Compass Travel Vietnam
The American chef “falls in love” with Vietnamese food and works hard every day to create new flavors
Heavily devoted to the cuisine of his wife’s hometown, Mr. Chad Kubanoff still enjoys and creates authentic Vietnamese dishes every day.
The love for Vietnamese food has helped the American groom, Mr. Chad Kubanoff, to own a TikTok channel with more than 500,000 followers with more than 17 million likes and that number has never stopped. Daily experiences with Vietnamese food, cooking Vietnamese food, and creating dishes in Vietnam – all of which make the American chef more and more followed and interested.
A brief conversation when it was already winter. The wind is starting to get chilly and Mr. Chad is enjoying his days, eating his wife’s favorite dishes, and taking his children to local eateries in search of his favorite cuisine. prefer.
The very sincere and friendly sharing of the American groom made us feel so proud of how Vietnamese cuisine “germinated” in the hearts of children from foreign lands.
Photo: NVCC
Have a good relationship with Vietnam and meet the “destiny” of life thanks to Vietnamese food
Hi Chad Kubanoff, what brought you to Vietnam?
“In the past, I was fortunate to taste some Vietnamese dishes in the US, which immediately aroused my interest and interest in Vietnamese food. After watching the TV show. picture of Anthony Bourdains, I knew I wanted to go to Vietnam one day.
I came to Vietnam for the first time in 2008 to work as a chef at . On this first trip, I also worked as a musician and opened a Food tour company, and introduced Saigon street food with my wife. We returned to the US in 2013 and opened a Vietnamese restaurant in Philadelphia. Recently, at the end of 2022, we returned to Vietnam to let our children visit their grandmother’s house.”
Photo: NVCC
During the day as a professional chef, at night he roams the alleys in Ho Chi Minh City to enjoy delicious and unique dishes of this land. The desire to constantly learn has helped him from a chef imbued with French culinary style to a guy who travels by motorbike from Saigon to Hanoi to enjoy food from all over the world.
Back in Ho Chi Minh City, he was able to confidently run culinary tours in this prosperous place. It was also during those years of experience that he met and fell in love with a Vietnamese girl and now has 3 beautiful children.
At first, how did you feel about Vietnamese food? Is the cuisine here different from your hometown?
“Tasting Vietnamese food for the first time, I was excited because all the flavors and textures of the food were new to me. The overall freshness and bright flavors made it stand out more than any other. nothing else I’ve tried before. The cuisine of my home country and other parts of the US is generally based on a fusion of different cultures, but in general it tends to be bread-based ( wheat) and “heavier” than Vietnamese cuisine”.
Photo: NVCC
People often prefer to eat than to cook, but when traveling to Vietnam, do you prefer to cook? Can you share a little bit about this?
“Cooking and working with food is something I’ve always been attracted to. I like the pressure and the difficulty of cooking in a professional setting, every day is different and you have to constantly improvise with new challenges. challenges happen in the present time.I like creativity and constantly learning in cooking.
Unlike other fields, with cooking you can constantly create something new every day. A building can take years to plan and build, a painting or sculpture can take months or years.
In cooking, I can create a new dish in an hour but it can also take a lifetime to make a dish “perfect”.
As a chef, of course I love to eat too, probably more than most people. Every time I eat something, it’s like going to school. When I taste something new, I learn about different flavors, textures, and techniques. When I taste something I’ve eaten before, I can see the subtleties that one chef has done differently from another and broaden my knowledge. Every meal makes me a better chef.”
Surely, the videos he shared about cooking Vietnamese dishes such as Banh Khot, bitter melon with meat, braised meat with eggs or beef noodle soup, … and diligently learning how to pronounce the dish correctly made many people very interested.
Chad Kubanoff is delighted with the roll cake
“No one bath in the same river twice”
There is a saying that: “Nobody bathes twice in the same river” and Chad Kubanoff also finds new flavors of dishes through this way. He is always trying new things, finding subtleties in the flavors of his dishes.
What’s your favorite Vietnamese food recipe, can you share it?
“When I cook for myself, I never repeat what I’ve tried before. I always change recipes so I can’t say I have a favorite recipe. Usually, my favorite Vietnamese style of eating. I’m the water dishes, with Bun Bo Hue being my favorite.
I love water dishes because when you eat them you need to be very focused on them. They’re filled with contrasting textures, they require 2 handles for chopsticks and a spoon, they require you to lean forward and stay close to your bowl, and they have a “limited time” because you want to eat while you’re still alive. hot. It’s hard to get distracted when you’re eating a big bowl of vermicelli, pho or noodle soup. I think it was a very enjoyable dining experience.”
Photo: NVCC
Not fancy, nor fussy about decorating a beautiful or luxurious cooking corner, Mr. Chad immerses himself in the idyllic lifestyle of his wife’s hometown, cooking dishes with all the passion he has.
The videos he posts on the social network TikTok show that what he focuses on is only the dishes and their final taste.
Photo: NVCC
Besides Vietnamese food, have you tried any other country’s cuisine?
I love to cook and eat food of every country. Each dish is unique and delicious. When it comes to cooking, I tend to draw from every cuisine/dish I’ve learned to make something new.
Did you cherish anything related to Vietnamese cuisine while living here?
I appreciate what I have learned. Spending so much time here eating and learning has completely changed the way I think about food and made me a better chef. No matter what I cook, now I always add a little “Vietnamese” – add herbs, or pickles or to make the dish fresher and lighter.
Chad Kubanoff talks with his mother-in-law very affectionately
Having had 3 cute children for himself, in this repatriation, Mr. Chad plans to stay for a long time so that the children can have more time to visit their grandparents. Along with that, he continues his journey to discover more delicious dishes and improve his chef talent.
In 2013, Mr. Chad returned to the US to open a restaurant called “Same Same” specializing in Vietnamese street food. Understanding the difficulties in running the brand and his unfinished process of discovering flavors, Mr. Chad temporarily put everything aside and learned how to promote on social networking platforms like recently. this.
Many users showed great interest in Chad Kubanoff’s simple and intimate way of filming, as well as the very natural way of interacting on social networking platforms.
Hopefully, in the future, Mr. Chad will go further on the culinary path that he is pursuing as well as all his projects on Vietnamese cuisine will be successful as expected.
Again, thank you Chad for this chat!
The American chef “falls in love” with Vietnamese food and works hard every day to create new flavors
vinlove.
Source: vinlove
