Speaker 1: 0:15

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 Yia Vang. You guys may know him as a chef who owns his own restaurant, vinay, as well as Union Hmong Kitchen that he's done in the Twin Cities area. You might know him as the host of Feral, who's put out three seasons of their show and you know we talked a little bit about all of that a lot of the history of the Hmong people and his family and basically how he wrote the love letter to his parents through Vinay, his restaurant that's there in the Twin Cities, and really we cover a lot of culture, a lot of history, a lot of family, so much richness, whether it's meals that are cooked on the table or just the lore of all these stories and how all these things came to be in his life. And really it's just, he has an incredible story. He's an incredible human, so humble, so kind. His heart is huge and we really dove into some amazing conversations today.

Speaker 1: 1:16

So listen, I don't want to go ahead and talk more on this introduction than I need to. I need you guys to make sure you 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, check out the restaurant in person, because I know you'll love it. Thank you so much, yia, for being so open and being so open to share all that you did today. It was really an honor to talk with you and I know that the listeners are going to love it. So you guys, without further ado, here is my interview with Chef Ye Vang. Enjoy, hey Ye, how you doing today, man.

Speaker 2: 1:50

What's up, george? How are you? You're great, gary, I'm doing well.

Speaker 1: 1:52

Good deal. Man, I'm having a great day, excited to talk to you. Listen, I know there's so much that we're going to cover today your restaurants, kind of your history in the culinary scene, obviously, your television show Pharaoh 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 you can kind of tell me a little bit about where you grew up. You got quite a story there and it's definitely one I want to kind of dive into and I think it helps paint the picture of you know where you've gone with your you know with your careers, and I just want to kind of go with there. So why don't you kind of tell people a little bit about where you grew up, and then we'll kind of thread the needle and kind of go from there, if you don't mind?

Speaker 2: 2:27

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, like you know, southeast asian monk kids, uh, really small group growing up with amish and minnanite neighbors, you and so we had that. And then middle school, high school years and even college. I'm a Wisconsin boy, so Central Wisconsin small, small podunk town in our little town called Port 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 was actually called village. It was in the call town and um, yeah, and so I kind of grew up there and then uh ended up going to college, uh, uw lacrosse being at college, uh it was.

Speaker 2: 3:18

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 cooked growing up. You know it was like kind of a thing, but I really didn't want to cook as a professional. I thought this was just the job to get to my real big boy job one day. And so you know, as you go to college it's like, yeah, I'll cook at this bar and grill place here and there.

Speaker 2: 3:41

And then eventually I came up to the Twin Cities. My mom's side of the family is so we ended up in the twin cities. So I came up here after I was done with college. Uh, you know, I thought I was going to save the world through nonprofits and uh, wanting to go to grad school and try to save the world through that, and uh, found out real quick, like man, I just finished restaurants and then I just found myself back in the restaurant world and it just, 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 blessed to have the right people, the right team around us that really supported us.

Speaker 1: 4:25

Well, I want to kind of go back to because you, when you were born and raised and you know, obviously with your, your family there, but you were born in a refugee camp, and if you could maybe talk a little bit about the history there and maybe for folks who maybe don't know much about the Hmong culture and your indigenous community and kind of.

Speaker 1: 4:40

You know, I know some people are like, oh, where's that country? Well, it's not a country, it's obviously a tribal people and there's a lot of areas that are called home and which now there's a large gathering of folks there in that Minnesota Twin Cities area and I was kind of curious about your trajectory and as far as coming over to the US with your family and maybe a little bit of history of your family there, if you wouldn't mind kind of diving into that, because obviously the connectivity of of your restaurant now of an eye, and I'd love to kind of thread that needle if you wouldn't mind yeah, so, um, back in uh, the 60s, the war in southeast asia started and a lot of people known as the vietnam war.

Speaker 2: 5:16

But what, what? What is talked about in american history in the vietnam war was kind of in southern vietnam and all the stuff that was going on there. Us troops were on the ground there, but while that was going on, there was actually a war in northern Laos and right now today, if you look it up, you Google it, it's literally called the Secret War. It's called the Secret War for a reason, and the fear was that the communists was coming in from the north and they were coming through Laos. Communists, um was coming in from the North and they were coming through Laos and so U? S sent in uh advisors, cia advisors, slash um special forces guys and they came down there and they went into the mountains of Laos and they found this group of people called among people that are my people and they trained them.

Speaker 2: 5:56

So it was uh, you know, dad talked about how there were uh special forces guys that would come in, and I'm talking to like green beret guys that would come in, and I'm talking like green beret guys that would come in, and they're, you know because, because the whole idea of the green beret is, uh, force multipliers, right.

Speaker 2: 6:08

So their whole mentality is we're going to bring in our guys and cia caseworkers. They came in with their guys and said we're going to train you, we're going to train the indigenous people here, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, you know, give you guys weapons, we're going to pay you guys. Basically, you're mercenaries for us and you're paramilitary troops and we're going to train you in war tactics. Because here's the deal At the end of the day, you guys are the guys that know this land, you know the terrain, you know how to. And I was talking to this Hmong researcher and he said when you read the old CIA files and what they wrote about the Hmong people was this the two things that the CIA was very drawn to the Hmong people was one, they knew the terrain really well because this was their home, the mountains of Laos, where all this fighting was going to happen. And two, because they lived in the mountains and because that they were always constantly moving, they had great cardio.

Speaker 2: 6:58

So, then it was just like they had good cardio and they knew the area. That was one of the big things, and I think they also made a note that these are, as they call it, vicious fighters. The Hmong people were known to not have a quitting spirit. Some of the first Hmong pilots that were taught how to fly these basically they were old World War II fighter planes. Some of them well, you even say, they even wrote. I was reading the CIA case file, old, old case file that you know was released. They said that the Hmong fighter pilots didn't know when to quit, so even if the plane was like all blown up, they wouldn't retreat. They would keep fighting until they were shot down and they were losing too many Hmong pilots and the aviation coaches would have to explain to them if you get shot at, you have to come back. And they're like well, no, we still have bullets. They kept saying we still have bullets, we still have ammo, we're going to keep fighting until our last ammo. And that was what drew the CIA to the Hmong people, which was interesting because if you know our history, our history is filled with war, a lot of war, a lot of fighting, a lot of fighting for our own freedom, for our own, for for unity, and and so when that happened, there was a handshake deal that was made between the Hmong leaders and 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'll have free citizenship to our country. A lot of the Hmong boys at that time joined up my dad was 13 or 14 when he joined.

Speaker 2: 8:32

Then, after that, the fall of Saigon in 75, everything was taken down, everything was broken down, the US pulled out and then our people were left behind and there was this great genocide of the communist troops came through and genocide our people and they said on record they had about 300, there was about 300,000 Hmong people that were in the mountains and after the genocide, after all the killings, about 60,000 Hmong people were killed from this genocide after the war and being left behind. So then these refugee camps were set up in Thailand by NGOs and from 1975 to 1992, there was this refugee camp called Vinay, which our restaurant is named after. And so 1975 to 1992, vinay hosted 90,000 refugees. Out of those 90,000, 90% of them were Hmong. Out of those 90% Hmong people that were there. The majority ended up in the because of some of the uh incredible refugee relocation.

Speaker 2: 9:26

Um, non-profits are here, actually, in the twin cities, uh, uh, backed up by a lot of the methodist and uh, lutheran churches here in the midwest. And so here in the twin cities, uh, there are about 92 000 monk people in the metro, so it is the largest, most dense monk population in the country. Um, in california there's like 120000 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 Twin Cities is kind of known as like the Hmong capital. This is our New York City. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Kind of known as like the Hmong capital. Or this is our New York City, you know, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Kind of mentality for Hmong culture, hmong, any kind of thing. Hmong a lot of it stems from here, or also Sacramento, california, merced County, in that area over there, fresno there's a big Hmong population there too. So those are the big two populations we ended up here in 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.

Speaker 2: 10:33

Uh, at the end of the day, you know, I'm a Hmong kid, grew up in a Hmong family, speak Hmong and English. But at the end of the day, I'm also a Midwest boy, you know. I tell people, you know I people, you know I'm a midwest boy. I'm a midwest boy, you know, born uh, raised in wisconsin, 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 root beer float.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Like, at the end of the day, like I'm a midwest boy, but at the end of the day too, I'm also a monk kid, you know who. Who loves going out, um, uh, growing up fishing, hunting with my dad, um, and and again, I think that that makes with being like the midwets kid too, who's like, yeah, let's start fires in the back and let's grill our food. And, you know, be a little country in a way where, you know, I drive a truck. I love it, you know, and stuff like that, um, once in a while I'll. You know, I'll listen to. I love it, you know, and stuff like that, um, once in a while I'll, you know, I'll listen to some country music, but I don't do it too loud because I don't want people to judge me.

Speaker 2: 11:29

But, um, but yeah, man, like, at the end of the day I'm just, I'm kind of hillbilly-ish, you know.

Speaker 2: 11:35

Like we, we put stuff together with 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 enough to know the show macgyver, you know, oh, yeah, anderson, my god, yeah, uh, we, we always talked about the fact that when my dad was tinkering or putting things together, or he, instead of macgyver being macgyver, he was always being mungiver, you know. So it's like, what's the mungiver way of doing things? So we would always talk about that. I mean, you know, that's at the end of the day, that's what I am. But not the end of the day, that's what I am.

Speaker 2: 12:02

But at the end of the day, I am also, you know, this 40 year old dude who's very connected to our culture, and I, you know, find myself that the vehicle or the canvas that we can use to paint, you know, the picture that, or tell our story, is through our food. And so we've been. We've been a part of doing that for the last. We've been very blessed for the last seven, eight years with Union Mung Kitchen. Now we have another restaurant called V9, you know, and we're able to do different things and we've been very blessed in the last few years to be able to do different shows and stuff.

Speaker 1: 12:35

Well, let's dive into that a little bit, because I wanted to hear about you know how the Union Kitchen started and the idea of you know I think a lot of people maybe have this misnomer. It's like, oh, Hmong food, is this? Well, it's you kind of talk about. It's more like a philosophy, it's like there's a merging and what you kind of bring to the table. But there is certain things like you had, like you know, some of your, your recipes with your dad's sausage and your mom's hot sauce, which I want to know about.

Speaker 1: 13:10

I'm a hot sauce connoisseur but, I, want to hear like a little bit about when you started doing that and doing these pop-ups. What was it that you were featuring these ideas of these flavors and profiles, and what would be? I guess is there a representation of, of kind of what is Hmong cuisine within you know, cause I know with those restraints where you kind of say, yeah, it's, it's, it's not, it's more philosophy based, but what was it that you were kind of cooking and preparing and sharing 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 a story, right, so you can't just jump into the middle of it. Imagine going into a movie and you 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 do that, especially when you do something with Hmong food. Hmong food that came to the Twin Cities. They had to open under the umbrella of being a Chinese restaurant because that's what sold. You know, people weren't coming in to understand Hmong food. People were coming in to say, hey, can I get my lunch for $5.99 plus an egg roll and a fortune cookie at the end? You know, and so I give props to those guys because they paved the way. You know, these are the people that where you had Hmong, you had Thai, you had Vietnamese. Even people didn't know what Cambodian or Laotian was. But all of these food groups are very distinct because of the people behind it, and the people behind it are the stories behind the food.

Speaker 2: 14:37

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 progressive tradition. You know, you? You look at tradition, right there's. Like you, growing up, you had tradition, family traditions, within your family. You were your mom and dad or you know, and then, as you grew up and you had your own family, you took some of those family tradition but you molded it to your own tradition of with your kids, your wife, whatever. Do you know what I'm saying? Right, but for for somebody to say, well, dude, those aren't real Christmas traditions because you're not doing it exactly the way that your parents are. But it's like, no, no, tradition progresses and then move and we can glean from different traditions. So sometimes when people think of the word tradition, they're just like it has to be, like this, right, right, we get that.

Speaker 2: 15:20

One says, well, that's not traditional French food. My gosh, dude, are you really going to do that? Do you really want to eat traditional French food? Do you want to eat something that's steeped in cream, that has no flavors and salt and pepper? Do you want to know traditional French food? They use tripe and innards and they braised it and then they made a salt, you know, and then they made a gravy and then you poured it over boiled potatoes. Nobody wants that. Now, when you talk about French food, what you're really thinking about when you're thinking French food is what you're really thinking about is what the French people would say oh, this is a French food, but this is French food Plus the 50 years that a French food that has come from this tradition, that's, that's, that's any kind of food in general, monk food, monk people are monk culture for the first time in the last hundred some years, you know, and probably, I think, about 25, 30 years ago.

Speaker 2: 16:17

We're starting to just develop as a culture. We're starting to find our footing. Did you know that the monk, the written monk language, wasn't created until 1948? That's our written language. Before that our language was an oral language. So you're telling me that Hmong food could be defined in this thing, but maybe 70 years ago our language was finally just put in as a written language, with the missionaries using English letters to be able to use the Hmong language as a written language.

Speaker 2: 16:54

So if you know anything about culture, if you don't have a written language, your culture dies out as your elders die out, because they're your historical archives, they're your backup hard drives, and imagine if you have a bunch of corrupted, broken hard drives. You have no idea what your past is. So you're always recreating something, always recreating something. Majority of our history is in our elders and a lot of them have passed away Recently. My mom and dad just sat down with my sister and my sister she's a counselor and therapist, so she's she's like. You know I talk to people every day about their story. I haven't really talked to dad about his story, so she literally on her phone for four hours, recorded my dad whole story of him being a boy, joining the war, fighting through the war, all the, all the battles they were, and his whole story she recorded and now we have it as a recorded video, which before that he would just tell 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 to you. As a culture we're pretty young.

Speaker 2: 17:59

So to say that we're starting defining monk food it's like no, no, let's just define our culture first before we can define monk food. I believe that food in general is always progressive. It's always changing. Why? Because we're always rubbing shoulders with all these different cultures. That's what makes food so beautiful. So I would say that monk food uh, 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, 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, you know our food, because our food actually tells the story of where our people have been, where they are and where they're going.

Speaker 2: 18:34

So the way that we do Hmong food here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, in Wisconsin, is a little different than the Hmong people in Sacramento. They're a little different than the people Hmong people in Portland. They're a little different than the monk people in Sacramento. They're a little different than the monk people in Portland. They're a little different than the monk people in Boca Raton. They're a little different than the people in Little Rock, arkansas. Why? Because the monk people we are drawn to the region around us. We glean what the land can provide for us, because the growing season here is different than the monk people that live in Dallas, than the monk people that live in Houston. It's a little different, right. So that's going to change the way that we do our food.

Speaker 2: 19:08

But one thing that does connect us, and this is why I say Hmong food is not actually about produce and product, but it's about the philosophy. Our philosophy is no matter where we go, we will find, we will use the living world to create food that just not only nourishes our body, but it's going to tell our story and it's going to rejuvenate our souls. That's what Hmong food really is about. We have to dig into the story. When we dig into our food right, there's the simplicity. There's a dish, there's a Hmong dish. That's so Hmong it's not even funny.

Speaker 2: 19:42

It's four ingredients and one of the ingredients is water. It's a braised dish Like you're telling. Look, trust me, man, we ain't using any foam. We're not using some. You know sous vide immersion circulator. We're not using some. You know little driplets of whatever essence of pine or bull crap like that. We're not using any of that. Literally, it's a pot. You have a bunch of pork, neck bones, you have mung mustard, greens, water and some lemongrass and you let it braise down and you eat that over rice. And every mung kid when I say that, if it's a mung kid listening you know that flavor, man. You know the moment that that broth hits your lip, you know you're taken home. I don't care how old you are. Every mung's had that. Every monkey that's born will always have that. That's our food, because that tells our story.

Speaker 2: 20:28

A couple of years ago I got a chance to go back to Laos and we were filming a show and I got a chance to go back to, actually, I went to the village where my grandparents are from and my mom was born and I got to stand in what would have been the front lawn or the front porch. It's just a dirt path or dirt area there of their house where my mom was born and where their house was set up, and the trail that walked up to that front was still there right and and, and this is, you know, like mom. You know it's been like 70 some years and and I'm standing there and I'm standing on that dirt ground. I'm standing in this village, which some of the monkeys have come back to, you know, kind of, you know, uh, resettle that village many years ago and I got a chance to cook with some of the Hmong folks up there and they're still doing exactly the same way that they're cooking up there. It's exactly the same way that mom's cooking at home.

Speaker 2: 21:15

I want to gather that. I want that to be a part of what we do. Now. Here's the deal. Are they using Vitamix? Are they using a combi oven? Absolutely not, because we have the ability to do that. So I so for me, because we've had monk people says, well, you're not making monk food because you're not using the right cutting board or the right knives, or that. That that's just me. That's stuff, that's nothing.

Speaker 2: 21:38

But that's what I love about being mung, because the thing is we don't have a country of our own, a flag of our own, an of our own, but what we have is in our hearts and you can't take that Right? Uh, one of the things my father always said to us growing up we grew up in Pennsylvania, right? Not a lot of Hmong people, and I'm like mom, I was like dad. I remember one time we're outside working on something that was like tinkering around. He was Hmong people around and he goes.

Speaker 2: 22:04

No matter where you are in the world, if there's another Hmong person there, you'll always have family, because that's what we are.

Speaker 2: 22:10

When we see each other and we know that we're Hmong, we're connected, we're family, and that 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 say all of this is encapsulated in our food, and so if you come in and if you want to just have good food, you're going to miss the whole story. If you want to come in and sit down and you want to understand why we're making the food the way that we are and how it's reflective of, you know, midwest monk kids growing up in the Midwest like, then, you'll be curious to hear the story and see these stories. You know, and for me it's a reflection of me growing up. So the way that mom and dad did their sauce the way that dad did, you know, grilled his proteins or his meats and he taught me how to grill wood fire might be different than another mom kid, but I've never said that this is the only way.

Speaker 2: 23:01

I've never said that. I made it very clear. This is the way that I was raised and what I know A V9, you know our new restaurant here. I tell people it's a love letter to my mom and dad. It's not a love letter to the Hmong people, it's a love letter to my mom and dad. It's to them and I make it very clear and I say that with all due respect to my people it's not a love letter to your mom and dad and you know what that means. It's going to be the things that they've taught and instilled inside of me and we get to reflect it out to others.

Speaker 1: 23:28

Well, I was curious how you know you end up translating that through, like in a restaurant setting, right, like how is it that you're kind of telling that story behind the food and I guess we can pair this in with this idea too is that a lot of the things that you're cooking comes still from the hands of your family? I mean, you have the family farm. That's eight, 10 acres, like, and a lot of those things. Like you talked seasonality wise, like whatever it's can grown there, it's kind of dealer's choice, right. It's like whatever is you know really, you know thoroughly, you know able to go by season, by season. That may be something you're incorporating in that dish, but I was kind of curious about that how are you, uh, aside from maybe, the, some of those ingredients, how are you incorporating and kind of telling that story and enriching uh, those meals through that kind of history?

Speaker 2: 24:13

Yeah. So you know, uh, I would say probably about four years ago, with the, with this project started 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 a couple reasons. Really, through the covid years, uh, it really helped me figure out, hey, like, what is grit? Like like what are you gonna do to get through this? Like what's gonna be like the punch in the face you're gonna take, but keep moving. And I don't think, if there wasn't covid, I don't think that I would have had the strength to do it, because I saw the determination in my mom and dad's eyes when they said you know, I remember my mom grabbing my hand. I'm like, mom, I don't think I'm going to do this. It's so dumb, like nothing's working. She grabs my hand. She says your father and I've been through war, I've seen family died, I've been through a prison camp and this too shall pass. Honey, we've been through so much and we made it. You will be able to do this. And it wasn't like, oh yeah, so strong, you can do it.

Speaker 2: 25:08

No, no, no, it was me who, my mom, is this petite little like barely five feet tall. You know, mom, grandma, and she had the strength of a lion and it was like can I glean some of that? You know, that's what I mean when I say it's a love letter for my mom. Yeah, that's why I'm I'm able to sit on these benches, that I'm here and you see these, the wall, the plaster, everything here is because they said hey, look, we, we, you know, we made it through here, and what I did was I'm like I'm gonna borrow a little bit of that from you to keep going, because at the end of the day, when it was really hard, and when we were down um, um, we were down money, and you know, we couldn't figure out what the next steps were when, when we were in that position, I mean, one of the big things that 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 you about what we've been through, let me tell you about what happened with us, you know. And when I heard that, it was like oh, wow, like, this is amazing, this is something where I found myself, you know, driven to it, going hey, like, I want more of that, and that's what the testament of this place is.

Speaker 2: 26:20

You know, I tell people it comes from them, it comes from and I think that a lot of people are really 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 letter with you know from your mom and dad. And I tell people, if you come into this restaurant and it's our architect literally took that letter and broke it down like three or four different pieces, and if you come to this restaurant, if there's three pieces in this restaurant that like that is drawn from that letter 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's made out of um, of cinder blocks. And it's funny because a lot of people come in and, from a design standpoint, a lot of people, oh man, like texturally, like that's so cool, it's like very like you took the cinderblocks. And it's funny because a lot of people come in and, from a design standpoint, a lot of people go oh man, like texturally, like that's so cool, it's like very like you took the cinderblocks and you built out this piece and but I did that, we did that, the architects, you know, who worked with us, our team did that because, um, growing up, my father, uh, all we had was these broken cinderblocks in the back of the house and he turned it into this little grill and that's where I was, where he taught me how to grill, you know, and and and that around that grill was kind of I didn't know this, but like 30 years ago, you know, was kind of like this thing that made me very passionate about cooking over fire, not because it was some kind of trend, but because it was. It was the way that I could stand by my father and the way that he just tended to that fire. And so there's this area that has a cinder block and it takes up a big chunk of the middle and from a logistical slash, business standpoint, it probably takes up two or three extra table space that we could still use to make money off, to be completely honest. But this piece is so incredible because when my mom came in the first time, she saw it. She's like, hey, that's what she grew to, without even telling her.

Speaker 2: 28:12

The trestle on top made out of wood. It looks like the ceilings in the old refugee homes that we grew up with. There's this wall. On the wall has this shelf and all the shelf has all these old pictures from the refugee camp. You know, pictures of us as kids in the refugee camp. You know, on the back of the wall there there is these tiles that have this texture on it and the texture literally looks like the siding on the walls of the buildings. That are, you know, the little huts and homes that we grew up in the refugee camp. That are, you know, the little huts and homes that we grew up in in the refugee camp.

Speaker 2: 28:45

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, uh kind of a vessel, you know, and and he created and then he remade the stock and barrel and it's one of some of the first Hmong flint black powder rifle and it's one of the very first one where my father and my family, actually, when we opened the restaurant, they bought it as a gift for the restaurant and it's what we used to hunt with, you know, and when, when the french came in and asked the monk people to fight with the french in the 50s during, uh, the war, when the communists were 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, basically they're little muskets and you can still technically use that and put it. You know, you gotta, you gotta know what you're doing. Uh, one of my buddies took a turkey hunting and shot a turkey with it. Yeah, you know, but it's again, it's, it's right there.

Speaker 2: 29:49

You know, um, uh, the, the, the wood exposure. We use a lot of wood because my father uh, his first job in America, when he came here, when we lived down in Pennsylvania, he was, he was a carpenter and he built. You know, dad, dad didn't know how to read or write, but he can look at a table, reverse engineer in his head with a little string. He'll measure it out with a string and then he can rebuild it for you. That's, dad, you know his hands, you know is what he uses. And so so these pieces, they were all part of this letter I wrote, you know how I wrote, how, you know, like dad, like, that's where I learned how to grill. And you know like. You know, like, like, like mom, like it was. You know, you taught me how to love courageously and ferociously. You know Um, and so we. So a lot of that is reflected in our vision, mission, values and goals of our restaurant.

Speaker 2: 30:39

Um, uh, our, our foundational values are three words moving forward together, and we have this foundational value line where it says moving for always moving forward together. As a company, we're always saying we're always moving forward together. Anytime I feel stuck or stressed, I ask myself well, okay, what we're doing here? Is it moving us forward together? Well, that came from my father talking to me going. I'm like dad, how'd you escape Laos? He said you. Well, I had a compass. I was trained in the military so I knew direction a little bit. I had a compass and I know that we need to go south. So I pointed south and the whole village just followed me and I had my rifle and I had my machete and I was just and they followed me into the jungle and for months and months we walked through the jungle.

Speaker 2: 31:19

But I always knew that and he explained this to me and this is before we created our foundational values. He said I knew that we always had to keep moving, like you couldn't stop, because if you stop, the enemy found you. And how did we have to move? We had to move forward. You can't go backwards because you have to keep moving forward. Sometimes it was a few inches, sometimes a few miles, and then he would say then the next thing you did was we had to move forward together. And there were some people that said I can't go anymore, so they would stop. But for the greater of the group, sometimes you had to leave people behind because some people just gave up.

Speaker 2: 31:50

And that now is our foundational values to our company Always moving forward together. That's how he brought his people out, that's how he brought his family out of Laos and that's how they got to V9, the refugee camp. And so that is out of Laos and that's how they got to V9, the refugee camp, you know, and so that 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 you know you have companies, you, you work for companies, you have companies there are some people that are like, hey, man, I'm just gonna sit here, I'm not going, and it's like you know what we would love for you to go with us.

Speaker 2: 32:23

But if you're not part of what we're trying to do here, we're gonna have to keep moving forward. And it's not that I'm against you. I think you're a bad person not at at all. At first, that's what I always thought, but it's like no, no, no, for the greater of the of the value of what we're trying to do here. And so, yeah, so that's what I mean when I say it's a love letter to mom and dad, or every little 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 all from the restaurant. That's the easy stuff. But there's these little nuances into the you know, into what we, we're doing here, all these little things that's happening where, if you come in and you're like, oh, that's a cool design, you see a cool design. But if you're curious enough and say, well, I want to know why it's like that, we'll sit here 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 those ways and continue to to share that with all the people who come through. Um, you know it there's, I guess, like it was something that I kind of thought about too, like I know that among people there was was the word called mia.

Speaker 1: 33:29

It was like at one point it was a derogatory thing, it was the sons of the soil right and like it's something that you and and some people would look at that in in a negative light, but you, you took that in something that's like, you wear that with pride and and I'd love for you to kind of talk a little bit about that and you know how you relate to, to that and that's something that that you, you know, 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, our people can be traced to what is now known as Southern China of uh, the yangtze river, the yellow river. That's where our there's, like this beautiful, fertile basin, um uh. Anthropologists, archaeologists, they have found this that the northern kingdom, northern at that time china wasn't china. Like we didn't have the problem, this is china. It was just land right, land right, yeah, and so. So that's like when I explained that people are like so you guys chinese are like no, because you have Chinese are like no, because you have to understand. Like China wasn't China, like there was no boundaries. Like this is Russia. It was like no, this is just land.

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 government said this is the line for Montana, it was just land Right. Government said this is the line for Montana, it was just land right. And so the Northern Kingdoms got together and said the two Northern Kingdoms said the Southern Kingdom is going to outgrow us. So then they fought, they came united together, the Northern Kingdoms united together and took out the Southern Kingdom and then took the Southern Kingdom and said now you become our slaves and those are the Hmong people. So even the Hmong last name, we have 18 last names, or they call the clans the 18 clan. They gave us our names because it was a way of population control, because it's like Va or Vang, right, the Hmong iteration is Va, vang. My last name, va, means like a valley, or or, or, or, or a garden, va, you know it's the garden. So that I could conjecture that my people, our clan, lived in a very fertile soil garden area and that's why they were called Xiong or Xiong. Xiong is bamboo, it means bamboo. So they probably lived in an area where there was a lot of bamboo. So does that make sense? So that's how they kind of labeled uh, different, uh uh 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.

Speaker 2: 36:05

And so, in, in doing this, the, the chinese gave the mung people this name, called meow, you know, which literally translates to sprouts, which the reason why it's called meow is uh, sons of the soil, like they're always outside, they're toiling. Because if you were rich and you, you, you, you were high esteem, you lived in the house, and the lower class people are the ones working the field, and I, 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 the people that work for us. You know, and some of the Chinese people called our people the meow people, were known as the 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, blah, blah, like just, you know lowly, you know farm hands, or whatever you want to call it. But I don't believe in that. I believe that our people are agricultural people and regardless of where we went, regardless how tough the land is, and they're like. That's why we lived in the mountains of Laos, because the lowlanders didn't want us. So it's like, but we found a way. The Hmong people were some of the first people in history to learn how to cultivate rice in the mountains, because they had to do that. They're doing so well that the Chinese actually came to them and says can you come to the lowlands and teach us how to do that? You know? And so when I think of sons of the soil, I think of this idea of grit, hard work and grit, no matter how much, how hard the land is, no matter how much they're going to tell us, hey, it's not going to work, why would you? The soil sucks there. Whatever, our people will find a way.

Speaker 2: 37:51

I look at america as when we first came to america, as this is the new land. So go work the land, go work the field. And one of the things, george, I've learned is that this isn't just a monk story, right, this is a human story, dude. 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 my parents came to this country, we brought in this country, it was we just worked, we worked and dad instilled in us what it meant to work. And then there's these beautiful moments where you can enjoy and you can be with family. Here's a monk kid, born in a refugee camp in Thailand, living in Minnesota, and he's now in Oklahoma talking to a dude who's a noodler out there noodling catfish. But this guy gets it too, because he's like well, that's my grandparents' story, that's the hustle they went through, you know, and I get that. So it's like this human connection, right, and so that's what I love doing. And I think it's like this human connection, right, sure, and so that's what I love doing. And I think it's what we love doing with monk food.

Speaker 2: 38:56

When, when, when, when we have our you know, our Norwegian, swiss brothers and sisters, our white brothers and sisters that come and eat here and they're like, and especially the older folks, they're like, I don't know, I was, you know, I'm like hey, at your house you eat, you, you have some kind of starch, 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, sometimes they're stewed, sometimes they're stir fried, sometimes they're grilled, and then we also have a sauce, some kind of hot sauce. It's, you know, it's lube, you know it's gonna help, you know, bring everything down. The moment people see that, they're like oh, I get it, yeah, it's not too different.

Speaker 2: 39:44

There's actually commonality. That's why we say that food is universal language. We use to speak to each other, you know, and but we might season it different, we might grill it different, we might have a little different technique, but that, those little differences, that's actually the cool nuances where we learn a little bit about each other, and so so that's what I love about, you know, when people, sometimes people look at our history and they go well, you know, we were lowlanders, we were, I mean, we were Highlanders, we were in the mountain people, we were dirty, we were in the mountain people, we were dirty. Yeah, dude, I wear that as a badge of pride. Man, like we weren't, statistically, we weren't supposed to make it Statistically, we weren't supposed to amount to much, but because of our fathers and forefathers, our mothers and our foremothers and the sacrifices they made, they gave us an opportunity.

Speaker 1: 40:30

Don't waste this opportunity. Well, and they, like your parents, even told you like opportunity is going to come, and like be blessed in that. And like, even when the chips were down and it looked like you were ready to give up, they were like, look, we've come here, we want to see our children succeed.

Speaker 1: 40:42

And you know, like the idea you were talking about, like your dad now sitting around with all of his grandchildren, yeah being able like that, is that not the definition of success, of being able to see those future generations thrive and continue to, you know, merge with other cultures and share their histories? And you know, with with that, when you were talking about, like your sister recording your dad, you know, I used to travel around the world and interview indigenous elders with a guy from a guy named Harvey Arden who worked with National Geographic, and our goal was to try to sit down with the elders, preserve their stories for future generations in a digital form, which was, you know, before there wasn't much, you could have it on old audio tapes or reels but being able to have something that we could record and 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 those for the future seven generations, as as we kind of viewed it Right.

Speaker 1: 41:36

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 idea that you want to maybe have this work with those elders and share that. Is there any kind of thing? I know you're you're doing this with the food and the culture, but is there? Is there a movement there to maybe kind of share a little bit more of the story with with people and kind of help preserve that? Because you know, I think that's such an important thing and you know, maybe I'm just not aware of of that in a mainstay. But I was curious is do you see that there's things where people are talking to elders and you 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 stuff to do these projects and recording these projects and stuff like that. But you know what I really would love to do? I would really love to bring non-mung producers, filmmakers, in on it, because I really learned that, especially within our own community, we're so like, and you get this man you know, being a production guy, you can get so tight into your own community and everything so you see anything through a very like guided lens and you're like, okay, we got to do this, because this is kind of, but I love bringing different cultures, different people from different backgrounds and listening in and there's all these perspectives. That's why the architect firm that put together this piece it wasn't a Hmong architect firm, it was a Christian dean. They're incredible. But you know what they're really good at? They're good at seeing different perspectives from what I'm so used to.

Speaker 2: 43:12

I'm a 40-year-old dude. I'm in this culture, this is my culture, this is my people. I'm so the problem too. The matter, the truth is, I'm in, I'm in my own way sometimes because it's like, oh, okay, I want to get into this, I'm going to get into the story and being so, doing it that way, you forget all these little things. So then we had Christian D and their 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 refugee house that you guys grew up in. I think we have a tile that I've worked for, that you know I worked with. That looks like that. What if we put that tile in the back? And the moment they did that, I'm like I would have never known that.

Speaker 2: 43:53

Right, my father taught me this and 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 you go out to the world, you're going to learn so many new ideas, so many great new ideas. Glean from it, learn from it and bring it back to your people. It wasn't like, hey, just speak Hmong, 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 need the our future generation, our kids, to go and learn the world. Dad always said this is no longer our world. Your mom and I, this is not our world anymore. We left our world. This is your world, and, and dad had this thing where he was super humble and I learned so much from him. When dad said um, when we came to 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 talking about a fucking war hero. You're talking about a guy who commanded troops. You're talking about a guy who stood alongside some of the biggest Hmong officials and fought in a war. You're talking about a guy who worked side by side with the CIA, right, and for him to look at his children and say you're smarter than me and I am the people and you're this teacher. Now, please teach me. We're going to learn from you.

Speaker 2: 45:07

I was a kid. I was like cool dad, can I go play now? But now, as an adult myself, like a 40 year old dude who's like man, like, by the time, my dad was like 25. He lived four lifetimes already. You know, I just thought to myself yeah, like this is, I owe it to them, I gotta come back and and so that's why, uh, for for me, that's why it's super important. This whole thing is super important and again, like I said, I always come back is the vessel I'm good at is food. That stuff makes sense to me and and so I'm not, uh, so, so, yeah, so that kind of drives me really a lot.

Speaker 2: 45:43

You know, and and as I think about my parents and and the things they do, and you know, um, even these stories that they have, and you know so, when we're done with my mom or my dad, actually my mom, uh, we're gonna do my mom also. You know, actually my mom, we're going to do my mom also. You know, so, my sister was like my sister was like hey, like I, you know I was going to get mom's story. I'm like that's awesome, like let's, let's do that, and so we're putting together and again, I love to bring all these different people from different walks inside of you.

Speaker 2: 46:12

You know, um, my mom says I live for the day that our sons and daughters cannot, cannot just only be leaders in our community but leaders in the world, and that's really big where she she says that she has this little like um mom, like like mom, mom prayer group at church and they said our biggest prayer of these mom, moms and grandmas from all around the country, all around the world, that they do like a, like, a, like a FaceTime. You know, prayer group. They have a little like prayer meeting once a week and they said our biggest prayer as moms, grandmothers, daughters, is that our sons and daughters will become leaders in our world, not just in our community, and it was. It's if you see these 70, 80 year old, um uh, uh grandmas who a bunch of them have been to the restaurant because they would come in and they're like you know your mom puts you on prayer requests for us and we always been praying really hard that God will bless you. You know 80 year old grandmas that I've never met before, that aunties that come in and they're like we, we, you know she shows us your pictures and every time, you know, anywhere your show comes up, she puts it on youtube for us to watch. You know, and it's super adorable to know that there's these people out there that are saying, like, son, we're putting our you know, we put our hope in the things that our sons and daughters are doing.

Speaker 2: 47:30

One of the most incredible things, george, was a few months ago. There was a Hmong elder that my dad and my mom brought in for dinner and they sat at the big table and I found out dad was talking to him and I found out he comes up and he was one of the original founders of the refugee camp Vinay. He was one of the guys who helped founded that camp. He was also one of the guys who helped name the camp Vinay. Vinay translated means virtue or virtuous. The reason they wanted to name Vinay Vinay the original name is Ban Vinay. Ban just means village of. You know, ban Vina was they wanted this idea that this village was a place for refugees to come in, people that are broken from home, lost family, and instead of virtuous, they saw it as the word in integrity, you know. They saw it as this word of, of honor. They wanted this place to be called, uh, the village of honor, the village of virtue, the village of integrity where people can redeem and reclaim that lost spirit. That's why they named v9. V9. I didn't, we didn't know that when we, when we, opened this restaurant we didn't know that until that dinner

Speaker 2: 48:56

until that dinner. Yeah, whoa, all I knew was v9 meant virtuous. So I'm like, oh, that's cool. Yeah, you know, it's like happy place. You know, uh, and even my parents didn't really know that until that, until the elder explained that to me and he said that that that was the reason why we named that. A small group of us decided to name it that because we wanted it to be a symbol, a beacon, where people can come in, lost out from the cold, and come in and restore a little piece of themselves, without knowing that that is a vision mission. That was in the goals of our restaurant, without even knowing that. Does that make sense? This is one of those really serendipitous moments. I'm like wait, wait, wait. We didn't know that because we, four years ago, the idea was to create a place where community is number one and good food happens to be the byproduct of it.

Speaker 2: 49:47

That was the conduit right, yes, I didn't meet this gentleman, this elder, and, and he at the end he was, like you know, in his late eighties, and he shakes my hand and he hugs me and he said, you know, son, it's very good to see our sons and daughters doing amazing things in this world. And I mean, I'm talking about a dude that was like 50 some years ago, you know, with another bunch of people and say, hey, look, we have this little plot of land, Can we use this as and? Now he gets to eat. And then this is no pat on our back, like like, please hear me on this, this is not me going. Look, you did a great job, I don't give a turd about that. This is us saying we get to keep carrying the torch that was lit a long time ago.

Speaker 2: 50:30

And so he's sitting in this restaurant and he looks around and he says, you know, cause we've been very blessed, like, we're always booked out like five or six weeks ahead, right, and, and it, and and and. He's like there's so many people here. And he's like these people don't look like us. So it was a lot of like, I'll be honest, there's a lot of white people here, and he's just like this is, you know, to me he's like in these old eyes. He said these old eyes have seen such a glorious thing and he just saw all the monk food that was coming out to all the tables.

Speaker 2: 50:56

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 that we didn't like I, we didn't expect this, so. So when people go, hey, what's next? I'm like I have no idea, I don't, but we're going to keep following the path. We're going to keep following the way that, what you know, the pathway that was set up for us. You know, we're going to keep following. You know that these are the pathfinders, these are the ones who paved the way, and I'm merely the dude that gets to 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 know exactly everything, it pans out and it's. It's those moments, man, I can only imagine what that must've been like for you and for your folks to be sitting there and hearing that. I mean, what a huge you know epiphany of sorts, and also like, yeah, I'm right where I'm supposed to be and we're doing the thing we're supposed to be doing.

Speaker 2: 51:50

One of the most beautiful thing was, like you know, they had the big table, so there's like 12 of them and my and my dad and the, the, the home elder. He, he was the moment out there. He was a, a former high ranking officer in the in the um, in the sgu, the special guerrilla unit, that's where you know the paramilitary troop, uh, monk fighters were. He was a pretty high out there. My dad would always say he's more mid-level. He, my dad, was like dad's like. He's like a, like equivalent to like a lieutenant. He was like I was more like middle management. You know, like I got bosses that yelled at me and I had to go tell the young guys. So so he's like I'm middle management. That's what dad said. And it was so incredible to see these two old war fighters right Sitting beside each other eating a pork chop, eating sticky rice together, and they're sitting beside each other and they're just talking. And to me I'm like it reminds me so much of the movie Band of Brothers or the TV show when you have these like, where we're're like. I saw this moment where dad and this elder, these old war fighters that were telling old stories, and dad had his photos up. There are photos of my dad up with him being a young soldier, and he's standing with all these guys 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 lion mine 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 of laos and in 2024, you know, 2025, they're sitting at a table in northeast minneapolis eating this dinner, surrounded by like a hundred and you know, ish, people eating in this crowded little restaurant and and I and I, just I just thought to myself like man, this is so cool, like you know, for me, um, to be able to see that and for me to be able to to do it, I, I kind of had this scene. I'm kind of very like.

Speaker 2: 53:40

I love movies, movies, especially war movies. I'm a dude. I guess it's just like these two old samurais. We have no more battles to fight. They fought royally for their shogun, they fought for the emperor, they did their battles and they're wounded and they're scarred, but they get to be the very few that are blessed to be old and see their grandchildren and their dad's got a great grandchild you know what I'm saying. Like they got to see that and a lot of their dudes didn't make it out. A lot of their dudes died young. A lot of stuff happened to a lot of the dudes and I just see them with their like their sword where it's like. It's like it's like melted together, where it's like they're never going to have to draw their swords again. They're just sitting there and they're telling stories and they're about the battles they fought and the freedom that they get to live in.

Speaker 2: 54:29

Dude, I don't care, man. Like you don't have to be mung to understand that Right, that's why I like for me, like I don't care where all the political stuff is. But when, when I see troops or soldiers coming home like my brother's a military guy, he was in the military, went over to iraq and when I see these guys, I'm like, yeah, man, hall of duty, you, you go in, you do what you do. You don't get to make the decision of this. Like this is the right thing, the wrong thing. Like you know some people who do that I'm like no man. Like I learned that freedom isn't free. You might might not have paid for it, but somebody paid for it, and I'm constantly reminded of that.

Speaker 2: 55:05

And when that moment, I saw those two old war fighters standing sitting by each other just eating, and and you know, what's really interesting about my parents is when they come to the restaurant my aunt too. She's so sweet. She'll like come up to the pass and she'll help, like try to like serve, and I'm like, sit down, we have servers and and, and what's really cool about that is just because it's in their nature to always constantly serve, right, that's what they know. And so my aunt will come up and show, sometimes like a little sweet, before I'm like what are you doing? Don't do that. Like I'm like I'm paying some dude to do that. Okay, stop taking this job, you know.

Speaker 2: 55:38

And they sit down and I remember the first time we had our soft opening and my parents were here with all their friends, they freaked in a way. They freaked out because they didn't know. They're like wait. They're like people are bringing food to us. Like what do we do? Like you know, this is the moment we actually go, get up and make sure everyone's water is filled and right, and for the first time they didn't have to do that. Somebody did that for them and so 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.

Speaker 2: 56:04

Um, our servers, you know they're like dude, wait what? And you know, um, you know I, um, I got a chance to meet my I. I just called her, my great aunt. 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 my great uncle and I'm like, really, he's like you were named after my brother.

Speaker 2: 56:32

My brother was killed during the war. He died as a, as a boy, and my dad really missed him. And when you were born, your father who my dad, was very close to my dad your father came up to him and said, hey, please name him. And so you're named after my brother because my dad wanted a life for my brother but he died. And I just want you to know again, I never knew that she came in and had it and that changed me, dude, it changed me, and that was like about four months ago, like, no, yeah, four months ago.

Speaker 2: 57:11

That changed me a lot, knowing that your life is not your own and that that, like her dad, you know, my great uncle said hey, I, I want to give you my son's name because I hope that, whatever and you know you're a kid, so you get this like, like, I hope that whatever ambition I have for my son, even though he died as a boy, it will be passed to you and and even if he hasn't, he, even if he doesn't get that life, I hope that your life, in a way, um, becomes something where you know, because her dad's passed a while ago and he's like, so there was that hope that our son's name will be carried on.

Speaker 2: 57:57

Man, I don't know, dude, that people go oh man, how's it feel to be nominated for Jane Green? I'm like that means nothing to me, compared to the people that have been coming into the restaurant, sitting down and says because of Vinay, another story about Vinay. A few months ago we were on the New York Times Best 50 USA and my mom I bless my parents, dude like my mom and dad, like they're, they're, they're like dorky grandparents who like don't understand pop culture or the world, current world, whatever. So my mom kept telling her friends at church like, oh yeah, there's a nice new newspaper at New York that thinks like, yeah, you guys, restaurants really nice and I'm nice and I'm like it's adorable to me right. Yeah, yeah, it's the new york times. It's like this is like a little newspaper, you know but she's yeah, she's as happy.

Speaker 2: 58:46

She's as happy as if, like the northeast, like light tower newsletter here, says we're the best restaurant, she's as excited as that. Or the new york times, right, and that's. That's the genuine authenticity of mom, right, and one of her friends, who's a very highly educated, uh, professional woman, said the new york times is like kind of a big deal, you know, to my mom. And my mom called me I'm so, I apologize. And she kept saying I'm so sorry, I'm really dumb, I don't know these things. And I'm like mom, it's, you know. I'm saying bro, like, I'm like, it's okay. And my mother said you know, I need to tell you a story when, when we were in veni, I was uh, I wasn't in good shape, I wasn't in, my heart was really broken.

Speaker 2: 59:27

I was very depressed and every morning I would wake up in the morning I pray to god that god would let me die, like, why didn't he let me die out in the field with my family? Some of my family was killed and I'm like, I'm like it was so poor, it was, I was so, I was so, we were so hungry, we were in prison camps and when we got to VNI, I was just very depressed. And when we left, when we left VNI, I never wanted to hear that name again Cause they just brought back pain, my heart. And she said I never wanted to hear that name again. And she said that in the last few months, when people come to me at church or people come to me and they're so proud of veni, the restaurant, and now to hear that this newspaper that the world gets to see, they get to see the word veni. Um, when I think of veni, I don't think of sorrow and pain anymore, I think of hope. And she's like you changed that name 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. But to hear your own mother come back, the person who gave you life, the person who gave up everything, for you to say you've changed me, a 77-year-old, and for her to be humble enough to say my own life has changed, and all this stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:00:41

Because you know, at the end of the day, george, we start a fire and we cook chicken and pork on it. You know, we braise vegetables, we have carrots and turnips and we make hot sauce and we make sticky rice and we put it in front of people, you know. But really, if that's what it's about, then we miss the whole point. We miss the whole point Because it's more than that and that's what we get excited about when we talk about v9. Like people, if you, if people want to come here and they just want to critique the food and they want to critique the service, sure, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 1:01:11

At the end of the day, we're a restaurant and we, we have to be accountable to that. Sure, but if you want to come here and be a little bit curious and understand what's going on and just get a glimpse and be like like almost like a fly on the wall to understand some of these stories, it's going to take a little bit of effort and those who who desire to have that little effort, they leave. They leave a little bit more uh, filled right, just more than food and and um, and so that's why we say that we first start with the community here, our staff, we build our community. So then that then trickles down to the community of the diners and the guests, and then when the guests leave and our diners leave, maybe they go back and knock on their neighbor's door and say look, I had this great experience in this community. I want to share that community with you. So can you come over to my house for dinner? They don't have to necessarily bring them here to V9. Because something's sparked inside of them.

Speaker 2: 1:02:06

I want to get to know my neighbors more. I want to get to know my Latino neighbors. I want to get to know my Somalian neighbors. I want to get to know my East African neighbors. I want to get to know my white neighbors. As a Somalian diner, you know, get to know my white neighbors as a Somalian diner, you know. Because there's a sense of community that can be brought around food, and I want to share a little bit of our food, because in our food is a little bit of a story of our people and our family. That is the quote, unquote secret of VNI. That is what we're striving for, and good food happens to be the byproduct of it.

Speaker 1: 1:02:41

Wow, man, thank you so much for sharing those stories and kind of enlightening to so much of the, the spirit of your restaurant and all that came to um.

Speaker 1: 1:02:55

You know, I, I, I know we're kind of coming in on a close. I, I, I think we've really set the stage there for people to understand and I, I, you know, I'll have you kind of give you know, uh, you know, the location where people can come in and see this and experience this in their own. But I also want to make sure I let listeners know a little bit about feral Um, and so if we can just spend maybe a few minutes, we'll just talk about you know what it is in and of itself, and I mean we could talk on that for an hour or two as well. But I would love for I feel like I'd be amiss if I didn't you know, at least have you share a little bit about that and how that came about and what kind of the goals are there and and maybe how that connects with all the other things you're doing, if you won't mind.

Speaker 2: 1:03:36

So, yeah, so, uh, man, a few years ago a producer came up to me and said hey, I have an idea, it's kind of out there, but there's a show I want to do. It's called Feral. Basically, what we're going to do is we're going to travel the country, find invasive animals or animals that are destructive to the ecosystem, or animals that 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 it, kill it and then we're gonna grill it and then we're gonna eat together with the guide. And I was like, oh, it sounds awesome. You know what it also sounds. So long, it's not even funny. Where I'm like, dude, that's called a saturday with my uncles, you know like what. We're gonna go out there and there's, like you know, squirrels, sure, whatever you know, or, oh, you know, or eclonics, okay, whatever you know, and so, and so I'm like, yeah, let's do it. Uh, uh, uh, outdoor pickup, you know, picked it up and then we started filming and it was cool. We get to travel across the country, meet a bunch of different people from different walks of life. Uh, one of the greatest things is that a lot of them have never heard of among people you know, from uh the everglades to the grand tetons, to uh central texas, uh you to all around, even Minnesota, going up to Northern Minnesota, wisconsin, illinois, everywhere you know. And so what we did was I loved it because it wasn't just a hunting show right, that's kind of the, that's the canvas for it. It was actually. It was actually a show about uh connecting over uh hunting and food.

Speaker 2: 1:05:09

And what was incredible was when I met with a lot of these guys, a lot of these hunters, a lot of them talked about preservation, about, you know, land preservation. A lot of them focused on this idea that hey, this, this is like we went pheasant hunting once, and pheasant's not necessarily invasive, but we wanted to feature what it means to really take care of these prairie lands and why this is important. When you start digging into that, it's all about how can we do our part now so that the next generation has something for them. That's Hmong, that's totally in our mung philosophy. What does one generation have to sacrifice or preserve that the next generation that can take, and then they preserve or sacrifice so next year, any hunter knows why it's very important to have land that's not touching, not developed on. Any hunter knows this is good land to hunt.

Speaker 2: 1:06:01

Hunting is actually hunting outdoors, fishing, whatever you want to call it, even like, just say, going out and camping and cooking outside. There's something elemental within our human souls that rejuvenates and revives, and that's when we do that. You know, it's so much to the point that people are so willing to go out to the outdoors that they're saying we're going to create these great vehicles that are basically hotels on wheel and park it in the middle of nowhere and still, in a way, have a little luxury but feel like we're in the outdoors. And that's what I love about being outdoors, that's what I love about hunting. That's what I love about, even like ice fishing, as much as people, whatever man, the silence on the ice. You have a grill going, you have these little holes with tip-ups in it, you know, and it's just you in a brisk wind, you know, and maybe a few Bratsenburgers on the grill, you know. So that's incredible. There's just something about our soul that quiets our soul, which I love, and that is so mung and part of our philosophy and what we do in our culture, that it was like yeah, this makes complete sense. Now, some people, if you look at the show as a oh yeah, this is fun, like ha-ha, like what the heck? Like pythons, what? Sure, there's that entertaining part of that, but there's also this cultural side too where we get to talk about.

Speaker 2: 1:07:12

I got a chance to go honey guana with this gentleman down in Florida and when I was telling dad, hey, dad, we're going to go hunt iguanas, he goes oh my gosh, yeah, as a little boy, we hunt those all the time. Let me tell you how we cooked it. So I got to cook the same recipe. That was 60 years ago that dad would cook in the mountains of Laos in Florida with this gentleman with iguana, because it was the same thing that they did. How cool is that? Right, like my dad didn't have an old baseball glove to pass to me, you know, or he didn't have like a bat, or he didn't you know whatever, like where a lot of you know fathers have these things, or or a work boot that he passed down. But he had this recipe for iguanas and lizards that as a little boy, they would hunt with this little musket in the you know those little, you know black powder musket in the jungle, and they get it, they bring it home and this is how they would make it, and it turned into this little stew and they eat it with slow sticky rice and a little bit of rice. I got a chance to do that in florida. You know like that's so cool, right? Yeah, uh, and so that's why the show is incredible. You know, the show is so fun and you learn so much. You dive.

Speaker 2: 1:08:13

So I got a chance to go to taos pueblo where we were with the indigenous uh uh taos people and we were on ancestral land 150 000 acres of their land and we went out prairie, dog hunting and learning from the elders. And I got a chance to talk to the elders and the Hmong people and one of the elders looked at me and said you know what I've heard about your people. Your people and my people are very much alike, you know, and I'm like, yes, sir, and I'm like because we believe that you glean from the land. The Hmong philosophy is if, if you take care of the land, you protect the land, the land will take care of you and will protect you back. And I said that to the elder from the tribal elder and he said we believe that too, son, and he says our people and your people. We align so much Again, an indigenous group in New Mexico and then a people group in the mountains of Laos, literally, literally across the world, and I have the same vision of life, the same.

Speaker 2: 1:09:05

How incredible is that? And that's why that show is so cool and that's why we love um. You know, that's why I love that show man, it is phenomenal.

Speaker 1: 1:09:11

You just had season three air in the fall um I. I assume there's a season four coming down the pike, is that uh? Is there a production and that's about that at the moment. That's me on my pay grade, fair enough.

Speaker 2: 1:09:23

I told you I'm a cook dude. I just whenever I get the call from the producers that's above my pay grade. I love it. Another show we do for PBS here is called Relish, where it's more kind of local-based. Here in Minnesota I get to go to all these different cooks' and chefs' houses and learn dishes from them. But all walks of life, from all cultures, and that one's like really, really fun learning regional food from, like the iron ranges in northern minnesota. You know making pasties and potica and all that stuff which is like very, you know, hungarian, ukrainian style from all the way from there to, you know, to different like, like a, like a cambodian family. You know making a cambodian egg rolls and stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:10:03

So we get to do that show too, which is called Relish, which is really really, really fun. We're like season just finished, season five, filming on that, and so, yeah, man, everything that we get to do it's about using food as that universal language, and I love doing that because one of the things we get to do is that we get to kind of draw people into the restaurants where people get excited and say, hey, we want to come. You know, we actually even have a few people who were fans of Pharaoh that are from out of town, you know, colorado, or oh. I was in Texas and I saw this and I saw you guys have a restaurant here and they ended up here, you know, and so that's really, really cool. We got a chance to hang out with the meat eater guys out. Now, you know, um, and got you into a podcast where we're now and those guys and you know some of those guys that have they hunt around this area or around the Wisconsin area.

Speaker 2: 1:10:45

So some of them have called you know, uh, like, um, you know, or, or, or, when they have conventions 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.

Speaker 2: 1:10:54

You know, we were down at Farrell, we shot with Broken Arrow Ranch in Central Texas there and with those guys, and we actually get the wild boar from them that we use at the restaurant to make our monk sausage, which the wild boar is the closest to the original wild hogs that were used in the mountains of Laos to make some of the first monk sausage up there. And so, in honor my father, we use the wild boar here which is in, you know, from central texas and you're a texas boy, you know all about wild boars um, and to make our monk sausage here, you know, and so that's like really cool, you know, like to be able to, to, to connect with all these different, uh, people on the show and still see how we reflect a little bit of them here at the restaurant. You know, we're looking into some of the wild game meats that we can be using here. What would it look like, you know, and so that's been really awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:11:49

Well, man, I'm so excited to kind of see what comes next and you know what spirit kind of provides in that it's incredible. I really appreciate you sharing everything you did today. And for those who are kind of wanting to follow the journey, uh, check out the restaurant, you know, check out Farrell and, and you know as as well as your other show you just mentioned as well, uh, relish where, where are some of the spots that people can go and kind of follow along on this journey?

Speaker 2: 1:12:13

Yeah, so relish, they put up all our streaming episodes on YouTube so you can just type in relish or my name or whatever, uh, and it's all up on there. And then, uh, actually, uh, um, my outdoor tvcom, you know the, the, the app, or you know the streaming network or for for outdoor, they actually have season 300 now too, so all the seasons on there, so you can go stream and all on there. Or you know they, just they. I mean they also do the rerun stuff on outdoor too, so you can go check it out on outdoor, uh.

Speaker 2: 1:12:40

And then, uh, yeah, we just say follow us on social media, uh, at v9mn that's no v9, the restaurant or at union monk kitchen, uh, and then, like my personal one is at yeovang70 and you know, and they're all kind of connected uh, and so you know, we promote different things that we're doing. Uh, we get to feature different dishes and then we put little stories up behind it and why we do it. And that's been really fun and getting people to understand the foods that we do, why we do the foods that we do, uh, so yeah, Well, I definitely suggest everyone check out the show notes.

Speaker 1: 1:13:12

We'll have all these links in below. Make sure you go, follow them and, 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 involved with, how is it that you hope that these can continue generationally to inspire this, the spirit of what your parents did by coming here and the sacrifices they made, and maybe some of those things that you're working on now?

Speaker 1: 1:13:45

How do you see that interconnectability and like, what is that that you? Is it something you think about on a day to day? Is it something that you know drives you, or is this something that's kind of like you can kind of look back and see, uh, as you kind of make these, you know, stepping stones in your life where these paths may lead, because, obviously, even just talking about the last few months, the things that you didn't know about the restaurant and about your, your name, and so I mean, there's things that are always, um, you know kind of, uh, these truths and the things that are unraveling in the story. But what is it that you think about in that idea of legacy, if you don't mind?

Speaker 2: 1:14:18

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 movie saving private ryan. Um, you know, it's been over 20 years, so spoiler alert, right, um, at the end you know where. You know the last scene.

Speaker 2: 1:14:33

You've seen it the last scene where, yeah, captain miller is dying and you know, private ryan is holding him and knowing that everybody died to be able to get him to come back, you know to his family and Miller kind of looks, you know, at Ryan and in his dying breath, you know Ryan pulled Miller in and Miller, you know who's played by Tom Hanks says earn this, earn this. And he whispers in his last breath. And then, you know, there's that great scene that then goes back to the, the first scene, and you realize that that, that, that, that that gentleman looking over that grave, that that grandfather was actually miller, or sorry, ryan, and it wasn't miller and he was looking at miller's grave and and and what does he do? He first he looks at his wife and says, honey, did I live a good life? And he sees his children, his grandkids, and and he goes, did I live a good life? And it's this moment where he just remembers the cost that his life came at, this cost of all these men who were done with their job, but they came because they had to come find him to get him home, that everyone died so that he could come home. And the question he had to ask himself as an old man coming back to Omaha Beach there, seeing his grave of you know, captain John Miller, and he has to ask himself did was I a good man? Did I live a good life? And and and I think about that scene a lot because I love it, it's one of my favorite scenes and I think about when I hear that I don't hear. I hear in, in, in, in the principle of the voice of Captain John Miller. I hear the voices of my grandfather who never made it to this country, who died in this war, my uncles who died in the war. I hear them going son, earn this. There are those who have gone before you that died, that only had a hope of what our people could be. I tell you this, to tell you that I don't think about legacy for me, but I think about their legacy.

Speaker 2: 1:16:26

About three, four years ago, I became an American citizen. I took my citizenship, became an American citizen. A friend of mine and it was all good intentions said to me yeah, I don't know, man, america's not in the best state, he's a white dude from America, he was born here and he's like why would you want to become an American citizen? Because I was like, because you were born a citizen here. It's a little different for you. You don't know what it's like to be not born a citizen and always feeling like an outsider, but today I have the ability to go through this process and become a citizen.

Speaker 2: 1:16:55

For the first time, I can say this is my home. Right, I'm not doing it because you can pat himself on the back and say, oh, I have a home now. No, no, I'm doing it for my grandpa, 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 go fishing with. All my friends had those stories and he died knowing that one day, fighting in this war, maybe my kids, my grandkids, will have a freedom into something better than dying on a freaking side of a mountain somewhere where nobody knew him. You know, though, they're the legacy, so I don't think about my legacy.

Speaker 2: 1:17:29

I I don't really. I guess in in a way, I kind of don't care. I mean, I care, but I don't care. You know, I'm saying yeah, yeah, but what I think about is it's like a ripple, right when you throw rock in the river and or water and there's a ripple. I'm nearly in one of those little ripples and I hope that I get to push far enough that I can entice another ripple, and then that ripple pushes another and gets another ripple and another ripple, because I know the sacrifices that were made to bring me here. I know the sacrifices that were done 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, so that I went to college. I had a four year degree. I graduated in high school, college.

Speaker 2: 1:18:07

I am light years ahead of some of my ancestors. Some are some of the people I am light years ahead. Not, that's not. That's all due respect to them. What am I going to do with that? How am I going to earn this? Not not like I had to go make it happen, no, no, like this was sacrificed for me. That's what I think about when I think about legacy. I think about their legacy and what I can do to entice, to encourage the next ripple, to encourage the next ripple. That's all we're trying to do and, honestly, man, if and if it's Lord willing for the next 40, 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 another different restaurant doing something else, let's do it. If it means that we get to do another different show that gets to highlight some of those echoes, some of those ripples, then let's do it.

Speaker 1: 1:19:16

I'm about that. You know, life was pretty simple for me. Mark Twain has a quote that says, um but two. Most important day in every person's life is the day they're born. They, they find out why, and for 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 the world. Man, you're an inspiration and I really really appreciate you, just as a human being, and all the wonderful things that you've produced and that we get to see that you've shared out there, and the ripples that you continue to expand and put out in the world. So thank you once again. Everyone, make sure you go check out the show notes below, check out these links, go check out Vinay and go and enjoy an incredible meal and see what we just spoke about and why this is such a beautiful and sacred place. And once again, man, thank you so much, looking forward to visiting you in person sometime. Thanks for having me, bro Cheers. Man, will you take care?