc"?

"Nuoc"?

Nuoc.

Nuoc.

You want some nuoc?

Yes, please.

[Laughter] One for you, too?

Oh-- Nuoc.

One for you, too?

Kenney, voice-over: What I love about this broth is it's so deceivingly simple-looking.

First, you smell it, and you smell all those spices that are infused into it-- that really deep beefiness-- and then you add the fresh herbs, so it's just layers and layers and layers of flavor.

After we ate, I got a little brave, and I asked him if he wouldn't mind showing us his back kitchen, where he makes the broth.

I thought it was a little risky because cooks or chefs or people that have had recipes in their family for a long time hold that recipe really tight like, "This is my secret."

He didn't even think for a minute and said, "Sure."

Headed back into the kitchen in the back of the restaurant, and there's a big vat of broth just barely bubbling, just simmering away, and he says, it just keeps going all the time.

What really, really blew my mind is, I turned around, and up on this storage awning, there was an old, wooden cart.

He explained to us, that was his cart that he used to push around Saigon in the fifties.

If I were him, it would be, like, front and center because it says so much about the history in his family and what he's done.

Le, voice-over: The way food memories are developed, you know, it's a combination of everything, right?

It takes all your senses, just like cooking.

It's how it tastes, how it smells, how it looks.

You know, it's the moments.

It's the setting.

It's the people you share it with, and, you know, those are the important factors of creating a very significant food memory... and so right now, experiencing the food in Vietnam is definitely something that's-- like, it can't be replicated.

Kenney: It's my understanding that your family was the first Vietnamese refugee family to land in Hawai'i.

Yeah, so, like, my parents were escaping the war.

Right.

My mom was 9 months pregnant with Anderson, my oldest brother, and then they were on their way to a refugee camp in Arkansas, so that's where, like, a lot of the refugees would go, to, like, the Midwest and to the South.

On the way there, they were supposed to refuel in Hawai'i, but then my mom, her water broke, so she went into labor, and they landed.

She went to Tripler Hospital, and then the plane left, you know, with the rest of the refugees, gave birth to my brother there.

The doctor's name was Anderson, so they named him after the doctor.

No way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Le: My dad only had, like, 5 U.S. dollars in his pocket, so the entire staff just pitched in money and helped set them up with a house and with a job, and, you know, from there, you know, they just started their Hawai'i life.

It took a while for myself to want to come to Vietnam.

I didn't really want to.

You know, my parents didn't really talk about Vietnam, so I guess growing up, I never really connected to that.

It's hard to imagine just what it was like for them, you know?

It's just like you're totally ripped out of everything that you know, and you're displaced into another country where you don't really speak the language, you know?

[Children talking] But as I grew older and started to come into consciousness, I had questions.

Come to Vietnam was actually the start of that journey.

Kenney, voice-over: How do you piece together your family's history?

Do you visit where they lived?

Do you meet cherished family members?

Do you taste the food they enjoyed?

Sometimes you discover parts of the story that were missing.

You pick up the pieces one by one, and each time, you get a better understanding of who you are.

It's a treasure hunt in search of those morsels that link you more to your past.

It gives you the wealth of knowledge to move into the future with a deeper appreciation for family, your family.

Kenney, voice-over: Next on "Family Ingredients"...

I have always believed that food and family bring happiness...

Le: OK. Let's go.

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha!

Argh!

Oh!

Kenney, voice-over: but a trip to Hanoi proved that these two things we just can't live without.