Making Vietnamese-Inspired Crab Dip with Pho Bac's Yenvy Pham (Patreon)

Daughter of the Phở Bắc family, Yenvy stopped by to chat with Kenji about how her parents established their roots in Seattle’s Little Saigon neighborhood while carrying forward the bold, bright flavors of Vietnam.

If you’re not a local, you might not know that Seattle has really, really good pho—and that is largely thanks to the family behind Phở Bắc.

The first pho restaurant in the city was actually not a pho restaurant at all. Cat’s Submarine Sandwich Shop was established by Vietnamese refugees, Theresa Cat Vu and Augustine Nien Pham, who were urged and eventually convinced by their community in the Little Saigon neighborhood to start selling the soup staple. It was an instant hit and the restaurant was renamed shortly after to Phở Bắc. (IYKYK: This building is known to locals today as “The Boat.”)

Since 1982, Phở Bắc has expanded into a family of restaurants throughout the city. Now, the business is run by the second generation of Phams, sisters Yenvy and Quynh-vy, who have a book coming out this fall called Phởnomenal Nights which will feature bright, bold Vietnamese flavors and meals meant for sharing.

A few months ago, Yenvy stopped by Kenji’s kitchen to talk about the book, Vietnamese cuisine, and her family’s history—all while they made a mean crab dip. Now, I’ll let Kenji and Yenvy take it away!

— Erin, JKLA World HQ Community Manager

The following quotes are edited and condensed for flow from Kenji and Yenvy's full conversation. For more, watch the video above or on YouTube.

The Dishes Behind Phởnomenal Nights

Yenvy: The book is very Vietnamese-American because, you know, I was born and raised in Seattle. This crab dip is obviously a mix. It’s American with some Vietnamese flavors or influence. In the book, there’s also a lot of soups; things like a roasted chicken for two and skewers with shrimp paste; a whole chapter on sauces (there’s a lot of sauces—my editor was like, “You have twenty different sauces in here?!”); and a big pickle section at the start. My sister did all the cocktails, and I did all the food.

Kenji: How much of this kind of stuff do you consider when making a menu or recipes for a book: Do you think about what’s authentically Vietnamese versus not, or what’s uniquely yours versus how much you need to maintain some sort of tradition?

Yenvy: The first thing I think about when I make a dish is: “Do you crave it?” For me, my palate just loves Vietnamese food the most, so I’m motivated and inspired by our cuisine and don’t really think about it being authentic because, what does that mean anyways? But I bring the flavors of Vietnamese food—it tastes like Vietnam, you know. And even for Vietnamese people, it can be something they’re not used to or haven’t had before, but they still find it satisfying. Lots of it can be different variations of the same stuff. Like, even the dry noodle at the súp shop or the rice dish at The Boat. Everything familiar is there, but it’s not what people would usually blend or mix.

Kenji: Then when you’re making a new dish, what’s the last step you go through before you’re done?

Yenvy: I have to hate it. So, I’ll make the recipe and try it out and think it’s good. Then I have to revisit it later to see if it’s actually good. And I’ll have everyone taste it, so my sister will be there too.

If someone bought your book, what are the five pantry staples they need?

Yenvy: Fish sauce. Fish sauce. Everything has fish sauce. Fried shallots—I have a massive jar of fried shallots because they go into everything. They make everything better.

Kenji: Is it okay for people to buy those, or must you make them?

Yenvy: You must make them. You could use yellow onions, too, but it’s such an essential thing you’ll probably want shallots. If you buy them, you can go to Vietnamese delis—or Vietnamese grocery stores, which always have a deli—and get them fresh.

I also like sugar. Vietnamese food has a lot of sugar. I cook a lot with honey, and always have that or brown sugar around. It can be any type of sugar, really. I just feel healthier when I use honey.

[Another staple] is Maggi seasoning. So, fish sauce, fried shallots, sugar, Maggi, and then an acid, like vinegar. I either use a simple distilled vinegar or rice wine vinegar. Anything neutral in flavor. That’s a good five staples.

The Essentials in Vietnamese Cuisine

Kenji: What are the things that really make Vietnamese food to you—what are the distinctive elements? Is it a flavor thing? The way you eat it and the experience of eating it and how it’s served? The type of dishes you’re making?

Yenvy: I think it's definitely the flavor. Vietnamese cuisine is really about hitting all the notes. Like, you have the salty, the sweet, the sour, the bitter, the umami, and the herbs. We put herbs in everything (...and fried shallots). Fresh herbs, anything really fresh.

And it can be the way we eat it sometimes, like there are individual dishes you eat alone then the shareable dishes. Vietnamese cuisine is about satisfying all of your palates. We want a little soup, a little dry, a little saucy, and lots of different textures. Especially chewy stuff.

Kenji: That’s one of the things that I find sort of distinctive about a lot of Asian cuisines; chewy is not really something people tend to like in the U.S. Chewy, slippery, and gelatinous are things Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese people really like. But if you describe something like that on an American menu, [lots of] people would go crazy.

Leaving Vietnam

Kenji: Tell me about how your parents came here from Vietnam. It’s a pretty wild story, to my understanding.

Yenvy: Oh, it’s so crazy. They didn’t get out until their fourth attempt. So, [going back] my parents fled two wars. First in 1945 from northern Vietnam to southern Vietnam when they were both under twelve years old. That’s why the restaurant is called Phở Bắc, because they have a lot of northern pride. (Phở Bắc means northern-style pho.) But my mom’s palate is hella southern, while northern food tends to be milder.

My dad had a coffee shop back in the day in Vietnam and, when my parents lost the coffee shop in '75, he went to make tires after one of the deacons at the church taught him how. They started manufacturing tires in Saigon and then my dad had money during, you know, the fall and disarray of the country. He paid to try to get them out of Vietnam but was taken advantage of and they got robbed the first three attempts and eventually got caught and thrown in jail. My dad was in there for a year but my mom was let go once Quynh, my older sister, was born.

They finally made it out onto sea and they were out there for twelve days. They got robbed by pirates—everything was lost—then the motor died and they were just drifting. My aunt, who was on the boat, then saw a fishing boat. At the time, if you brought in refugees, you got thrown in jail so this Thai fisherman told them to swim to shore but my mom, who’s a very audacious woman, was like, “I’m not swimming with these children! I’m going to drown!” She was so adamant that he felt bad and pulled them to shore and got arrested. We don’t know what happened to them. It’s such a crazy story. From there, they went to the Philippines and got sponsored over to Seattle by my aunt.

Arriving in Seattle

Yenvy: Near the church right next to Little Saigon, my parents saw this little 600-square-foot building on the corner for lease. My parents were both natural-born entrepreneurs so they were like, let’s open a restaurant! It started off as a sub shop because my mom thought, you know, that’s what Americans wanted.

Kenji: What year was this? Were there Vietnamese restaurants already?

Yenvy: This was 1982. We had the grocery store, Viet-Wah, where everyone went shopping, we had a temple, and probably two restaurants—so all the Vietnamese people lived around here. Anyways, my mom ran the sub shop but, on the weekends, everyone told her how she needed to make pho. She threw a lot of dinner parties and everyone knew her for her pho. Next thing you know, [at the shop] everyone wanted pho and the subs became obsolete.

Kenji: When your parents first came to Seattle, did they immediately find a community here?

Yenvy: Oh, yes. So my aunt—she also has a pho shop called Crazy Pho Cajun in Federal Way—she had already come here by getting sponsored by a nice white family. And the church was already established and the community was hyper-social so they always had gatherings and they were super tight.

Uplifting Little Saigon

Kenji: What were your parents' feelings on building and maintaining the community? Cause I know you and your sister do a lot of work advocating for and building and maintaining the Vietnamese community in Little Saigon. Was that something that was important to them as well?

Yenvy: Yeah, they were super involved. They knew everyone. My parents, I think they sponsored over 150 families to move here. So growing up there were always people in my house I didn’t know. I was just like, “just another day!” They were always really big on community building and the community was thriving.

Right now [with the work I’m doing], I’m not trying to capture nostalgia. It’s more like, what’s next? With our neighborhood, we’re trying our best. And I can only control what I can, so it’s more about activation. My solution to everything is getting people to want to be in the neighborhood, including goods and services.

We have the nonprofit Friends of Little Saigon and now we have this $70 million dollar project called the Landmark Project going into the neighborhood—that’s going to be the anchor of everything. We break ground in September. It will be multifamily housing, a community center, and a gathering space for arts and culture. I’ll also be moving Hello Em over as an anchor tenant and Trinh (owner of Bainbridge’s Ba Sa and Capitol Hill’s Ramie restaurants) is gonna open her micro-pastry shop in there, too.

Kenji: And your parents, are they still with us?

Yenvy: Oh yeah! We all live within a mile of each other or less. They retired like 20 years ago—they’re too busy gardening now!