Ep. 91 - Exploring Hmong Culture and Cuisine with Chef Yia Vang - Son of a Blitch

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Son of a
Blitch podcast.
I'm your host, George Blitch,and I just wrapped up an
incredible conversation with YiaVang.
You guys may know him as a chefwho owns his own restaurant,
vinay, as well as Union HmongKitchen that he's done in the
Twin Cities area.
You might know him as the hostof Feral, who's put out three
seasons of their show and youknow we talked a little bit

(00:37):
about all of that a lot of thehistory of the Hmong people and
his family and basically how hewrote the love letter to his
parents through Vinay, hisrestaurant that's there in the
Twin Cities, and really we covera lot of culture, a lot of
history, a lot of family, somuch richness, whether it's

(00:58):
meals that are cooked on thetable or just the lore of all
these stories and how all thesethings came to be in his life.
And really it's just, he has anincredible story.
He's an incredible human, sohumble, so kind.
His heart is huge and we reallydove into some amazing
conversations today.
So listen, I don't want to goahead and talk more on this

(01:19):
introduction than I need to.
I need you guys to make sureyou listen to this episode, you
share it.
You check out the show notes,you go to those links and, if
you get a chance to go, checkout the restaurant in person,
because I know you'll love it.
Thank you so much, yia, forbeing so open and being so open
to share all that you did today.
It was really an honor to talkwith you and I know that the

(01:41):
listeners are going to love it.
So you guys, without furtherado, here is my interview with
Chef Ye Vang.
Enjoy, hey Ye, how you doingtoday, man.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
What's up, george?
How are you?
You're great, gary, I'm doingwell.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Good deal.
Man, I'm having a great day,excited to talk to you.
Listen, I know there's so muchthat we're going to cover today
your restaurants, kind of yourhistory in the culinary scene,
obviously, your television showPharaoh there's so much to cover
, but with a lot of my guests,I'd like to kind of bring it
back to the beginning, if youcan kind of tell me a little bit
about where you grew up.

(02:12):
You got quite a story there andit's definitely one I want to
kind of dive into and I think ithelps paint the picture of you
know where you've gone with youryou know with your careers, and
I just want to kind of go withthere.
So why don't you kind of tellpeople a little bit about where
you grew up, and then we'll kindof thread the needle and kind
of go from there, if you don'tmind?

Speaker 2 (02:27):
yeah, uh, majority of growing up, uh like when I was
younger, was out east, actually,uh, lancaster county,
pennsylvania.
So so imagine a bunch of, likeyou know, southeast asian monk
kids, uh, really small groupgrowing up with amish and
minnanite neighbors, you and sowe had that.
And then middle school, highschool years and even college.
I'm a Wisconsin boy, so CentralWisconsin small, small podunk

(02:51):
town in our little town calledPort Edwards was under.
In Central Wisconsin was under,I want to say we had what I
think we had about 1800 people,like a little bit under 2000
people, in our little small town.
It was so small that it wasactually called village.
It was in the call town and um,yeah, and so I kind of grew up

(03:12):
there and then uh ended up goingto college, uh, uw lacrosse
being at college, uh it was.
It was amazing because, um, uh,I, that's where I kind of uh got
like I cooked growing up.
You know it was.
I kind of got like I cookedgrowing up.
You know it was like kind of athing, but I really didn't want
to cook as a professional.
I thought this was just the jobto get to my real big boy job

(03:35):
one day.
And so you know, as you go tocollege it's like, yeah, I'll
cook at this bar and grill placehere and there.
And then eventually I came up tothe Twin Cities.
My mom's side of the family isso we ended up in the twin
cities.
So I came up here after I wasdone with college.
Uh, you know, I thought I wasgoing to save the world through
nonprofits and uh, wanting to goto grad school and try to save
the world through that, and uh,found out real quick, like man,

(03:57):
I just finished restaurants andthen I just found myself back in
the restaurant world and itjust, you know, always made
sense to me.
And then, yeah, eventually,from there on, we kind of were
able to stem out a little bit,started a few pop-ups, and then
again we were just very blessedto have the right people, the

(04:19):
right team around us that reallysupported us.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Well, I want to kind of go back to because you, when
you were born and raised and youknow, obviously with your, your
family there, but you were bornin a refugee camp, and if you
could maybe talk a little bitabout the history there and
maybe for folks who maybe don'tknow much about the Hmong
culture and your indigenouscommunity and kind of.
You know, I know some people arelike, oh, where's that country?
Well, it's not a country, it'sobviously a tribal people and
there's a lot of areas that arecalled home and which now

(04:47):
there's a large gathering offolks there in that Minnesota
Twin Cities area and I was kindof curious about your trajectory
and as far as coming over tothe US with your family and
maybe a little bit of history ofyour family there, if you
wouldn't mind kind of divinginto that, because obviously the
connectivity of of yourrestaurant now of an eye, and
I'd love to kind of thread thatneedle if you wouldn't mind yeah

(05:08):
, so, um, back in uh, the 60s,the war in southeast asia
started and a lot of peopleknown as the vietnam war.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
But what, what?
What is talked about inamerican history in the vietnam
war was kind of in southernvietnam and all the stuff that
was going on there.
Us troops were on the groundthere, but while that was going
on, there was actually a war innorthern Laos and right now
today, if you look it up, youGoogle it, it's literally called
the Secret War.
It's called the Secret War fora reason, and the fear was that

(05:39):
the communists was coming infrom the north and they were
coming through Laos.
Communists, um was coming infrom the North and they were
coming through Laos and so U?
S sent in uh advisors, ciaadvisors, slash um special
forces guys and they came downthere and they went into the
mountains of Laos and they foundthis group of people called
among people that are my peopleand they trained them.
So it was uh, you know, dadtalked about how there were uh

(06:00):
special forces guys that wouldcome in, and I'm talking to like
green beret guys that wouldcome in, and I'm talking like
green beret guys that would comein, and they're, you know
because, because the whole ideaof the green beret is, uh, force
multipliers, right.
So their whole mentality iswe're going to bring in our guys
and cia caseworkers.
They came in with their guysand said we're going to train
you, we're going to train theindigenous people here, we're
going to, we're going to, we'regoing to, you know, give you
guys weapons, we're going to payyou guys.

(06:20):
Basically, you're mercenariesfor us and you're paramilitary
troops and we're going to trainyou in war tactics.
Because here's the deal At theend of the day, you guys are the
guys that know this land, youknow the terrain, you know how
to.
And I was talking to this Hmongresearcher and he said when you
read the old CIA files and whatthey wrote about the Hmong
people was this the two thingsthat the CIA was very drawn to

(06:43):
the Hmong people was one, theyknew the terrain really well
because this was their home, themountains of Laos, where all
this fighting was going tohappen.
And two, because they lived inthe mountains and because that
they were always constantlymoving, they had great cardio.
So, then it was just like theyhad good cardio and they knew
the area.
That was one of the big things,and I think they also made a

(07:03):
note that these are, as theycall it, vicious fighters.
The Hmong people were known tonot have a quitting spirit.
Some of the first Hmong pilotsthat were taught how to fly
these basically they were oldWorld War II fighter planes.
Some of them well, you even say, they even wrote.

(07:23):
I was reading the CIA case file, old, old case file that you
know was released.
They said that the Hmongfighter pilots didn't know when
to quit, so even if the planewas like all blown up, they
wouldn't retreat.
They would keep fighting untilthey were shot down and they
were losing too many Hmongpilots and the aviation coaches
would have to explain to them ifyou get shot at, you have to

(07:44):
come back.
And they're like well, no, westill have bullets.
They kept saying we still havebullets, we still have ammo,
we're going to keep fightinguntil our last ammo.
And that was what drew the CIAto the Hmong people, which was
interesting because if you knowour history, our history is
filled with war, a lot of war, alot of fighting, a lot of
fighting for our own freedom,for our own, for for unity, and

(08:08):
and so when that happened, therewas a handshake deal that was
made between the Hmong leadersand between the Hmong leaders
and the what is it?
And the American government,and they said no matter, win,
lose or draw in this war, you'llhave free citizenship to our
country.
A lot of the Hmong boys at thattime joined up my dad was 13 or

(08:31):
14 when he joined.
Then, after that, the fall ofSaigon in 75, everything was
taken down, everything wasbroken down, the US pulled out
and then our people were leftbehind and there was this great
genocide of the communist troopscame through and genocide our
people and they said on recordthey had about 300, there was
about 300,000 Hmong people thatwere in the mountains and after

(08:52):
the genocide, after all thekillings, about 60,000 Hmong
people were killed from thisgenocide after the war and being
left behind.
So then these refugee campswere set up in Thailand by NGOs
and from 1975 to 1992, there wasthis refugee camp called Vinay,
which our restaurant is namedafter.
And so 1975 to 1992, vinayhosted 90,000 refugees.

(09:16):
Out of those 90,000, 90% ofthem were Hmong.
Out of those 90% Hmong peoplethat were there.
The majority ended up in thebecause of some of the uh
incredible refugee relocation.
Um, non-profits are here,actually, in the twin cities, uh
, uh, backed up by a lot of themethodist and uh, lutheran
churches here in the midwest.
And so here in the twin cities,uh, there are about 92 000 monk

(09:39):
people in the metro, so it isthe largest, most dense monk
population in the country.
Um, in california there's like120000 Hmong people, but they're
spread through California,while here in the metro there's
about 92,000.
And that was 2020 stats on it.
And kind of, in a way, the TwinCities is kind of known as like

(10:01):
the Hmong capital.
This is our New York City.
If you can make it here, youcan make it anywhere.
Kind of known as like the Hmongcapital.
Or this is our New York City,you know, if you can make it
here, you can make it anywhere.
Kind of mentality for Hmongculture, hmong, any kind of
thing.
Hmong a lot of it stems fromhere, or also Sacramento,
california, merced County, inthat area over there, fresno
there's a big Hmong populationthere too.
So those are the big twopopulations we ended up here in

(10:25):
the Midwest.
There's a lot, uh, you know,but it's all spread out in
Wisconsin, uh, and then, uh,yeah, we, uh, I grew up here.
Uh, at the end of the day, youknow, I'm a Hmong kid, grew up
in a Hmong family, speak Hmongand English.
But at the end of the day, I'malso a Midwest boy, you know.
I tell people, you know Ipeople, you know I'm a midwest
boy.
I'm a midwest boy, you know,born uh, raised in wisconsin,

(10:47):
mostly, uh, here also minnesota.
Uh, I love my cheese curds.
I love my double, double cheese, uh, butter burgers.
You know I love a good rootbeer float.
Like, at the end of the day,like I'm a midwest boy, but at
the end of the day too, I'm alsoa monk kid, you know who.
Who loves going out, um, uh,growing up fishing, hunting with

(11:07):
my dad, um, and and again, Ithink that that makes with being
like the midwets kid too, who'slike, yeah, let's start fires
in the back and let's grill ourfood.
And, you know, be a littlecountry in a way where, you know
, I drive a truck.
I love it, you know, and stufflike that, um, once in a while
I'll.
You know, I'll listen to.
I love it, you know, and stufflike that, um, once in a while
I'll, you know, I'll listen tosome country music, but I don't

(11:27):
do it too loud because I don'twant people to judge me.
But, um, but yeah, man, like, atthe end of the day I'm just,
I'm kind of hillbilly-ish, youknow.
Like we, we put stuff togetherwith duct tape and super glue,
you know, at the end of the day,um, we always, you know, I
think you and I are old enoughto know the show macgyver, you
know, oh, yeah, anderson, my god, yeah, uh, we, we always talked

(11:48):
about the fact that when my dadwas tinkering or putting things
together, or he, instead ofmacgyver being macgyver, he was
always being mungiver, you know.
So it's like, what's themungiver way of doing things?
So we would always talk aboutthat.
I mean, you know, that's at theend of the day, that's what I
am.
But not the end of the day,that's what I am.
But at the end of the day, I amalso, you know, this 40 year old
dude who's very connected toour culture, and I, you know,

(12:09):
find myself that the vehicle orthe canvas that we can use to
paint, you know, the picturethat, or tell our story, is
through our food.
And so we've been.
We've been a part of doing thatfor the last.
We've been very blessed for thelast seven, eight years with
Union Mung Kitchen.
Now we have another restaurantcalled V9, you know, and we're

(12:30):
able to do different things andwe've been very blessed in the
last few years to be able to dodifferent shows and stuff.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, let's dive into that a little bit, because I
wanted to hear about you knowhow the Union Kitchen started
and the idea of you know I thinka lot of people maybe have this
misnomer.
It's like, oh, Hmong food, isthis?
Well, it's you kind of talkabout.
It's more like a philosophy,it's like there's a merging and
what you kind of bring to thetable.
But there is certain thingslike you had, like you know,
some of your, your recipes withyour dad's sausage and your

(13:09):
mom's hot sauce, which I want toknow about.
I'm a hot sauce connoisseur but,I, want to hear like a little
bit about when you started doingthat and doing these pop-ups.
What was it that you werefeaturing these ideas of these
flavors and profiles, and whatwould be?
I guess is there arepresentation of, of kind of
what is Hmong cuisine within youknow, cause I know with those

(13:29):
restraints where you kind of say, yeah, it's, it's, it's not,
it's more philosophy based, butwhat was it that you were kind
of cooking and preparing andsharing as you know, here is
Hmong dining.
When you first started that out, what did that look like?

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah.
So it's kind of like telling astory, right, so you can't just
jump into the middle of it.
Imagine going into a movie andyou jump into minute 45 or
minute 50 and you're like, wait,who's the bad guy?

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Who's the?

Speaker 2 (13:51):
good guy, wait, what's his deal?
So, right away, you can't dothat, especially when you do
something with Hmong food.
Hmong food that came to theTwin Cities.
They had to open under theumbrella of being a Chinese
restaurant because that's whatsold.
You know, people weren't comingin to understand Hmong food.
People were coming in to say,hey, can I get my lunch for

(14:13):
$5.99 plus an egg roll and afortune cookie at the end?
You know, and so I give propsto those guys because they paved
the way.
You know, these are the peoplethat where you had Hmong, you
had Thai, you had Vietnamese.
Even people didn't know whatCambodian or Laotian was.
But all of these food groupsare very distinct because of the

(14:33):
people behind it, and thepeople behind it are the stories
behind the food.
I believe that food is this.
I call it progressive tradition.
You look at tradition, right,george?
Uh, it's a.
It's I call progressivetradition.
You know, you?
You look at tradition, rightthere's.
Like you, growing up, you hadtradition, family traditions,
within your family.
You were your mom and dad oryou know, and then, as you grew
up and you had your own family,you took some of those family

(14:54):
tradition but you molded it toyour own tradition of with your
kids, your wife, whatever.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Right, but for for somebody tosay, well, dude, those aren't
real Christmas traditionsbecause you're not doing it
exactly the way that yourparents are.
But it's like, no, no,tradition progresses and then
move and we can glean fromdifferent traditions.

(15:15):
So sometimes when people thinkof the word tradition, they're
just like it has to be, likethis, right, right, we get that.
One says, well, that's nottraditional French food.
My gosh, dude, are you reallygoing to do that?
Do you really want to eattraditional French food?
Do you want to eat somethingthat's steeped in cream, that
has no flavors and salt andpepper?
Do you want to know traditionalFrench food?

(15:36):
They use tripe and innards andthey braised it and then they
made a salt, you know, and thenthey made a gravy and then you
poured it over boiled potatoes.
Nobody wants that.
Now, when you talk about Frenchfood, what you're really
thinking about when you'rethinking French food is what
you're really thinking about iswhat the French people would say
oh, this is a French food, butthis is French food Plus the 50

(16:00):
years that a French food thathas come from this tradition,
that's, that's, that's any kindof food in general, monk food,
monk people are monk culture forthe first time in the last
hundred some years, you know,and probably, I think, about 25,
30 years ago.
We're starting to just developas a culture.
We're starting to find ourfooting.

(16:21):
Did you know that the monk, thewritten monk language, wasn't
created until 1948?
That's our written language.
Before that our language was anoral language.
So you're telling me that Hmongfood could be defined in this
thing, but maybe 70 years agoour language was finally just

(16:45):
put in as a written language,with the missionaries using
English letters to be able touse the Hmong language as a
written language.
So if you know anything aboutculture, if you don't have a
written language, your culturedies out as your elders die out,
because they're your historicalarchives, they're your backup
hard drives, and imagine if youhave a bunch of corrupted,

(17:05):
broken hard drives.
You have no idea what your pastis.
So you're always recreatingsomething, always recreating
something.
Majority of our history is inour elders and a lot of them
have passed away Recently.
My mom and dad just sat downwith my sister and my sister
she's a counselor and therapist,so she's she's like.

(17:26):
You know I talk to people everyday about their story.
I haven't really talked to dadabout his story, so she
literally on her phone for fourhours, recorded my dad whole
story of him being a boy,joining the war, fighting
through the war, all the, allthe battles they were, and his
whole story she recorded and nowwe have it as a recorded video,

(17:47):
which before that he would justtell stories with his old army
buddies, his old war buddies,right, you know.
So that's very important.
So I set that up to explain toyou.
As a culture we're pretty young.
So to say that we're startingdefining monk food it's like no,
no, let's just define ourculture first before we can
define monk food.
I believe that food in generalis always progressive.

(18:08):
It's always changing.
Why?
Because we're always rubbingshoulders with all these
different cultures.
That's what makes food sobeautiful.
So I would say that monk fooduh, to understand monk food, you
have to understand our people,because our food has our
cultural dna written into it.
If you want to know our food,you got to know our people.
If you know our people, becauseour food has our cultural DNA
written into it, if you want toknow our food, you got to know
our people.
If you know our people, youknow our food, because our food

(18:29):
actually tells the story ofwhere our people have been,
where they are and where they'regoing.
So the way that we do Hmong foodhere in the Twin Cities in
Minnesota, in Wisconsin, is alittle different than the Hmong
people in Sacramento.
They're a little different thanthe people Hmong people in
Portland.
They're a little different thanthe monk people in Sacramento.
They're a little different thanthe monk people in Portland.
They're a little different thanthe monk people in Boca Raton.
They're a little different thanthe people in Little Rock,
arkansas.

(18:50):
Why?
Because the monk people we aredrawn to the region around us.
We glean what the land canprovide for us, because the
growing season here is differentthan the monk people that live
in Dallas, than the monk peoplethat live in Houston.
It's a little different, right.
So that's going to change theway that we do our food.
But one thing that does connectus, and this is why I say Hmong

(19:15):
food is not actually aboutproduce and product, but it's
about the philosophy.
Our philosophy is no matterwhere we go, we will find, we
will use the living world tocreate food that just not only
nourishes our body, but it'sgoing to tell our story and it's
going to rejuvenate our souls.
That's what Hmong food reallyis about.
We have to dig into the story.
When we dig into our food right, there's the simplicity.

(19:38):
There's a dish, there's a Hmongdish.
That's so Hmong it's not evenfunny.
It's four ingredients and one ofthe ingredients is water.
It's a braised dish Like you'retelling.
Look, trust me, man, we ain'tusing any foam.
We're not using some.
You know sous vide immersioncirculator.
We're not using some.
You know little driplets ofwhatever essence of pine or bull

(19:58):
crap like that.
We're not using any of that.
Literally, it's a pot.
You have a bunch of pork, neckbones, you have mung mustard,
greens, water and somelemongrass and you let it braise
down and you eat that over rice.
And every mung kid when I saythat, if it's a mung kid
listening you know that flavor,man.
You know the moment that thatbroth hits your lip, you know

(20:19):
you're taken home.
I don't care how old you are.
Every mung's had that.
Every monkey that's born willalways have that.
That's our food, because thattells our story.
A couple of years ago I got achance to go back to Laos and we
were filming a show and I got achance to go back to, actually,
I went to the village where mygrandparents are from and my mom
was born and I got to stand inwhat would have been the front

(20:39):
lawn or the front porch.
It's just a dirt path or dirtarea there of their house where
my mom was born and where theirhouse was set up, and the trail
that walked up to that front wasstill there right and and, and
this is, you know, like mom.
You know it's been like 70 someyears and and I'm standing
there and I'm standing on thatdirt ground.
I'm standing in this village,which some of the monkeys have

(20:59):
come back to, you know, kind of,you know, uh, resettle that
village many years ago and I gota chance to cook with some of
the Hmong folks up there andthey're still doing exactly the
same way that they're cooking upthere.
It's exactly the same way thatmom's cooking at home.
I want to gather that.
I want that to be a part ofwhat we do.
Now.

(21:20):
Here's the deal.
Are they using Vitamix?
Are they using a combi oven?
Absolutely not, because we havethe ability to do that.
So I so for me, because we'vehad monk people says, well,
you're not making monk foodbecause you're not using the
right cutting board or the rightknives, or that.
That that's just me.
That's stuff, that's nothing.
But that's what I love aboutbeing mung, because the thing is

(21:41):
we don't have a country of ourown, a flag of our own, an of
our own, but what we have is inour hearts and you can't take
that Right?
Uh, one of the things my fatheralways said to us growing up we
grew up in Pennsylvania, right?
Not a lot of Hmong people, andI'm like mom, I was like dad.
I remember one time we'reoutside working on something
that was like tinkering around.
He was Hmong people around andhe goes.

(22:04):
No matter where you are in theworld, if there's another Hmong
person there, you'll always havefamily, because that's what we
are.
When we see each other and weknow that we're Hmong, we're
connected, we're family, andthat comes from this era of war
torn country where, at the end,all you had was your people and
so, yeah, so that's why I sayall of this is encapsulated in

(22:25):
our food, and so if you come inand if you want to just have
good food, you're going to missthe whole story.
If you want to come in and sitdown and you want to understand
why we're making the food theway that we are and how it's
reflective of, you know, midwestmonk kids growing up in the
Midwest like, then, you'll becurious to hear the story and
see these stories.
You know, and for me it's areflection of me growing up.

(22:49):
So the way that mom and dad didtheir sauce the way that dad
did, you know, grilled hisproteins or his meats and he
taught me how to grill wood firemight be different than another
mom kid, but I've never saidthat this is the only way.
I've never said that.
I made it very clear.
This is the way that I wasraised and what I know A V9, you
know our new restaurant here.
I tell people it's a loveletter to my mom and dad.

(23:09):
It's not a love letter to theHmong people, it's a love letter
to my mom and dad.
It's to them and I make it veryclear and I say that with all
due respect to my people it'snot a love letter to your mom
and dad and you know what thatmeans.
It's going to be the thingsthat they've taught and
instilled inside of me and weget to reflect it out to others.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Well, I was curious how you know you end up
translating that through, likein a restaurant setting, right,
like how is it that you're kindof telling that story behind the
food and I guess we can pairthis in with this idea too is
that a lot of the things thatyou're cooking comes still from
the hands of your family?
I mean, you have the familyfarm.
That's eight, 10 acres, like,and a lot of those things.

(23:49):
Like you talked seasonalitywise, like whatever it's can
grown there, it's kind ofdealer's choice, right.
It's like whatever is you knowreally, you know thoroughly, you
know able to go by season, byseason.
That may be something you'reincorporating in that dish, but
I was kind of curious about thathow are you, uh, aside from
maybe, the, some of thoseingredients, how are you
incorporating and kind oftelling that story and enriching

(24:10):
uh, those meals through thatkind of history?

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah.
So you know, uh, I would sayprobably about four years ago,
with the, with this projectstarted COVID put a little pause
to it, which I'm glad, and,looking back back on it, I'm
glad that that did happen for acouple reasons.
Really, through the covid years, uh, it really helped me figure
out, hey, like, what is grit?
Like like what are you gonna doto get through this?

(24:36):
Like what's gonna be like thepunch in the face you're gonna
take, but keep moving.
And I don't think, if therewasn't covid, I don't think that
I would have had the strengthto do it, because I saw the
determination in my mom anddad's eyes when they said you
know, I remember my mom grabbingmy hand.
I'm like, mom, I don't thinkI'm going to do this.
It's so dumb, like nothing'sworking.
She grabs my hand.
She says your father and I'vebeen through war, I've seen

(24:57):
family died, I've been through aprison camp and this too shall
pass.
Honey, we've been through somuch and we made it.
You will be able to do this.
And it wasn't like, oh yeah, sostrong, you can do it.
No, no, no, it was me who, mymom, is this petite little like
barely five feet tall.
You know, mom, grandma, and shehad the strength of a lion and

(25:20):
it was like can I glean some ofthat?
You know, that's what I meanwhen I say it's a love letter
for my mom.
Yeah, that's why I'm I'm ableto sit on these benches, that
I'm here and you see these, thewall, the plaster, everything
here is because they said hey,look, we, we, you know, we made
it through here, and what I didwas I'm like I'm gonna borrow a
little bit of that from you tokeep going, because at the end

(25:42):
of the day, when it was reallyhard, and when we were down um,
um, we were down money, and youknow, we couldn't figure out
what the next steps were when,when we were in that position, I
mean, one of the big thingsthat helped me was, like my mom
and dad saying hey, hey, like,let me tell you about what we've
been through, let me tell youabout what we've been through,

(26:03):
let me tell you about whathappened with us, you know.
And when I heard that, it waslike oh, wow, like, this is
amazing, this is something whereI found myself, you know,
driven to it, going hey, like, Iwant more of that, and that's
what the testament of this placeis.
You know, I tell people it comesfrom them, it comes from and I

(26:24):
think that a lot of people arereally cool about it and they're
like, oh yeah, like that's cool, like you know, what does it
mean to have?
You know, have this love letterwith you know from your mom and
dad.
And I tell people, if you comeinto this restaurant and it's
our architect literally tookthat letter and broke it down
like three or four differentpieces, and if you come to this

(26:45):
restaurant, if there's threepieces in this restaurant that
like that is drawn from thatletter and you tangibly see it,
you know in the restaurant.
You know what are those things,uh, so one of them is there's a
centerpiece, uh, where it'smade out of um, of cinder blocks
.
And it's funny because a lot ofpeople come in and, from a
design standpoint, a lot ofpeople, oh man, like texturally,
like that's so cool, it's likevery like you took the
cinderblocks.
And it's funny because a lot ofpeople come in and, from a
design standpoint, a lot ofpeople go oh man, like

(27:06):
texturally, like that's so cool,it's like very like you took
the cinderblocks and you builtout this piece and but I did
that, we did that, thearchitects, you know, who worked
with us, our team did thatbecause, um, growing up, my
father, uh, all we had was thesebroken cinderblocks in the back
of the house and he turned itinto this little grill and
that's where I was, where hetaught me how to grill, you know
, and and and that around thatgrill was kind of I didn't know

(27:29):
this, but like 30 years ago, youknow, was kind of like this
thing that made me verypassionate about cooking over
fire, not because it was somekind of trend, but because it
was.
It was the way that I couldstand by my father and the way
that he just tended to that fire.
And so there's this area thathas a cinder block and it takes
up a big chunk of the middle andfrom a logistical slash,

(27:55):
business standpoint, it probablytakes up two or three extra
table space that we could stilluse to make money off, to be
completely honest.
But this piece is so incrediblebecause when my mom came in the
first time, she saw it.
She's like, hey, that's whatshe grew to, without even
telling her.
The trestle on top made out ofwood.
It looks like the ceilings inthe old refugee homes that we

(28:17):
grew up with.
There's this wall.
On the wall has this shelf andall the shelf has all these old
pictures from the refugee camp.
You know, pictures of us askids in the refugee camp.
You know, on the back of thewall there there is these tiles
that have this texture on it andthe texture literally looks
like the siding on the walls ofthe buildings.

(28:40):
That are, you know, the littlehuts and homes that we grew up
in the refugee camp.
That are, you know, the littlehuts and homes that we grew up
in in the refugee camp.
There is, um, there is a Flint,uh, a black powder Flint, old
school Flint gun, uh, that um,that a friend of mine made, he
took, he took a little Flint, uhkind of a vessel, you know, and
and he created and then heremade the stock and barrel and

(29:04):
it's one of some of the firstHmong flint black powder rifle
and it's one of the very firstone where my father and my
family, actually, when we openedthe restaurant, they bought it
as a gift for the restaurant andit's what we used to hunt with,
you know, and when, when thefrench came in and asked the
monk people to fight with thefrench in the 50s during, uh,

(29:28):
the war, when the communistswere coming in from the north
and the french was, you know,occupied by france, uh, the monk
would have any guns.
So they use these.
You know, like, basicallythey're little muskets and you
can still technically use thatand put it.
You know, you gotta, you gottaknow what you're doing.
Uh, one of my buddies took aturkey hunting and shot a turkey
with it.
Yeah, you know, but it's again,it's, it's right there.

(29:49):
You know, um, uh, the, the, thewood exposure.
We use a lot of wood because myfather uh, his first job in
America, when he came here, whenwe lived down in Pennsylvania,
he was, he was a carpenter andhe built.
You know, dad, dad didn't knowhow to read or write, but he can
look at a table, reverseengineer in his head with a
little string.
He'll measure it out with astring and then he can rebuild

(30:10):
it for you.
That's, dad, you know his hands, you know is what he uses.
And so so these pieces, theywere all part of this letter I
wrote, you know how I wrote, how, you know, like dad, like,
that's where I learned how togrill.
And you know like.
You know, like, like, like mom,like it was.
You know, you taught me how tolove courageously and
ferociously.

(30:31):
You know Um, and so we.
So a lot of that is reflectedin our vision, mission, values
and goals of our restaurant.
Um, uh, our, our foundationalvalues are three words moving
forward together, and we havethis foundational value line
where it says moving for alwaysmoving forward together.
As a company, we're alwayssaying we're always moving

(30:51):
forward together.
Anytime I feel stuck orstressed, I ask myself well,
okay, what we're doing here?
Is it moving us forwardtogether?
Well, that came from my fathertalking to me going.
I'm like dad, how'd you escapeLaos?
He said you.
Well, I had a compass.
I was trained in the militaryso I knew direction a little bit
.
I had a compass and I know thatwe need to go south.
So I pointed south and thewhole village just followed me

(31:12):
and I had my rifle and I had mymachete and I was just and they
followed me into the jungle andfor months and months we walked
through the jungle.
But I always knew that and heexplained this to me and this is
before we created ourfoundational values.
He said I knew that we alwayshad to keep moving, like you
couldn't stop, because if youstop, the enemy found you.
And how did we have to move?
We had to move forward.
You can't go backwards becauseyou have to keep moving forward.

(31:34):
Sometimes it was a few inches,sometimes a few miles, and then
he would say then the next thingyou did was we had to move
forward together.
And there were some people thatsaid I can't go anymore, so
they would stop.
But for the greater of thegroup, sometimes you had to
leave people behind because somepeople just gave up.
And that now is our foundationalvalues to our company Always
moving forward together.

(31:54):
That's how he brought hispeople out, that's how he
brought his family out of Laosand that's how they got to V9,
the refugee camp.
And so that is out of Laos andthat's how they got to V9, the
refugee camp, you know, and sothat is the core of our
restaurant no-transcript.
That's what we're doing here.
Are we moving forward together?
You know, and sometimes and youknow you have companies, you,

(32:17):
you work for companies, you havecompanies there are some people
that are like, hey, man, I'mjust gonna sit here, I'm not
going, and it's like you knowwhat we would love for you to go
with us.
But if you're not part of whatwe're trying to do here, we're
gonna have to keep movingforward.
And it's not that I'm againstyou.
I think you're a bad person notat at all.
At first, that's what I alwaysthought, but it's like no, no,
no, for the greater of the ofthe value of what we're trying

(32:37):
to do here.
And so, yeah, so that's what Imean when I say it's a love
letter to mom and dad, or everylittle part of it, and and and.
The easy thing is, oh, the food, the food reflects them, you
know.
And all this stuff, it's allfrom the restaurant.
That's the easy stuff.
But there's these littlenuances into the you know, into

(32:58):
what we, we're doing here, allthese little things that's
happening where, if you come inand you're like, oh, that's a
cool design, you see a cooldesign.
But if you're curious enoughand say, well, I want to know
why it's like that, we'll sithere and we'll tell you the
story that's beautiful, man.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
I love that you honor them and you know the history
of your people in in in thoseways and continue to to share
that with all the people whocome through.
Um, you know it there's, Iguess, like it was something
that I kind of thought about too, like I know that among people
there was was the word calledmia.
It was like at one point it wasa derogatory thing, it was the
sons of the soil right and likeit's something that you and and

(33:34):
some people would look at thatin in a negative light, but you,
you took that in somethingthat's like, you wear that with
pride and and I'd love for youto kind of talk a little bit
about that and you know how yourelate to, to that and that's
something that that you, youknow, kind of connect with yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
So if you trace the history of our people about
3,000, 4,000 years ago, ourpeople can be traced to what is
now known as Southern China ofuh, the yangtze river, the

(34:12):
yellow river.
That's where our there's, likethis beautiful, fertile basin,
um uh.
Anthropologists, archaeologists, they have found this that the
northern kingdom, northern atthat time china wasn't china.
Like we didn't have the problem, this is china.
It was just land right, landright, yeah, and so.
So that's like when I explainedthat people are like so you

(34:33):
guys chinese are like no,because you have Chinese are
like no, because you have tounderstand.
Like China wasn't China, likethere was no boundaries.
Like this is Russia.
It was like no, this is justland.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
There was no maps you know indigenous people,
different areas Right.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Absolutely Like Montana was not Montana until,
like you know, the governmentsaid this is the line for
Montana, it was just land Right.
Government said this is theline for Montana, it was just
land right.
And so the Northern Kingdomsgot together and said the two
Northern Kingdoms said theSouthern Kingdom is going to
outgrow us.
So then they fought, they cameunited together, the Northern
Kingdoms united together andtook out the Southern Kingdom

(35:07):
and then took the SouthernKingdom and said now you become
our slaves and those are theHmong people.
So even the Hmong last name, wehave 18 last names, or they
call the clans the 18 clan.
They gave us our names becauseit was a way of population
control, because it's like Va orVang, right, the Hmong
iteration is Va, vang.
My last name, va, means like avalley, or or, or, or, or a

(35:31):
garden, va, you know it's thegarden.
So that I could conjecture thatmy people, our clan, lived in a
very fertile soil garden areaand that's why they were called
Xiong or Xiong.
Xiong is bamboo, it meansbamboo.
So they probably lived in anarea where there was a lot of
bamboo.
So does that make sense?
So that's how they kind oflabeled uh, different, uh uh

(35:57):
groups and and because of that,there was 18 areas there.
So those 18 became the 18 clans, right, or the 18 tribal names,
or whatever you want to call it.
And so, in, in doing this, the,the chinese gave the mung people
this name, called meow, youknow, which literally translates
to sprouts, which the reasonwhy it's called meow is uh, sons

(36:18):
of the soil, like they'realways outside, they're toiling.
Because if you were rich andyou, you, you, you were high
esteem, you lived in the house,and the lower class people are
the ones working the field, andI, I it was a derogatory terms
towards the people like, oh,they're the meow people, they're
, they're, they're, they're the,they're the, uh, they're the,
less than they're, they're thepeople that work for us.

(36:40):
You know, and some of theChinese people called our people
the meow people, were known asthe meow people I today firmly
believe in.
So we can either say, oh, yeah,we're we, we trace our lineage
back and we're just, you know,second class citizens, or blah,

(37:01):
blah, blah, like just, you knowlowly, you know farm hands, or
whatever you want to call it.
But I don't believe in that.
I believe that our people areagricultural people and
regardless of where we went,regardless how tough the land is
, and they're like.
That's why we lived in themountains of Laos, because the
lowlanders didn't want us.
So it's like, but we found away.
The Hmong people were some ofthe first people in history to

(37:22):
learn how to cultivate rice inthe mountains, because they had
to do that.
They're doing so well that theChinese actually came to them
and says can you come to thelowlands and teach us how to do
that?
You know?
And so when I think of sons ofthe soil, I think of this idea
of grit, hard work and grit, nomatter how much, how hard the

(37:44):
land is, no matter how muchthey're going to tell us, hey,
it's not going to work, whywould you?
The soil sucks there.
Whatever, our people will finda way.
I look at america as when wefirst came to america, as this
is the new land.
So go work the land, go workthe field.
And one of the things, george,I've learned is that this isn't
just a monk story, right, thisis a human story, dude.

(38:06):
And so when I talk about that,we travel for pharaoh, and I'm
in, you know, uh, podon, oklah,and I'm talking to one of our
guests about how, when myparents came to this country, we
brought in this country, it waswe just worked, we worked and
dad instilled in us what itmeant to work.
And then there's thesebeautiful moments where you can
enjoy and you can be with family.

(38:28):
Here's a monk kid, born in arefugee camp in Thailand, living
in Minnesota, and he's now inOklahoma talking to a dude who's
a noodler out there noodlingcatfish.
But this guy gets it too,because he's like well, that's
my grandparents' story, that'sthe hustle they went through,
you know, and I get that.

(38:49):
So it's like this humanconnection, right, and so that's
what I love doing.
And I think it's like thishuman connection, right, sure,
and so that's what I love doing.
And I think it's what we lovedoing with monk food.
When, when, when, when we haveour you know, our Norwegian,
swiss brothers and sisters, ourwhite brothers and sisters that
come and eat here and they'relike, and especially the older
folks, they're like, I don'tknow, I was, you know, I'm like
hey, at your house you eat, you,you have some kind of starch,

(39:13):
you have a vegetable, right, yep, that's what we have here.
We have some kind of protein,our starch is rice.
We have vegetables, sometimesthey're stewed, sometimes
they're stir fried, sometimesthey're grilled, and then we
also have a sauce, some kind ofhot sauce.
It's, you know, it's lube, youknow it's gonna help, you know,

(39:34):
bring everything down.
The moment people see that,they're like oh, I get it, yeah,
it's not too different.
There's actually commonality.
That's why we say that food isuniversal language.
We use to speak to each other,you know, and but we might
season it different, we mightgrill it different, we might
have a little differenttechnique, but that, those

(39:56):
little differences, that'sactually the cool nuances where
we learn a little bit about eachother, and so so that's what I
love about, you know, whenpeople, sometimes people look at
our history and they go well,you know, we were lowlanders, we
were, I mean, we wereHighlanders, we were in the
mountain people, we were dirty,we were in the mountain people,
we were dirty.
Yeah, dude, I wear that as abadge of pride.
Man, like we weren't,statistically, we weren't

(40:18):
supposed to make itStatistically, we weren't
supposed to amount to much, butbecause of our fathers and
forefathers, our mothers and ourforemothers and the sacrifices
they made, they gave us anopportunity.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Don't waste this opportunity.
Well, and they, like yourparents, even told you like
opportunity is going to come,and like be blessed in that.
And like, even when the chipswere down and it looked like you
were ready to give up, theywere like, look, we've come here
, we want to see our childrensucceed.
And you know, like the idea youwere talking about, like your
dad now sitting around with allof his grandchildren, yeah being
able like that, is that not thedefinition of success, of being

(40:50):
able to see those futuregenerations thrive and continue
to, you know, merge with othercultures and share their
histories?
And you know, with with that,when you were talking about,
like your sister recording yourdad, you know, I used to travel
around the world and interviewindigenous elders with a guy
from a guy named Harvey Ardenwho worked with National
Geographic, and our goal was totry to sit down with the elders,
preserve their stories forfuture generations in a digital

(41:13):
form, which was, you know,before there wasn't much, you
could have it on old audio tapesor reels but being able to have
something that we could recordand almost share, not
instantaneously, but you know,now, in a day.
Now you could live stream it,but you know, 20 years ago it
was a little bit different.
But to put those, you know,those things together as
projects and kind of hold thosefor the future seven generations

(41:34):
, as as we kind of viewed itRight.
And I was curious as far as,like that story of your dad's
and is it beside making a movie,Mungiver, is there anything
that you kind of have this ideathat you want to maybe have this
work with those elders andshare that.
Is there any kind of thing?
I know you're you're doing thiswith the food and the culture,
but is there?
Is there a movement there tomaybe kind of share a little bit

(41:57):
more of the story with withpeople and kind of help preserve
that?
Because you know, I thinkthat's such an important thing
and you know, maybe I'm just notaware of of that in a mainstay.
But I was curious is do you seethat there's things where
people are talking to elders andyou know kind of preserving
that these days?

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, you know there's a few uh like, you know,
uh, grants out foundation stuffto do these projects and
recording these projects andstuff like that.
But you know what I reallywould love to do?
I would really love to bringnon-mung producers, filmmakers,
in on it, because I reallylearned that, especially within
our own community, we're so like, and you get this man you know,

(42:36):
being a production guy, you canget so tight into your own
community and everything so yousee anything through a very like
guided lens and you're like,okay, we got to do this, because
this is kind of, but I lovebringing different cultures,
different people from differentbackgrounds and listening in and
there's all these perspectives.
That's why the architect firmthat put together this piece it

(42:59):
wasn't a Hmong architect firm,it was a Christian dean.
They're incredible.
But you know what they'rereally good at?
They're good at seeingdifferent perspectives from what
I'm so used to.
I'm a 40-year-old dude.
I'm in this culture, this is myculture, this is my people.
I'm so the problem too.
The matter, the truth is, I'min, I'm in my own way sometimes

(43:22):
because it's like, oh, okay, Iwant to get into this, I'm going
to get into the story and beingso, doing it that way, you
forget all these little things.
So then we had Christian D andtheir team come in.
They're like that's so cool.
Look at the way that you know,look at the way of the siding of
that refugee hut, that refugeehouse that you guys grew up in.
I think we have a tile thatI've worked for, that you know I

(43:44):
worked with.
That looks like that.
What if we put that tile in theback?
And the moment they did that,I'm like I would have never
known that.
Right, my father taught me thisand my mom and dad, they both
taught me this.
And my dad always said, yeah,when you go out to the world, we
were kids and we say, when yougo out to the world, you're
going to learn so many new ideas, so many great new ideas.

(44:05):
Glean from it, learn from itand bring it back to your people
.
It wasn't like, hey, just speakHmong, only be Hmong, hmong,
100%, do or die Hmong.
It wasn't that.
It was like no, no, no, no.
Our people are going to needthe our future generation, our
kids, to go and learn the world.
Dad always said this is nolonger our world.
Your mom and I, this is not ourworld anymore.

(44:26):
We left our world.
This is your world, and, anddad had this thing where he was
super humble and I learned somuch from him.
When dad said um, when we cameto America and by the time you
were done with fifth grade,sixth grade, you are now the
teacher and I'm the pupil.
I will learn from you.
And, dude man, you're talkingabout a fucking war hero.
You're talking about a guy whocommanded troops.

(44:48):
You're talking about a guy whostood alongside some of the
biggest Hmong officials andfought in a war.
You're talking about a guy whoworked side by side with the CIA
, right, and for him to look athis children and say you're
smarter than me and I am thepeople and you're this teacher.
Now, please teach me.
We're going to learn from you.
I was a kid.
I was like cool dad, can I goplay now?

(45:10):
But now, as an adult myself,like a 40 year old dude who's
like man, like, by the time, mydad was like 25.
He lived four lifetimes already.
You know, I just thought tomyself yeah, like this is, I owe
it to them, I gotta come backand and so that's why, uh, for
for me, that's why it's superimportant.
This whole thing is superimportant and again, like I said

(45:32):
, I always come back is thevessel I'm good at is food.
That stuff makes sense to meand and so I'm not, uh, so, so,
yeah, so that kind of drives mereally a lot.
You know, and and as I thinkabout my parents and and the
things they do, and you know, um, even these stories that they
have, and you know so, whenwe're done with my mom or my dad

(45:53):
, actually my mom, uh, we'regonna do my mom also.
You know, actually my mom,we're going to do my mom also.
You know, so, my sister waslike my sister was like hey,
like I, you know I was going toget mom's story.
I'm like that's awesome, likelet's, let's do that, and so
we're putting together and again, I love to bring all these
different people from differentwalks inside of you.
You know, um, my mom says I livefor the day that our sons and

(46:17):
daughters cannot, cannot justonly be leaders in our community
but leaders in the world, andthat's really big where she she
says that she has this littlelike um mom, like like mom, mom
prayer group at church and theysaid our biggest prayer of these
mom, moms and grandmas from allaround the country, all around
the world, that they do like a,like, a, like a FaceTime.

(46:39):
You know, prayer group.
They have a little like prayermeeting once a week and they
said our biggest prayer as moms,grandmothers, daughters, is
that our sons and daughters willbecome leaders in our world,
not just in our community, andit was.
It's if you see these 70, 80year old, um uh, uh grandmas who

(47:01):
a bunch of them have been tothe restaurant because they
would come in and they're likeyou know your mom puts you on
prayer requests for us and wealways been praying really hard
that God will bless you.
You know 80 year old grandmasthat I've never met before, that
aunties that come in andthey're like we, we, you know
she shows us your pictures andevery time, you know, anywhere
your show comes up, she puts iton youtube for us to watch.

(47:21):
You know, and it's superadorable to know that there's
these people out there that aresaying, like, son, we're putting
our you know, we put our hopein the things that our sons and
daughters are doing.
One of the most incrediblethings, george, was a few months
ago.
There was a Hmong elder that mydad and my mom brought in for
dinner and they sat at the bigtable and I found out dad was

(47:43):
talking to him and I found outhe comes up and he was one of
the original founders of therefugee camp Vinay.
He was one of the guys whohelped founded that camp.
He was also one of the guys whohelped name the camp Vinay.
Vinay translated means virtueor virtuous.
The reason they wanted to nameVinay Vinay the original name is

(48:07):
Ban Vinay.
Ban just means village of.
You know, ban Vina was theywanted this idea that this
village was a place for refugeesto come in, people that are
broken from home, lost family,and instead of virtuous, they
saw it as the word in integrity,you know.

(48:31):
They saw it as this word of, ofhonor.
They wanted this place to becalled, uh, the village of honor
, the village of virtue, thevillage of integrity where
people can redeem and reclaimthat lost spirit.
That's why they named v9.
V9.
I didn't, we didn't know thatwhen we, when we, opened this

(48:53):
restaurant we didn't know thatuntil that dinner
until that dinner.
Yeah, whoa, all I knew was v9meant virtuous.
So I'm like, oh, that's cool.
Yeah, you know, it's like happyplace.
You know, uh, and even myparents didn't really know that
until that, until the elderexplained that to me and he said
that that that was the reasonwhy we named that.
A small group of us decided toname it that because we wanted

(49:15):
it to be a symbol, a beacon,where people can come in, lost
out from the cold, and come inand restore a little piece of
themselves, without knowing thatthat is a vision mission.
That was in the goals of ourrestaurant, without even knowing
that.
Does that make sense?
This is one of those reallyserendipitous moments.
I'm like wait, wait, wait.
We didn't know that because we,four years ago, the idea was to

(49:40):
create a place where communityis number one and good food
happens to be the byproduct ofit.
That was the conduit right, yes,I didn't meet this gentleman,
this elder, and, and he at theend he was, like you know, in
his late eighties, and he shakesmy hand and he hugs me and he
said, you know, son, it's verygood to see our sons and

(50:01):
daughters doing amazing thingsin this world.
And I mean, I'm talking about adude that was like 50 some
years ago, you know, withanother bunch of people and say,
hey, look, we have this littleplot of land, Can we use this as
and?
Now he gets to eat.
And then this is no pat on ourback, like like, please hear me

(50:22):
on this, this is not me going.
Look, you did a great job, Idon't give a turd about that.
This is us saying we get tokeep carrying the torch that was
lit a long time ago.
And so he's sitting in thisrestaurant and he looks around
and he says, you know, causewe've been very blessed, like,
we're always booked out likefive or six weeks ahead, right,
and, and it, and and and.
He's like there's so manypeople here.
And he's like these peopledon't look like us.

(50:43):
So it was a lot of like, I'llbe honest, there's a lot of
white people here, and he's justlike this is, you know, to me
he's like in these old eyes.
He said these old eyes haveseen such a glorious thing and
he just saw all the monk foodthat was coming out to all the
tables.
You know, the place was packed,you know, and so it was just in
this moment where we're like,whoa, we're doing something here

(51:04):
that we didn't like I, wedidn't expect this, so.
So when people go, hey, what'snext?
I'm like I have no idea, Idon't, but we're going to keep
following the path.
We're going to keep followingthe way that, what you know, the
pathway that was set up for us.
You know, we're going to keepfollowing.
You know that these are thepathfinders, these are the ones
who paved the way, and I'mmerely the dude that gets to

(51:25):
kind of follow their footsteps.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Well, you're carrying on that spirit, man, and you
know, even when you don't knowexactly everything, it pans out
and it's.
It's those moments, man, I canonly imagine what that must've
been like for you and for yourfolks to be sitting there and
hearing that.
I mean, what a huge you knowepiphany of sorts, and also like
, yeah, I'm right where I'msupposed to be and we're doing

(51:48):
the thing we're supposed to bedoing.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
One of the most beautiful thing was, like you
know, they had the big table, sothere's like 12 of them and my
and my dad and the, the, thehome elder.
He, he was the moment out there.
He was a, a former high rankingofficer in the in the um, in
the sgu, the special guerrillaunit, that's where you know the
paramilitary troop, uh, monkfighters were.
He was a pretty high out there.
My dad would always say he'smore mid-level.

(52:10):
He, my dad, was like dad's like.
He's like a, like equivalent tolike a lieutenant.
He was like I was more likemiddle management.
You know, like I got bossesthat yelled at me and I had to
go tell the young guys.
So so he's like I'm middlemanagement.
That's what dad said.
And it was so incredible to seethese two old war fighters
right Sitting beside each othereating a pork chop, eating
sticky rice together, andthey're sitting beside each
other and they're just talking.

(52:30):
And to me I'm like it remindsme so much of the movie Band of
Brothers or the TV show when youhave these like, where we're're
like.
I saw this moment where dad andthis elder, these old war
fighters that were telling oldstories, and dad had his photos
up.
There are photos of my dad upwith him being a young soldier,

(52:51):
and he's standing with all theseguys and dad's telling a story
of like, oh yeah, like that guy,like that's my cousin, he died
in this area because of a lionmine and they were just talking
right Like two old war fighters.
These guys who battled hard,right freaking, never thought
that they'd leave the jungles oflaos and in 2024, you know,
2025, they're sitting at a tablein northeast minneapolis eating

(53:16):
this dinner, surrounded by likea hundred and you know, ish,
people eating in this crowdedlittle restaurant and and I and
I, just I just thought to myselflike man, this is so cool, like
you know, for me, um, to beable to see that and for me to
be able to to do it, I, I kindof had this scene.

(53:39):
I'm kind of very like.
I love movies, movies,especially war movies.
I'm a dude.
I guess it's just like thesetwo old samurais.
We have no more battles tofight.
They fought royally for theirshogun, they fought for the
emperor, they did their battlesand they're wounded and they're

(54:00):
scarred, but they get to be thevery few that are blessed to be
old and see their grandchildrenand their dad's got a great
grandchild you know what I'msaying.
Like they got to see that and alot of their dudes didn't make
it out.
A lot of their dudes died young.
A lot of stuff happened to alot of the dudes and I just see
them with their like their swordwhere it's like.
It's like it's like meltedtogether, where it's like
they're never going to have todraw their swords again.

(54:22):
They're just sitting there andthey're telling stories and
they're about the battles theyfought and the freedom that they
get to live in.
Dude, I don't care, man.
Like you don't have to be mungto understand that Right, that's
why I like for me, like I don'tcare where all the political
stuff is.
But when, when I see troops orsoldiers coming home like my
brother's a military guy, he wasin the military, went over to

(54:44):
iraq and when I see these guys,I'm like, yeah, man, hall of
duty, you, you go in, you dowhat you do.
You don't get to make thedecision of this.
Like this is the right thing,the wrong thing.
Like you know some people whodo that I'm like no man.
Like I learned that freedomisn't free.
You might might not have paidfor it, but somebody paid for it
, and I'm constantly reminded ofthat.

(55:05):
And when that moment, I sawthose two old war fighters
standing sitting by each otherjust eating, and and you know,
what's really interesting aboutmy parents is when they come to
the restaurant my aunt too.
She's so sweet.
She'll like come up to the passand she'll help, like try to
like serve, and I'm like, sitdown, we have servers and and,
and what's really cool aboutthat is just because it's in

(55:25):
their nature to alwaysconstantly serve, right, that's
what they know.
And so my aunt will come up andshow, sometimes like a little
sweet, before I'm like what areyou doing?
Don't do that.
Like I'm like I'm paying somedude to do that.
Okay, stop taking this job, youknow.
And they sit down and I rememberthe first time we had our soft
opening and my parents were herewith all their friends, they
freaked in a way.
They freaked out because theydidn't know.

(55:46):
They're like wait.
They're like people arebringing food to us.
Like what do we do?
Like you know, this is themoment we actually go, get up
and make sure everyone's wateris filled and right, and for the
first time they didn't have todo that.
Somebody did that for them andso that was so cool to see that
and, again, like that was really, it was a very special moment
and our whole team understood it.
Um, our servers, you knowthey're like dude, wait what?

(56:06):
And you know, um, you know I,um, I got a chance to meet my I.
I just called her, my greataunt.
Uh, she was here and she said,um, uh, she's, you know, she's
in her 80s and she, you know,held my hand and she said you
know, my, my father named you.
My father gave you your name.
You know he's considered mygreat uncle and I'm like, really

(56:29):
, he's like you were named aftermy brother.
My brother was killed during thewar.
He died as a, as a boy, and mydad really missed him.
And when you were born, yourfather who my dad, was very
close to my dad your father cameup to him and said, hey, please

(56:50):
name him.
And so you're named after mybrother because my dad wanted a
life for my brother but he died.
And I just want you to knowagain, I never knew that she
came in and had it and thatchanged me, dude, it changed me,
and that was like about fourmonths ago, like, no, yeah, four

(57:11):
months ago.
That changed me a lot, knowingthat your life is not your own
and that that, like her dad, youknow, my great uncle said hey,
I, I want to give you my son'sname because I hope that,
whatever and you know you're akid, so you get this like, like,
I hope that whatever ambition Ihave for my son, even though he

(57:32):
died as a boy, it will bepassed to you and and even if he
hasn't, he, even if he doesn'tget that life, I hope that your
life, in a way, um, becomessomething where you know,
because her dad's passed a whileago and he's like, so there was

(57:53):
that hope that our son's namewill be carried on.
Man, I don't know, dude, thatpeople go oh man, how's it feel
to be nominated for Jane Green?
I'm like that means nothing tome, compared to the people that
have been coming into therestaurant, sitting down and
says because of Vinay, anotherstory about Vinay.

(58:14):
A few months ago we were on theNew York Times Best 50 USA and
my mom I bless my parents, dudelike my mom and dad, like
they're, they're, they're likedorky grandparents who like
don't understand pop culture orthe world, current world,
whatever.
So my mom kept telling herfriends at church like, oh yeah,
there's a nice new newspaper atNew York that thinks like, yeah

(58:36):
, you guys, restaurants reallynice and I'm nice and I'm like
it's adorable to me right.
Yeah, yeah, it's the new yorktimes.
It's like this is like a littlenewspaper, you know but she's
yeah, she's as happy.
She's as happy as if, like thenortheast, like light tower
newsletter here, says we're thebest restaurant, she's as
excited as that.
Or the new york times, right,and that's.
That's the genuine authenticityof mom, right, and one of her

(59:01):
friends, who's a very highlyeducated, uh, professional woman
, said the new york times islike kind of a big deal, you
know, to my mom.
And my mom called me I'm so, Iapologize.
And she kept saying I'm sosorry, I'm really dumb, I don't
know these things.
And I'm like mom, it's, youknow.
I'm saying bro, like, I'm like,it's okay.
And my mother said you know, Ineed to tell you a story when,

(59:22):
when we were in veni, I was uh,I wasn't in good shape, I wasn't
in, my heart was really broken.
I was very depressed and everymorning I would wake up in the
morning I pray to god that godwould let me die, like, why
didn't he let me die out in thefield with my family?
Some of my family was killedand I'm like, I'm like it was so
poor, it was, I was so, I wasso, we were so hungry, we were
in prison camps and when we gotto VNI, I was just very

(59:43):
depressed.
And when we left, when we leftVNI, I never wanted to hear that
name again Cause they justbrought back pain, my heart.
And she said I never wanted tohear that name again.
And she said that in the lastfew months, when people come to
me at church or people come tome and they're so proud of veni,
the restaurant, and now to hearthat this newspaper that the

(01:00:04):
world gets to see, they get tosee the word veni.
Um, when I think of veni, Idon't think of sorrow and pain
anymore, I think of hope.
And she's like you changed thatname for me.
Uh, I don't know man again.
This was never the intention.
I didn't know man Again.
This was never the intention.
I didn't know what the path was.

(01:00:24):
But to hear your own mothercome back, the person who gave
you life, the person who gave upeverything, for you to say
you've changed me, a 77-year-old, and for her to be humble
enough to say my own life haschanged, and all this stuff.
Because you know, at the end ofthe day, george, we start a fire
and we cook chicken and pork onit.

(01:00:45):
You know, we braise vegetables,we have carrots and turnips and
we make hot sauce and we makesticky rice and we put it in
front of people, you know.
But really, if that's what it'sabout, then we miss the whole
point.
We miss the whole point Becauseit's more than that and that's
what we get excited about whenwe talk about v9.
Like people, if you, if peoplewant to come here and they just

(01:01:08):
want to critique the food andthey want to critique the
service, sure, go ahead.
At the end of the day, we're arestaurant and we, we have to be
accountable to that.
Sure, but if you want to comehere and be a little bit curious
and understand what's going onand just get a glimpse and be
like like almost like a fly onthe wall to understand some of
these stories, it's going totake a little bit of effort and

(01:01:28):
those who who desire to havethat little effort, they leave.
They leave a little bit more uh, filled right, just more than
food and and um, and so that'swhy we say that we first start
with the community here, ourstaff, we build our community.
So then that then trickles downto the community of the diners

(01:01:49):
and the guests, and then whenthe guests leave and our diners
leave, maybe they go back andknock on their neighbor's door
and say look, I had this greatexperience in this community.
I want to share that communitywith you.
So can you come over to myhouse for dinner?
They don't have to necessarilybring them here to V9.
Because something's sparkedinside of them.
I want to get to know myneighbors more.
I want to get to know my Latinoneighbors.

(01:02:10):
I want to get to know mySomalian neighbors.
I want to get to know my EastAfrican neighbors.
I want to get to know my whiteneighbors.
As a Somalian diner, you know,get to know my white neighbors
as a Somalian diner, you know.
Because there's a sense ofcommunity that can be brought
around food, and I want to sharea little bit of our food,
because in our food is a littlebit of a story of our people and

(01:02:31):
our family.
That is the quote, unquotesecret of VNI.
That is what we're striving for, and good food happens to be
the byproduct of it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Wow, man, thank you so much for sharing those
stories and kind of enlighteningto so much of the, the spirit
of your restaurant and all thatcame to um.
You know, I, I, I know we'rekind of coming in on a close.
I, I, I think we've really setthe stage there for people to

(01:03:03):
understand and I, I, you know,I'll have you kind of give you
know, uh, you know, the locationwhere people can come in and
see this and experience this intheir own.
But I also want to make sure Ilet listeners know a little bit
about feral Um, and so if we canjust spend maybe a few minutes,
we'll just talk about you knowwhat it is in and of itself, and
I mean we could talk on thatfor an hour or two as well.

(01:03:25):
But I would love for I feellike I'd be amiss if I didn't
you know, at least have youshare a little bit about that
and how that came about and whatkind of the goals are there and
and maybe how that connectswith all the other things you're
doing, if you won't mind.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
So, yeah, so, uh, man , a few years ago a producer
came up to me and said hey, Ihave an idea, it's kind of out
there, but there's a show I wantto do.
It's called Feral.
Basically, what we're going todo is we're going to travel the
country, find invasive animalsor animals that are destructive
to the ecosystem, or animalsthat most people won't eat, and
we're going to go find a guide.
You're going to go out there,we're going to hunt it, we catch

(01:04:06):
it, kill it and then we'regonna grill it and then we're
gonna eat together with theguide.
And I was like, oh, it soundsawesome.
You know what it also sounds.
So long, it's not even funny.
Where I'm like, dude, that'scalled a saturday with my uncles
, you know like what.
We're gonna go out there andthere's, like you know,
squirrels, sure, whatever youknow, or, oh, you know, or
eclonics, okay, whatever youknow, and so, and so I'm like,
yeah, let's do it.
Uh, uh, uh, outdoor pickup, youknow, picked it up and then we
started filming and it was cool.

(01:04:26):
We get to travel across thecountry, meet a bunch of
different people from differentwalks of life.
Uh, one of the greatest thingsis that a lot of them have never
heard of among people you know,from uh the everglades to the
grand tetons, to uh centraltexas, uh you to all around,
even Minnesota, going up toNorthern Minnesota, wisconsin,

(01:04:47):
illinois, everywhere you know.
And so what we did was I lovedit because it wasn't just a
hunting show right, that's kindof the, that's the canvas for it
.
It was actually.
It was actually a show about uhconnecting over uh hunting and

(01:05:08):
food.
And what was incredible was whenI met with a lot of these guys,
a lot of these hunters, a lotof them talked about
preservation, about, you know,land preservation.
A lot of them focused on thisidea that hey, this, this is
like we went pheasant huntingonce, and pheasant's not
necessarily invasive, but wewanted to feature what it means
to really take care of theseprairie lands and why this is

(01:05:30):
important.
When you start digging intothat, it's all about how can we
do our part now so that the nextgeneration has something for
them.
That's Hmong, that's totally inour mung philosophy.
What does one generation haveto sacrifice or preserve that
the next generation that cantake, and then they preserve or

(01:05:50):
sacrifice so next year, anyhunter knows why it's very
important to have land that'snot touching, not developed on.
Any hunter knows this is goodland to hunt.
Hunting is actually huntingoutdoors, fishing, whatever you
want to call it, even like, justsay, going out and camping and
cooking outside.
There's something elementalwithin our human souls that

(01:06:12):
rejuvenates and revives, andthat's when we do that.
You know, it's so much to thepoint that people are so willing
to go out to the outdoors thatthey're saying we're going to
create these great vehicles thatare basically hotels on wheel
and park it in the middle ofnowhere and still, in a way,
have a little luxury but feellike we're in the outdoors.
And that's what I love aboutbeing outdoors, that's what I

(01:06:34):
love about hunting.
That's what I love about, evenlike ice fishing, as much as
people, whatever man, thesilence on the ice.
You have a grill going, youhave these little holes with
tip-ups in it, you know, andit's just you in a brisk wind,
you know, and maybe a fewBratsenburgers on the grill, you
know.
So that's incredible.
There's just something aboutour soul that quiets our soul,
which I love, and that is somung and part of our philosophy

(01:06:57):
and what we do in our culture,that it was like yeah, this
makes complete sense.
Now, some people, if you lookat the show as a oh yeah, this
is fun, like ha-ha, like whatthe heck?
Like pythons, what?
Sure, there's that entertainingpart of that, but there's also
this cultural side too where weget to talk about.
I got a chance to go honey guanawith this gentleman down in
Florida and when I was tellingdad, hey, dad, we're going to go

(01:07:20):
hunt iguanas, he goes oh mygosh, yeah, as a little boy, we
hunt those all the time.
Let me tell you how we cookedit.
So I got to cook the samerecipe.
That was 60 years ago that dadwould cook in the mountains of
Laos in Florida with thisgentleman with iguana, because
it was the same thing that theydid.
How cool is that?
Right, like my dad didn't havean old baseball glove to pass to
me, you know, or he didn't havelike a bat, or he didn't you

(01:07:42):
know whatever, like where a lotof you know fathers have these
things, or or a work boot thathe passed down.
But he had this recipe foriguanas and lizards that as a
little boy, they would hunt withthis little musket in the you
know those little, you knowblack powder musket in the
jungle, and they get it, theybring it home and this is how
they would make it, and itturned into this little stew and
they eat it with slow stickyrice and a little bit of rice.
I got a chance to do that inflorida.

(01:08:04):
You know like that's so cool,right?
Yeah, uh, and so that's why theshow is incredible.
You know, the show is so funand you learn so much.
You dive.
So I got a chance to go to taospueblo where we were with the
indigenous uh uh taos people andwe were on ancestral land 150
000 acres of their land and wewent out prairie, dog hunting
and learning from the elders.

(01:08:24):
And I got a chance to talk tothe elders and the Hmong people
and one of the elders looked atme and said you know what I've
heard about your people.
Your people and my people arevery much alike, you know, and
I'm like, yes, sir, and I'm likebecause we believe that you
glean from the land.
The Hmong philosophy is if, ifyou take care of the land, you
protect the land, the land willtake care of you and will
protect you back.
And I said that to the elderfrom the tribal elder and he

(01:08:45):
said we believe that too, son,and he says our people and your
people.
We align so much Again, anindigenous group in New Mexico
and then a people group in themountains of Laos, literally,
literally across the world, andI have the same vision of life,
the same.
How incredible is that?

(01:09:06):
And that's why that show is socool and that's why we love um.
You know, that's why I lovethat show man, it is phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
You just had season three air in the fall um I.
I assume there's a season fourcoming down the pike, is that uh
?
Is there a production andthat's about that at the moment.
That's me on my pay grade, fairenough.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
I told you I'm a cook dude.
I just whenever I get the callfrom the producers that's above
my pay grade.
I love it.
Another show we do for PBS hereis called Relish, where it's
more kind of local-based.
Here in Minnesota I get to goto all these different cooks'
and chefs' houses and learndishes from them.
But all walks of life, from allcultures, and that one's like

(01:09:43):
really, really fun learningregional food from, like the
iron ranges in northernminnesota.
You know making pasties andpotica and all that stuff which
is like very, you know,hungarian, ukrainian style from
all the way from there to, youknow, to different like, like a,
like a cambodian family.
You know making a cambodian eggrolls and stuff.
So we get to do that show too,which is called Relish, which is

(01:10:06):
really really, really fun.
We're like season just finished, season five, filming on that,
and so, yeah, man, everythingthat we get to do it's about
using food as that universallanguage, and I love doing that
because one of the things we getto do is that we get to kind of
draw people into therestaurants where people get
excited and say, hey, we want tocome.
You know, we actually even havea few people who were fans of
Pharaoh that are from out oftown, you know, colorado, or oh.

(01:10:28):
I was in Texas and I saw thisand I saw you guys have a
restaurant here and they endedup here, you know, and so that's
really, really cool.
We got a chance to hang outwith the meat eater guys out.
Now, you know, um, and got youinto a podcast where we're now
and those guys and you know someof those guys that have they
hunt around this area or aroundthe Wisconsin area.
So some of them have called youknow, uh, like, um, you know, or

(01:10:49):
, or, or, when they haveconventions or whatever, some of
those guys from out there, um,they'll, they'll call up and be
like, hey, we want to stop by.
You know, we were down atFarrell, we shot with Broken
Arrow Ranch in Central Texasthere and with those guys, and
we actually get the wild boarfrom them that we use at the

(01:11:10):
restaurant to make our monksausage, which the wild boar is
the closest to the original wildhogs that were used in the
mountains of Laos to make someof the first monk sausage up
there.
And so, in honor my father, weuse the wild boar here which is
in, you know, from central texasand you're a texas boy, you
know all about wild boars um,and to make our monk sausage

(01:11:31):
here, you know, and so that'slike really cool, you know, like
to be able to, to, to connectwith all these different, uh,
people on the show and still seehow we reflect a little bit of
them here at the restaurant.
You know, we're looking intosome of the wild game meats that
we can be using here.
What would it look like, youknow, and so that's been really
awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
Well, man, I'm so excited to kind of see what
comes next and you know whatspirit kind of provides in that
it's incredible.
I really appreciate you sharingeverything you did today.
And for those who are kind ofwanting to follow the journey,
uh, check out the restaurant,you know, check out Farrell and,
and you know as as well as yourother show you just mentioned
as well, uh, relish where, whereare some of the spots that

(01:12:10):
people can go and kind of followalong on this journey?

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Yeah, so relish, they put up all our streaming
episodes on YouTube so you canjust type in relish or my name
or whatever, uh, and it's all upon there.
And then, uh, actually, uh, um,my outdoor tvcom, you know the,
the, the app, or you know thestreaming network or for for
outdoor, they actually haveseason 300 now too, so all the
seasons on there, so you can gostream and all on there.

(01:12:34):
Or you know they, just they.
I mean they also do the rerunstuff on outdoor too, so you can
go check it out on outdoor, uh.
And then, uh, yeah, we just sayfollow us on social media, uh,
at v9mn that's no v9, therestaurant or at union monk
kitchen, uh, and then, like mypersonal one is at yeovang70 and
you know, and they're all kindof connected uh, and so you know

(01:12:56):
, we promote different thingsthat we're doing.
Uh, we get to feature differentdishes and then we put little
stories up behind it and why wedo it.
And that's been really fun andgetting people to understand the
foods that we do, why we do thefoods that we do, uh, so yeah,
Well, I definitely suggesteveryone check out the show
notes.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
We'll have all these links in below.
Make sure you go, follow themand, and, and, you know, check
all of this out.
Um, you know, before we leave,I had one last question for you,
and that's one about legacy.
How do you view your own legacy, your personal, some of the
projects that you're involvedwith, how is it that you hope
that these can continuegenerationally to inspire this,

(01:13:38):
the spirit of what your parentsdid by coming here and the
sacrifices they made, and maybesome of those things that you're
working on now?
How do you see thatinterconnectability and like,
what is that that you?
Is it something you think abouton a day to day?
Is it something that you knowdrives you, or is this something
that's kind of like you cankind of look back and see, uh,
as you kind of make these, youknow, stepping stones in your

(01:13:59):
life where these paths may lead,because, obviously, even just
talking about the last fewmonths, the things that you
didn't know about the restaurantand about your, your name, and
so I mean, there's things thatare always, um, you know kind of
, uh, these truths and thethings that are unraveling in
the story.
But what is it that you thinkabout in that idea of legacy, if
you don't mind?

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Yeah, for sure you know um I mind.
Yeah, oh, for sure you know um.
I love movies.
I love epic war movies.
Uh, uh, um in in the moviesaving private ryan.
Um, you know, it's been over 20years, so spoiler alert, right,
um, at the end you know where.
You know the last scene.
You've seen it the last scenewhere, yeah, captain miller is
dying and you know, private ryanis holding him and knowing that

(01:14:39):
everybody died to be able toget him to come back, you know
to his family and Miller kind oflooks, you know, at Ryan and in
his dying breath, you know Ryanpulled Miller in and Miller,
you know who's played by TomHanks says earn this, earn this.
And he whispers in his lastbreath.
And then, you know, there'sthat great scene that then goes

(01:15:00):
back to the, the first scene,and you realize that that, that,
that, that that gentlemanlooking over that grave, that
that grandfather was actuallymiller, or sorry, ryan, and it
wasn't miller and he was lookingat miller's grave and and and
what does he do?
He first he looks at his wifeand says, honey, did I live a
good life?
And he sees his children, hisgrandkids, and and he goes, did
I live a good life?

(01:15:21):
And it's this moment where hejust remembers the cost that his
life came at, this cost of allthese men who were done with
their job, but they came becausethey had to come find him to
get him home, that everyone diedso that he could come home.
And the question he had to askhimself as an old man coming
back to Omaha Beach there,seeing his grave of you know,

(01:15:45):
captain John Miller, and he hasto ask himself did was I a good
man?
Did I live a good life?
And and and I think about thatscene a lot because I love it,
it's one of my favorite scenesand I think about when I hear
that I don't hear.
I hear in, in, in, in theprinciple of the voice of
Captain John Miller.
I hear the voices of mygrandfather who never made it to

(01:16:06):
this country, who died in thiswar, my uncles who died in the
war.
I hear them going son, earnthis.
There are those who have gonebefore you that died, that only
had a hope of what our peoplecould be.
I tell you this, to tell youthat I don't think about legacy
for me, but I think about theirlegacy.

(01:16:26):
About three, four years ago, Ibecame an American citizen.
I took my citizenship, becamean American citizen.
A friend of mine and it was allgood intentions said to me yeah
, I don't know, man, america'snot in the best state, he's a
white dude from America, he wasborn here and he's like why
would you want to become anAmerican citizen?
Because I was like, because youwere born a citizen here.
It's a little different for you.
You don't know what it's liketo be not born a citizen and

(01:16:49):
always feeling like an outsider,but today I have the ability to
go through this process andbecome a citizen.
For the first time, I can saythis is my home.
Right, I'm not doing it becauseyou can pat himself on the back
and say, oh, I have a home now.
No, no, I'm doing it for mygrandpa, who I never got a
chance to throw baseball with,who I never got a chance to grow
, who I never got a chance to gofishing with.
All my friends had thosestories and he died knowing that

(01:17:11):
one day, fighting in this war,maybe my kids, my grandkids,
will have a freedom intosomething better than dying on a
freaking side of a mountainsomewhere where nobody knew him.
You know, though, they're thelegacy, so I don't think about
my legacy.
I I don't really.
I guess in in a way, I kind ofdon't care.

(01:17:33):
I mean, I care, but I don'tcare.
You know, I'm saying yeah, yeah, but what I think about is it's
like a ripple, right when youthrow rock in the river and or
water and there's a ripple.
I'm nearly in one of thoselittle ripples and I hope that I
get to push far enough that Ican entice another ripple, and
then that ripple pushes anotherand gets another ripple and
another ripple, because I knowthe sacrifices that were made to

(01:17:55):
bring me here.
I know the sacrifices that weredone so that I could be here,
to have a position that I have,so that I can read English, so
that I can speak English, sothat I went to college.
I had a four year degree.
I graduated in high school,college.
I am light years ahead of someof my ancestors.
Some are some of the people Iam light years ahead.
Not, that's not.
That's all due respect to them.

(01:18:15):
What am I going to do with that?
How am I going to earn this?
Not not like I had to go makeit happen, no, no, like this was
sacrificed for me.
That's what I think about whenI think about legacy.
I think about their legacy andwhat I can do to entice, to
encourage the next ripple, toencourage the next ripple.
That's all we're trying to doand, honestly, man, if and if

(01:18:39):
it's Lord willing for the next40, 50 years of just being able
to cook food, let's do it.
You know if we get to.
If if it means like hey, uh,the V and I is doing so well
that we get to open anotherdifferent restaurant doing
something else, let's do it.
If it means that we get to doanother different show that gets
to highlight some of thoseechoes, some of those ripples,
then let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
I'm about that.
You know, life was prettysimple for me.
Mark Twain has a quote thatsays, um but two.
Most important day in everyperson's life is the day they're
born.
They, they find out why, andfor me, the day I found out why
that I'm my why for joining me,yia, and all the wonderful
things you're putting out in theworld.
Man, you're an inspiration andI really really appreciate you,
just as a human being, and allthe wonderful things that you've
produced and that we get to seethat you've shared out there,
and the ripples that youcontinue to expand and put out

(01:19:38):
in the world.
So thank you once again.
Everyone, make sure you gocheck out the show notes below,
check out these links, go checkout Vinay and go and enjoy an
incredible meal and see what wejust spoke about and why this is
such a beautiful and sacredplace.
And once again, man, thank youso much, looking forward to
visiting you in person sometime.
Thanks for having me, broCheers.
Man, will you take care?

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Ep. 91 - Exploring Hmong Culture and Cuisine with Chef Yia Vang

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 91 - Exploring Hmong Culture and Cuisine with Chef Yia Vang