From trucks to pop-ups to restaurants, the city is full of new flavors.
Three cooks talk about the food they grew up with and how they’ve made it their own kind of authentic.
Restaurant: Bun Mee Owner: Denise Tran
Hails from: New Orleans, Louisiana and Vietnam
Dish: Sloppy Bun with Fried Egg
Denise Tran's Pacific Heights shop, Bun Mee, is named for the phonetic pronunciation of the Vietnamese banh mi sandwich. Her family immigrated from Vietnam when she was 2. Bun Mee's recipes are based on more than 100 variations she experimented with at home.
I opened this shop to create sandwiches inspired by banh mi—not to do what every mom-and-pop Vietnamese deli is doing. I grew up eating my mother's home cooking but also loving everything American. I went to a Catholic girls' school, and Sloppy Joes would always be on the menu on Tuesdays. There are certain things kids love, and Sloppies did it for me.
The Sloppy Bun is a mishmash of what I love to eat. It's a reflection of my heritage. We sauté ground beef with minced garlic and lemongrass and then add coconut milk and our house-made red curry. We spread garlic aioli on a baguette and add the beef curry topped with Thai basil and sliced chilies. I recommend it with a fried egg because the runny yolk mixes in with the meat.
We get a lot of heat for not being authentic, but I think food is fun and should be about expression. There are so many great ingredients out there that there's no reason to confine yourself to a box. Banh mi is a fusion of Vietnamese and French anyway, so really, I'm just doing what the Vietnamese did 100 years ago. A lot of people come in and say they've never had a banh mi, but now, maybe they'll go try them in the tenderloin. That's rewarding.