From humble Thanksgiving dinner beginnings, an award-winning chef was born - what are the vietnamese dishes at restaurants

Berkeley—
When chef Charles pan was 16, he made a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people: his parents, his aunt, his uncle and five younger siblings.
The family recently arrived in San Francisco and fled Vietnam in 1975 after Saigon fell and landed on Guam.
He makes Turkey, fillings, sweet potatoes, green beans, gravy, cranberry sauce and apple pie with recipes from gourmet magazines.
The meal was fried.
"I tried to get them to accept this culture," Phan recalled last month . ".
"My mom made some curry in case I messed up my dinner and I made Rice and gravy to eat together.
So we have it.
Pan continued to cook because he had to do so.
Each parent did two jobs, so he was the only one to mix mother's traditional Vietnamese recipes with American ingredients.
But, in 1995, when he opened the oblique Door restaurant in the Mission area of San Francisco, he had never done professional cooking.
If he is told in his teens that in 2004 he will receive the James Beard Foundation Award for best cook in California, and in 2014, the reclining goalkeeper will receive the National Beard award for outstanding restaurants, he will laugh.
Especially since his initial goal was to open a crepes shop.
He found the ideal space in the abandoned Tenderloin area, but the landlord refused him;
There are too many Vietnamese restaurants nearby.
"The rest is history . "
The crepes behind the early dreams, banh xeo, which means "sizzling", are a classic adaptation and recognition of Vietnam's long-standing French rule, since childhood, this is part of Pan's history.
When I met him at his alma mater, UC Berkeley, we ate together when he told me his story.
I found pan outside Worcester Hall, an ugly concrete building that is home to the Institute of Environmental Design, where he studied architecture.
At the age of 55, he was wearing jeans and impossible white T-
He also struck a metal grill with a hammer.
This month, he will open a Vietnamese cafe called "rice and bones" here, and according to his habits, he will walk carefully to the restaurant's space like the restaurant's menu.
Food changes every day (
Black bean ribs (chicken porridge)
Serve students and the public.
"When I went to school here, I gained a lot of weight," Phan said . ".
"We will provide filtration and carbonated water for free, but no soda.
"We sat down inside, but Pan jumped up repeatedly and answered someone's question with a wrench or tape measure.
"I chose the name rice and bone," he said, "because as early as I used chicken and bone, I was worried that people would not buy this kind of food.
Everyone wanted boneless 20 years ago.
It was a different public.
Using bones is delicious and frugal and can make beautiful things with very little money.
"It's a skill for him and it took him a lifetime to perfect it.
Like many refugees, Pan is also a chameleon.
Displacement requires a central shift to survive.
He seems to disappear in front of your eyes, or when your emotions hit, he will shine so persistently that you can't see anywhere else.
He grew up in Da Lat in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam and lived above the grocery store his parents owned there.
When the North Vietnamese invaded in 1975, the family boarded a cargo ship.
He recalled: "When we were safe in international waters, my mom took me to the top of the boat and said: from now on, you need to be in charge of the family and take care of your brothers and sisters. ’ I was 13.
My childhood ended that day.
In Guam, the family lives in a refugee camp of 400,000 people.
Eventually, local lawyer Larry Turk and his wife Karen sponsored the family so they could leave the camp.
Pan said: "There are many beds here. we queue up like puppies . "
"They pick one up and down.
I was with my aunt and uncle who worked as a nanny for the technician. Karen chose me.
I said, 'Would you like to meet another family member of mine?
Maybe you want it too?
She took us all away.
"How did he know the name Charles?
"Karen took six of us to the doctor and decided to name everyone," he said . ".
His name is Toan.
"My introduction to Guam is Chef ardee," he said . "
"I used to like it.
We ate canned sardines, canned mackerel fish and tomato sauce on board.
I still put it on the rice.
I think this is the best food in memory.
And those pancakes.
"It's just behind my mom's grocery store," he recalls . ".
"It's in a military tent with a smoke hole on top of it.
There is a hot pot where they pour the batter in and it hisses.
They cook it and then dry it with a lid to make it brittle.
This is a charcoal stove and they will move the pot from one burner to the next with less and less heat.
You'll see a lot of street food in Vietnam, but that crepes are the champions.
Like Vietnam on a Plate: herbs, vegetables, fish sauce.
The family moved to San Francisco in 1977, where a friend assured them that they were waiting for a beautiful apartment.
"It turns out that this is two studios for 11 people on the tenderloin," Phan said . ".
The man entered a room and the woman entered another room.
We slept sideways in the bed.
Dad found the job of the doorman and dishwasher in Chinatown, so we moved there.
"When Phan was 16 years old, he was attending Mission High School and doing four nights of bars and public service a week.
"I brought home as much money as my mom, who is a tailor," he said . ".
"Everyone depends on me.
He registered in Berkeley in 1982, but dropped out of school in the third year, protesting a sharp rise in tuition fees.
He helped his family open a sewing shop to serve local designers.
Phan also designed its own clothing collection and owned a retail store before it went bankrupt in 1992.
"We are so big that a lot of people don't pay us," he said . ".
He briefly sold the software, pursued the dream of his crepes shop, and once he failed, he found the space for the oblique door.
"My gut feeling is that if made with quality ingredients, Vietnamese dishes made by my mom at home will be very popular here," Phan said . ".
His face turned black.
"But let's be realistic," he continued . "
"20 years ago, I had to ask, 'Does the white man want to eat this? '
Will they pay me?
I will sell a whole fish and people will be upset to see the eyes and bones.
This is to survive as a business.
As he said, the rest is history.
The oblique Gate moved to the Tony Ferry Building in 2004, expanding from 100 seats to 250.
Phan opened two leisure bars, both shouting outside the door, and a bourbon bar called hard water.
Next spring, Los Angeles will open a sloping door near Staples Center.
Next summer, in Las Vegas, Caesar's Palace, a tilted goalkeeper will open.
"I can't sit still," he said, a little self-absorbed. mockingly.
"I look for opportunities.
We have an investor partner, but the family has a controlling stake.
His smile seemed a bit unbearable: "I'm still under pressure . "
Pan's father died in 2004.
His mother, Quyen, lives with one of his sisters.
Phan and his wife, Angkana Kurutach, have three children, the largest in college and the other two in high school.
After the first Thanksgiving dinner, he mastered the form, and his brothers and sisters relied on him every year to make a form, and to make a spare ribs for Christmas;
They went to his weekend villa in Napa Valley, where he built an outdoor kitchen that usually cooks for 30 minutes.
However, we are the only ones on this day.
He walked towards the kitchen area with two portable burners.
His ingredients are perfectly prepared in plastic containers.
"It's all in the batter," he said . ".
No pot.
Great, beautiful crepes.
No other pot, no chance to get the crepes out.
He poured some fish sauce on it and picked up the fork.
"It's still delicious," he said . "
"There are not many rules.
It just has to be hot like this.
This crepes are exactly the same as he described: crisp, crunchy, each ingredient is together, delicious and light.
At least I have tasted it.
He's the only one who tastes.
In a lost world of smoke billowing, a tent, a pot of sizzsizz rustle.
He is still a boy. ——-