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Q & A: Bobby Chinn, Vietnam-Based Restaurateur and Cookbook Author

Posted by Tam Ngo, October 2, 2008 at 1:15 PM

Serious Eats caught up with Hanoi restaurateur, Bobby Chinn, to talk about his new cookbook, Wild, Wild East: Recipes & Stories from Vietnam. Though we originally scheduled to meet up over a bowl of pho, we instead met up at the Guggenheim. Here’s why:

So here we are at the Guggenheim. What happened to your appetite for pho? I had the most disappointing meal in Chinatown yesterday. At Thai Son, recommended by three different friends in Hanoi who know their food! All in all, Vietnamese food in Manhattan has been pretty average at best.

So sad, so true. Why do you think that is? I don't know. Access to ingredients? Equipment? Indifference? The fact that management is more often ethnic Chinese? Could be anything.

Yeah, New Yorkers are forced to get their Viet fix from the outer boroughs. What else have you eaten since you’ve been here? Spice Market, David Burke & Donatella, Jean Georges, Perry Street, Per Se, Daniel, DB Bistro Moderne, Bar Bao, Bar Masa, ummm, and after that I can’t really recall, maybe a couple of slices of pizza, Dean and Deluca sushi. I’m detoxing.

Who are the typical customers of your restaurant? Anthony Bourdain! We also get a lot of visiting dignitaries, out-of-towners, Viet government officials, and local celebrities. But no average locals, no.

Why is that? Our restaurant is too high-profile; being there attracts the notice of the government and of one's jealous neighbors. People start speculating as to the source of your wealth. People start "inquiring" ...

Would you ever consider opening a restaurant in NY? Nah, despite everything, the quality of life I enjoy in Vietnam is very high. Why would I trade it in for the inherent loneliness of life in NY?

Photograph from Tam

Given your Chinese and Egyptian heritage and that you were not born or raised Vietnamese, what prompted you to write a Vietnamese cookbook? To reflect my life's adventures of past ten years, opening a restaurant in Vietnam.

What differentiates your cookbook from the abundance of Vietnamese cookbooks now on the market? It's written from the point of view of a restauranteur, someone not from the culture, who's had to go through painstaking efforts to uncover recipes, techniques, and ingredients. My trials make for good comedy. The book isn't just a cookbook, it's a storybook with recipes in it.

Also, the recipes, though fusion, reflect a bac (northern Vietnamese) palate, as opposed to most other cookbooks that focus on nam (southern Vietnamese) cuisine.

And no cookbook even touches the cuisine of Hue. Those dishes are just too complicated to be executed without the assistance of the family team.

How would you describe the difference between bac and nam cooking? Flavors in bac cooking are more subtle, more refined. With nam cooking, flavors are bolder, sweeter, spicier.

Americans have been exposed to nam food, primarily. Vietnamese restaurants here are run by Viet Kieu (Vietnamese emigres) who fled the south after the fall of Saigon. Given the politics, no Communist from the north would have or could have left Vietnam to resettle and open a restaurant in America. So there's a definite lack of representation of bac foods in the Western world.

Let's talk about a dish very specific to bac cooking: Cha Ca. Is it true that authentic Cha Ca requires ca cuong, a type of water beetle, as an ingredient? Some people call ca cuong a cockroach, but you're right, it's not just any old roach. It's one whose oils, whose pheromones, are used to flavor a dish with the essence of pear.

Are the critters still being used to flavor Cha Ca in Vietnam today? The musk is sold by the bottle at various Vietnamese streetmarkets, but prices have been driven up. Industrialization within the country has made the beetles harder to come by. Ca cuong are attracted to bright lights but are exterminated by the heat.

What are your favorite dishes from the cookbook? Nuoc Cham (fish sauce dip), Ca Tim Nuong Tam Dau Hanh (roasted eggplant with shallot oil), Nom Cua (crab salad), Ga Caramen Sot Gung (caramel ginger chicken), and Canh Chua Ca Loc (sweet and sour fish soup).

So you see yourself as an ambassador of northern Vietnamese food? Yes! Not just of bac food, but all Vietnamese food. Vietnamese food is the most underrated of international cuisines. Consider this. Aside from Chinese, what do you think is the number one take-out cuisine in Hong Kong today? Thai. And there's just no reason it shouldn't be Vietnamese.

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Tags: Bobby Chinn, celebrity chefs, interviews, Q and A