Lucky Chow

(tranquil romantic music) - [Danielle] Paris, the city of romance, is very good at selling a fantasy.

And we all come to the city with a version of it already in our heads.

One - My ideal Parisian day involves a picnic by the sun with my college friend Maggie, or a quiet bowl of pho alone at sunset by the Seine, of course.

But I'm here to work, so I leave the Seine behind.

I wanna learn about Vietnamese cooking in France, how the two cuisines have become interlaced through decades of colonization.

And then again, from the influx of South Vietnamese refugees after the Vietnam War.

France was the first Western country where Vietnamese migrants settled.

How did one of the largest Vietnamese communities outside of Asia change the way Parisians eat?

And what does their cuisine look and taste like today?

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) At Michelin-starred Mam From Hanoi in the trendy Sentier district.

Tuyet Ngan Bui makes what many swear is the best bowl of pho in Paris.

That's what Aurore Nguyen, a food influencer and unofficial voice for the thriving Vietnamese culinary community, thinks.

And she's brought me here to sample Chef Ngan's version of the slow simmered beef soup.

The elegant broth feels akin to a classic French stock, but the spices and herbs tell an unmistakably Vietnamese story.

The interior evokes a colonial past, but the cooking at Mam is anything but.

Chef Ngan, who trained at L'cole Ducasse, makes pho that belongs at the very center of Parisian dining.

What makes Mam the undisputed best pho in Paris?

- I think they understood that when you make a very simple dish like pho, you need to have the higher quality to have a perfect broth.

Also, the meat, for me, a good meat has to melt in your mouth.

So for the meat, they take it from the Boucheries Nivernaises, which is the same butcher as the Elysee, from the president.

So it means that Mr.

Macron is eating the same meat as we do.

So Ngan, who is coming from this family from the north, she really wanted to share this nostalgia, this memory of what is a perfect pho for her.

What I like here is that you will see that the broth is quite rich.

And then she went to a cooking school in France.

So I think that there she understood the importance of the quality of the ingredients.

She used this knowledge into the Vietnamese cuisine.

And for me, this is what it makes so special.

It is a kind of modernized approach of Vietnamese food.

- [Danielle] So this is what we would call a spring roll, right?

- The Vietnamese name is either nem in the north or cha gio in the south.

So outside is rice paper and here it's super thin.

You can see that they only put one layer and it's super crispy, and inside you have a perfect balance between vegetables and meat.

So you have some carrot, you have some raddish, you have some mushrooms, you have some noodles.

And the meat is pork, ground pork.

And I think that they really manage to find the perfect mix.

You can grab some lettuce and then you can put some like herbs.

So here you have mint, you have coriander, and then you can take the nem and roll it.

Now you have this younger generation of Vietnamese people who are doing things differently, who don't really want to have like very cheap food, but more qualitative.

And I think it's the best way to give another image of what Vietnamese food can look like.

- She's so young, you know?

And when you think of pho, you always think of like grandma's cooking.

For some reason I do.

- Yeah.

- 'Cause it's such a comforting dish.

It's replaced, you know, the so-called chicken noodle soup.

Or whenever I'm feeling down or the weather's cold, I just crave a big steaming bowl of pho.

- Yeah, well, for me, what it is very appealing that when the bowl arrives, you have all this bubble of fat on the surface.

- Yes.

It's very beefy.

- Yes.

- And I love the fat content of it.

This, is a... - It's like pickled garlic.

- [Danielle] And do I put it into the pho or do I...?

- [Aurore] Yes, you can.

(tranquil romantic music) - [Danielle] It does melt in your mouth.

You don't even have to chew.

- [Aurore] Yes.

- And tell me about the rice noodles.

- In Vietnam, people like to have rice noodles that really melt in your mouth.

- Oh, really?

- So they should glide.

You should have this kind of silky texture.

In the streets of Hanoi from like 6 AM, the streets become very busy and people eat pho for breakfast.

Yeah, I love that it's a very humble dish, but they really pushed it to make it the most perfect possible.

(lively music) (tranquil music) - Coffee ranks with pho and banh mi as an icon of Vietnamese cuisine.

Parisians know their way around a cafe, but Vietnamese coffee is often misunderstood, seen as cheap, bitter or too strong.

Nam Nguyen is changing that at Hanoi Corner, his coffee shop in the Marais.

Carefully sourcing his Robusta beans from Vietnam and roasting them in Paris, he's blending French and Vietnamese traditions for a growing local audience.

How did you learn all the tricks and techniques of being a barista?

- I've learned in France about specialty coffee.

So we learn about bean, about the techniques.

I've learned in Vietnam how to make coffee.

So I mix a bit of everything I've learned to make my own way.

- Vietnam is actually the world's second largest producer of coffee.

So it's amazing that you're showing that brand and that culture here in Paris.

- Yeah, we're trying our best to make people discover something different from Vietnam because there used to be always the same kind of Vietnamese restaurants.

And when we started, we wanted people to see something different from Vietnam.

So we were making the first Vietnamese coffee shop.

(tranquil music) It starts with the bean.

We are using Vietnamese coffee bean, so we're bringing green coffee to Paris.

So we are roasting it.

- [Danielle] How have people reacted to your coffee?

I mean, you're here in the heart of the Marais, there's so many Parisians and tourists alike.

What has the reaction been to your coffee?

- One of the best way that I have as reaction, they were saying that just by having a cup of coffee, they felt they were going to Vietnam.

- [Danielle] Really?

- So that's the things we're trying to focus: quality on the coffee bean and the way of making it.

But in the end, we want people to feel like they've been to Vietnam, and that's the way we like people to feel.

We're gonna take the Vietnamese filter and I like to weight my coffee.

We like to use 15 milligrams of coffee.

This is a coffee, which is our main coffee because this one is very easy to use for having the coffee, which is very iconic in Vietnam with condensed milk.

So when we are using condensed milk, we want a coffee which is not too fruity, not too acidic.

We want a coffee which is a dark chocolate flavor.

Some coffee in that.

(beans rattling) Coffee in here.

(machine whirring) (lever clicking) - Wow, it's so chocolatey.

- Yeah, that's the kind of flavor we're looking in Vietnam.

- This is a relatively new phenomenon that Vietnamese coffee is becoming popular here.

- I think people like to discover new things.

So there's more and more different coffee shop, Vietnamese coffee shop.

In Vietnam, coffee place a place to hang out with people, to meet people.

(lively music) I think being in between two cultures, you are trying to take the best of everything or trying to find your own way.

So I'm think I'm little different, so... - You're an ambassador that bridges these two cultures in a way.

- Yeah, I think like, you know, there's things which are in between two, like it's a banh mi spawned with French baguettes with Vietnamese cuisine.

Something in the beginning that was different.

Here on this way of making coffee in Vietnam, there's a lot of coffee flavor.

- [Danielle] Yes.

It's so robust.

- [Nam] It's like strong and bold and funky.

- Yes.

- And... - [Danielle] And there's no acidity to it.

- Yeah.

- Like you said.

- That's it.

- Right, I love it.

(tranquil music) (calm music) Take a French baguette, split it open, add pickled vegetables, pate, and fresh herbs.

If you're looking for a single object that explains the French-Vietnamese relationship, this might be it.

Chef Minh Tri Tran Dinh, who does banh mi popups around Paris, takes an almost stubbornly artisanal approach to the iconic sandwich and makes everything from scratch.

I meet him at Caphette, a popular Vietnamese cafe.

What kind of baguette are you looking for?

- For the banh mi, there are so many ingredients and things going in, so many layers of flavors.

So the bread is just kind of an envelope.

Finding the balance between all these layers for me is most difficult part in the banh mi.

And this is what is really exciting because you can have like separate, very good preps, but if all together they don't work, the magic, you know, doesn't happen.

I grew up in the kitchen eating like homemade Vietnamese food every day, yeah.

- [Danielle] Did you always know you wanted to be a chef?

- No, actually, when I was younger and, you know, it's like the typical Vietnamese history, you have to help your parents in the restaurant during the weekend.

And I was looking at them and I found it was a super hard job.

And when I moved to Paris to study and just to live alone, I missed their food.

I started to cook for myself, to go by myself to the restaurants of my parents to cook with them, to work with them, to learn.

(tranquil music) This is a chicken liver pate.

I mixed also with some pork meat, pork floss made of pork filet mignon, and Vietnamese mortadella is how we call it, like the gio lua.

And here, this is like a ham marinated in some spice and cooking wine.

Usually we start with the mayonnaise.

So you see you have this like crumbly crust and you see it's like a very light baguette.

And you see in terms of taste, it's quite natural.

So the chicken liver pate.

So yeah, in the mayonnaise, I like to put some lemon zest because I want to like strengthen, this, you know, kind of freshness.

The pork floss.

Sometimes there are so many ingredients, I don't know how to build it.

So the pork floss and then I'm putting like the pork belly roll.

So this is my homemade Maggi.

So we were talking about like the French techniques, and this is like a really French way of making a jus.

It's just like, it's slightly less reduced than a classic ion.

- Why did you choose to make everything from scratch?

- I think it's just like for the challenge And for myself, so I can say, "Oh, everything is made from scratch."

So I'm putting like the pickles and then fresh cucumbers.

I finish with coriander, the fresh.

We say, and yes, we say cilantro coriander I find.

So this is like a red chili, which is really strong.

But I like to pickle it and to sweeten it.

Also to make it like more gentle.

I would say like the banh mi, I think it's the strongest like symbol of the fusion of the French and Vietnamese culture.

- Did you go to any banh mi experts or masters to learn the craft?

- I learned in Vietnam how to make the chicken liver pate.

Even if my mom knows how to make it but I wanted to have different versions because, you know, as a Vietnamese kid, your mom is always the best cook.

- I think that every bite really furthers your understanding of a banh mi because you're tasting different things.

- It's a very, yeah, interesting quest, you know, just to achieve a good banh mi.

And actually, my dream is to be a classic.

I want to contribute to the city.

I want to be like a classic banh mi in Paris.

When people will say, "Ah, I want a banh mi, where should I go?

Where should we go?

Ah, we should go at Minh Tri's, you know?

And I want to be like a classic.

- This is hands down the best banh mi I've ever had.

- Oh, thank you.

(tranquil music ending) (lively music) - At Caphette, I'm joined by friends and by pastry chef Anthony Nguyen for a conversation about another French institution: pastry.

Pastries are national treasures that for a long time reflected a very narrow idea of who France was for.

Nguyen is quietly widening that frame.

He folds pandan into croissants and reimagines classics, weaving his Vietnamese heritage into the fabric of French patisserie.

- My roots are from Vietnam, and basically I was born here and I've grown up with this flavor, but I wasn't aware of it.

I was like, "Okay, it's green, it's good."

- Right?

- I don't know the name, you know?

So it's been five years that I know how to do it.

So I want to share it with the French people.

(lively music) - [Danielle] What is pandan exactly?

- Pandan, it's a plant, exotic plants that grows in the southeast of Asia.

They use it to aromatize, let's say, all the pastry, the cream, the ice cream and everything.

So it's quite sweet and the flavor is quite, you know, universal, let's say.

- I've seen pandan on so many menus in Paris.

When did it become so popular?

- It's not yet popular, you know, so I'm trying to make it popular.

So this is the fusion of the French savoir-faire and the Vietnamese dessert.

So this is a banana cream, let's say.

Put some banana in it.

A little bit more.

We put this tapioca coconut milk inside of it.

And then we finish it with the banana.

Don't forget the peanuts.

(lively music) So you put the confit de figues, this cooked fig.

Then we put the pandan cream in it.

And we put the fresh fig.

(lively music continues) - I used to work in an ice cream shop, and if I liked the customer, I would fill-- - Put a little bit more.

- The ice cream... You know, I would fill the entire cone.

But then if I didn't like the customer, I knew how to swirl.

So it just appeared on the edge of the cone, you know.

For your palates, is it not sweet enough?

- No, it's perfect.

It's perfectly balanced.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- When you're working as a chef or a pastry chef or a cooker, the most important thing is not to be sure, not to be too confident.

Just make it like it's the first time every time.

I think it's when you work in this industry, you need to be kind, you need to be, you know, authentic.

But mostly, you need, you know, to be in the service of the people, you know?

- That's the whole point.

Our parents were like, "We need to assimilate to this country, otherwise we will go back to our country where we didn't have any money.

So now you have to assimilate.

But now the second generation, third generation are like, "Okay, the assimilation is cool, but it's okay also to be yourself and to show it to the world.

And this is like the peak to me of everything in Paris.

Like, this is perfection to me.

- Well, I think that you won here because we're called the Clean Plate Club.

- The Clean Plate Club, okay.

(all laughing) I don't even consider it like a job, you know?

It's like my goal is to make people happy.

- [Danielle] The heart of the Vietnamese community in Paris still lies in a section of the 13th arrondissement with the catchall name of Chinatown, even though the majority of the businesses and residents are Vietnamese.

Aurore has brought me here to see an earlier still thriving generation of merchants.

- So we are in the heart of Chinatown, which is the 13th district of Paris.

And so here we are at the intersection between Avenue d'Ivry and Baudricourt.

So it's the really heart of Chinatown.

- I love how hot pot restaurants are popping up everywhere.

But this one is actually referred to as a fondue shop.

So even though it's called Chinatown, it's really a Vietnamese community here?

- Yes.

It's actually more Southeast Asian.

So you have more Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian and Thai.

- Tell me about the Vietnamese community in Paris.

- When I was a child, it was not so easy because I didn't grow in a very Asian environment.

So people were mocking me.

They treated me in a very mean way.

And my parents were very severe, like Asian education.

So for me they were going like backwards.

I really rejected my identity until recently.

Well, I think that becoming a mom made me think of my roots more because I had my daughters with a very French guy, so they have like really white skin, curly hair.

They don't look that Asian, but I want them to know that a part of them is Asian, so I'm cooking more Asian food at home.

I'm trying, yeah, to bring them here so that they are also open to like a different culture.

- [Danielle] Patisserie de Choisy, a traditional Vietnamese pastry shop, serves up Cantonese dim sum specialties, like bao and custard egg tarts.

- [Aurore] So now I'm taking you to one of my favorite places in the 13th.

It's a pastry shop that has existed forever.

- So your bakery has been in Paris for over four generations?

- Yeah, yeah, it's my grandmother and my father, and then it's my brother.

- Wow.

Can I try something?

- Yeah.

- What is your favorite?

You can try the mooncake?

- [Danielle] Yes.

Let's try the lotus.

(plastic rustling) (lively music) Is your goal here to serve, you know, authentic versions of Asian pastries or are you adapting it for a French client?

- No, no, I don't adapting the product French style because I want to continue my grandmother recipe.

- Salty, sweet, so rich but moist.

- Yeah.

- Mhm.

It's very good.

I love how your bakery has this mix of Vietnamese and Hong Kong influences.

Pandan with strawberries.

These seem like a very fusion version of a French dessert.

(happy music) - You have Chinese sausage, eggs, you have the pork with mushroom and you have coriander and onion... - Chives.

- Chive, yeah.

This is pate a choux.

It's pate a choux because the pate in the French pate en croute.

- Cheers.

- Cheers.

- This is really unlike anything I've ever had before.

You know, obviously I've had a lot of baos, but not with these ingredients together, the egg, the Chinese sausage, and then this is the ground pork?

- Yes.

- And flavored with coriander.

- Pepper.

- Pepper.

- [Aurore] Yes.

Yeah, it's different from the barbecue pork.

It's not as sweet.

It's more savory.

- I prefer this.

How is this different from a traditional pate a choux?

- Maybe the pepper and maybe, I don't know how they season it, but maybe they put a bit of fish sauce, so it takes Western, but with a little twist.

(Danielle grunting) (lively music) (tranquil music) - Founded more than 50 years ago by Khanh and Cam-Hong Dang, La Tropicale began as a modest grocery selling tropical fruits like mangoes, coconuts, flavors Paris didn't yet know what to do with.

Ice cream came later.

When the Dangs retired in 2004, their daughter Thai-Thanh, who calls herself the nose of the operation, left her job as an economist to take over the business and began creating aromatic profiles of French-Vietnamese flavor combinations, the way a perfumier creates fragrances for herself according to her mood.

Today her menu includes ice cream degustation courses with Vietnamese flavors like Hanoi Corner's Paris-roasted Cafe Phin Sua Da using local dairy and ingredients.

It has always been my dream to own an ice cream.

- Oh great.

So you're at the right place and person.

- Yes.

- My parents created the ice cream parlor in the '70s, and then I took over the business around 2000.

And then it took me about 10 years, at least 10 years to mark my own ADN on the ice cream.

And now what you have is really something that represent myself.

If I go back to my parents' period, it was not the case.

You know, when they set up the ice cream shop, it was very important for them that people do not know that they were Vietnamese.

What I am is a mix between French and Vietnam.

So the ice cream also reflect that.

I give this to you, I like give this to you.

This one is very nice.

It's a sorbet coconut and sticky black rice and durian.

- The durian flavor is very mild in this ice cream.

- [Thai-Thanh] Yeah.

- And it's delicious that I've never thought of having sticky rice in an ice cream either.

But it gives it that really nice mochi kind of bite to it.

- The ingredients are coming from the dessert.

It's just that when you have to interpret it into ice cream, you have to make it different.

So everything is here, it's a part of me, but of course it depends on the season, the humor.

Humor, humor?

Humor.

The mood, the mood, sorry, yeah, about the mood.

The mood for this type of moment, I think it's chocolate.

The Cafe Sua Da, the Vietnamese one.

We start to go into the creamy ice cream mood, but still fresh.

- [Danielle] So nuoc mam is a fish sauce.

- You know, the fish sauce.

Exactly.

- [Danielle] Do you make everything here?

- Yes.

- Small batch daily.

Small batch here.

Everything is prepared in the kitchen.

- I've never had fish sauce ice cream before.

- [Thai-Thanh] I know.

- It's actually super aromatic.

I love it with the lime.

If I close my eyes, this is a perfect kind of palate cleanser.

- It helps people to discover Asia in a different way than just names.

(inspirational music) You have to do what you are, you have to have your own singularity.

You have to go very straight away on this way and have your own marks.

And then people who are sensible to your work and the way you behave, the way you think, then they just make your community.

And that's enough to survive.

(inspirational music ending) (lively music)