The 2023 James Beard Awards had a strong showing from Oregon this year — particularly from chefs and other creators of color in the Portland food scene. Winning the reality or competition visual media category was a video produced by All the Homies Network, a collective that documents the experience of six BIPOC food business owners in Portland. The network’s video of a restaurant takeover by Vietnamese food cart Matta at the Multnomah Whiskey Library beat out submissions from Top Chef and Bon Appetit to win the award.
Richard Văn Lê is the owner of Matta and a member of All the Homies Network. He joins us to talk about the win and what it could mean for the network’s future.
Note: The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Jenn Chávez: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Jenn Chávez, in this week for Dave Miller. The James Beard Awards had a strong showing from Oregon this year, particularly spotlighting the work of chefs and other creators of color in the Portland food scene. Winning the reality or competition visual media category was a video documenting a takeover of the Multnomah Whiskey Library by the Portland Vietnamese food cart Matta. It was produced by All The Homies Network, a YouTube channel documenting the experiences of Portland BIPOC food creators. Richard Văn Lê is a member of the All The Homies collective and the owner of Matta. Thank you so much for being here with us.
Richard Văn Lê: Thank you for having me.
Chávez: First of all, huge congratulations on the James Beard Award news. That’s amazing. So the winning video that I just mentioned spotlighted a restaurant takeover you did serving your food to folks at the Multnomah Whiskey Library. Can you start by telling us a bit more about what that event was, and how it came together?
Lê: Yeah, I have a really good friend named Kimiko. She is the marketing manager at the Whiskey Library. And when she first took on the role, she approached me with an idea of doing kitchen takeovers in the Whiskey Library because they wanted to help diversify and essentially do some more outreach into communities of color. When she initially approached me with this idea, I thought it was a really good idea because I felt like historically, the Whiskey Library was always deemed as a pompous white affluent kind of situation. And with her stepping into this role, she wanted to help bring some more color into the place, essentially. And so when she initially approached me, I told her it was a great idea. And then the next thing you know, she hits me up and goes, we got a green light and I want to have you in the line up. So when do you want to come take over? I was like, oh tight, we finally get to do this. Fire. So, yeah, that’s pretty much how the project took off. I’m very thankful to Kimiko for even offering me the opportunity. She’s always been a huge supporter of the brand and what we have going on.
When we got to do this takeover, it helped me put myself in a situation where I had to test my skill set of being a chef and figuring out if I could really plate my food and present it. I work in a food cart so to be able to have the food be presented in a way where it was more elegant [with] fine touches. It was a lot of fun.
Chávez: Yeah, I wanted to ask about that because you normally work in this food cart environment. I actually also used to work in a cart for a few years. So I know it’s this very particular kind of work space with particular needs for how things flow and work day to day. And it is probably very different for a multi course, sit down dinner. So how did you prepare for this event? How do you do prep for events like this?
Lê: Just for some context – prior to COVID, we used to actually plate all our food at the cart. So we would make it feel like a micro restaurant kind of feel. So it wasn’t too far from what I had been working towards, but just obviously due to COVID, everything went to take out containers. So I essentially disregarded that whole aspect of for a good while and so to be presented with this opportunity to be in the Whiskey Library and doing like a course meal was a lot of fun in the sense of I got to tap back into that side of myself that I essentially purged just because of COVID. To be able to do it in this manner – it was dope. That’s all I can really say.
In terms of like, prep for it, I mean, the nice thing about doing like a coursed out meal is that you essentially just prep everything beforehand aside from the things that need to be made onsite. But I did a braised pork belly dish - I braise everything beforehand. We picked all the herbs and picked all the greens before we got to the Whiskey Library. Most of the prep really gets done before we even arrived to the venue. You got two separate prep lists, the one that’s offsite and then you just handle all the offsite stuff. So everything from sauces to veg to braised things or whatever or parcook things.
And then you show up to the Whiskey Library and then you have the things that you make on the fly. So like searing a steak or finishing garnishes. The nice thing was that my business partner and I – I guess you could say that we were pretty good at managing our time in the situation where we figured out, “Oh, this is the major prep list of all the offsite stuff. Let’s handle all this first and then we’ll head over to the Whiskey Library and finish while we’re there.” And so for the most part, not too crazy in terms of preparation.
Chávez: Yeah. Honestly, I understand why this video won an award because watching it, I was really moved by hearing you talk about how the dishes you chose were inspired by some of the women in your family and your life. How have they and their recipes influenced you?
Lê: So the name itself is actually my mom’s saint name. When my mom passed away, it was put on her tombstone and that’s essentially when I figured out this could be the brand or the name of my brand. So already the business is built around this idea of paying homage to my mom. A lot of the dishes that we make on the cart or that I try to present in general are homages to my mom’s memory. So just with that, I have a precursor of understanding that without the women in my life, I wouldn’t be in this position that I am now.
On top of that I had two other great female role models in my life. One was my grandma. I grew up with her from like 8 to 10 years old. I lived with her. I definitely benefit from the fact that she would always make me these extravagant Vietnamese dinners. We’d have specific dishes that resonate with me that I always refer back to. If I miss my grandma I make this dish for myself and get tapped into that feeling again. And her oldest daughter - my auntie - she’s actually the one who taught me a lot, understanding using fish sauce and ginger and all those things post my mom passing away. I wasn’t really cooking Vietnamese food before my mom passed away. And then once my mom passed I didn’t really have a connection to my culture as much anymore, especially because my grandma had already passed away. So at this point, my only real resource was my auntie. So I tapped into my auntie a lot to figure out, ‘Oh, how do I use fish sauce for this dish?’ or ‘how do I use perilla, a specific type of herb that you use for certain dishes?’ She really helped me figure out all the intricacies and all the steps.
Having those three women in my life were essentially a foundation for what Matta is now.
Chávez: How does it feel to you to prepare and eat these foods that you grew up eating as a Vietnamese American kid? What does that bring up emotionally for you?
Lê: It just feels like I’m at home honestly. That’s the best way to put it. There’s a dish called Canh Chua, which is like a catfish spicy sour soup. It’s pretty quintessential and at least in my memory, my grandma still makes the best version of it. Any time I make it for myself, I think, ‘Oh, how does [grandma] make this?’ And then I just tap into that memory bank and see if I can try to recreate it to a certain degree. It’s obviously been a really long time since I’ve had [hers] but I definitely try to toy around with these recipes to make sure that I can get it as close as I can to like how my OGs made it before me. Having that as a base to work off of has been a lot of fun in terms of channeling my identity into the food.
Chávez: And not just eating this food, but how does it feel for you to share this with other folks who come into your cart or some of your restaurant takeovers or pop ups?
Lê: Sometimes it feels surreal, you know? I’ve been in Portland for five years now and when I first got here, there wasn’t a ton of representation in terms of Vietnamese food. For the most part, most restaurants only sold phở or banh mi. And then it wasn’t until a few years later that I learned that there were restaurants off 82nd that were doing restaurant style Vietnamese food. So it’s like stuff like that soup I talked about and braised pork belly. I didn’t find that until maybe my third or fourth year of living in Portland. But prior to that I felt like the representation, especially within the city, was just mainly phở and banh mi. And I wanted to make it a point to not serve those dishes. That way we could open up the dialogue over what Vietnamese food actually is as opposed to just the stereotypical stuff that’s kind of put in your face.
Chávez: Richard, I want to turn now to All The Homies Network which this video from your restaurant takeover is a part of. Tell me, how did you get involved with this network in the first place?
Lê: The director of All The Homies Network is Mike Truong, who I consider like a true visionary and strategist. He’s been working on getting a James Beard Award for 10 years. He’s been submitting videos for 10 years and it was upon the creation of All The Homies that was the thing that got him the award.
I met Mike, I want to say like two and a half years ago. He just dm’d me on Instagram and was like, ‘Hey, I want to come shoot a video of you.’ I’d already seen his work before through industry stuff, I see that he’s shot like a bunch of my friends in the industry. I thought he was just like coming up to shoot a one-minute video of me. I [thought], ‘Cool, we can just do a little highlight real, it’s pretty chill.’ And then he said, ‘I just want to come hang out and talk with you for a little bit to see what the vibe is.’
And so he pulled up to the cart and we hung out and talked for, I want to say 45 minutes about life. And I asked him questions about his upbringing because he’s born and raised in Portland. For me to meet a native Portlander is really cool because I get to learn about their experience of growing up in the city because I’m a transplant. So to learn about the Vietnamese American experience of living in a city like Portland is really interesting for me. So we vibe a lot [during] this conversation and then I would say maybe at the 40th minute or so, he says, ‘So the real reason why I wanted to come talk with you is not because I wanted to shoot a highlight reel of you, but I want to shoot like a feature film about you. And I [thought], what are you talking about, bro?’ And he [says], ‘I want to shoot a 90-minute documentary about you and your life.’ So it really threw me.
Mike and I met through this interaction and he’s been following me around with a camera for [around] two and a half years. And upon this relationship that we built we’ve met other people who are now part of the network. In my time that I’ve gotten to know Mike, I got to meet Ian Williams from Deadstock [Coffee] and we became really close, Kim Dam from Portland Cà Phê who actually makes the coffee for Matta. We already had a working relationship before that but then come to find out that Kim and Mike actually went to high school together and they had a rapport from high school.
The homies Ethan and Geri from Baon Kainan actually moved down here from Seattle and opened a food cart. Just for a little context, I went to Seattle and tried their food and they were just doing pop ups and I [asked], ‘What are you doing? Why are you just doing pop ups?You should really consider making this into a whole business. Portland is thirsty for Filipino food, so maybe think about it.’ And Ethan just said, ‘Ok!’ And then just moved out here, opened a cart, and started a whole business. Ethan and Geri Leong are also part of All the Homies. And then there’s Lisa Nguyen who owns HeyDay Doughnuts. She’s actually from San Jose where I’m from. It’s really cool that we had this connection of being from the same [town], even the same side of town.
So within the network, when we say it’s All the Homies, it’s literally all the homies. We all have rapport with each other to a certain degree. We all have become essentially a family. The creation of the network is based off who we really rock with on a regular basis. I see Ian at least twice a week and even with our crazy lives we still see each other. I see all the homies whenever we have a moment to catch up and hang out. Our collective has grown into having more than just the base talent. We initially started with five businesses, we now have a sixth and it’s called Sal*Vie Donuts. It’s a play off Salvadoran and Vietnamese. And so she’s doing Bánh Tiêu donuts in multiple flavors. She just started the business and it’s really cool, we’re excited to see where it takes off. She’s the sixth edition of another business into All the Homies.
Overall, as a collective, we have this really cool eclectic group of people. We have photographers that are part of the collective, and producers on set that help us get everything going. I think we have 12 people within the network. It’s pretty wild.
Chávez: Watching some of your videos, in general, I feel like this network is really expanding the boundaries of what food related content is. It’s not just reviews and recipes and how to’s, it’s about your lives and all of you as whole people, too. Why do you think having something with that broader scope is important?
Lê: The main goal for the network overall is representation. Portland has already been kind of deemed as a “white” city. And so to showcase we have a collective that’s literally all People of Color. Not to be biased, but we don’t have any white folks in our collective. We’re all just BIPOC folks who feel that if we’re going to really change the optics and the perspective of Portland, then as a collective, we should be doing that together.
A big part of it for us is just to push this idea that Portland is changing and we are part of the change. And I think it’s important that we recognize and acknowledge the fact that Portland, five years ago when I first got here, was very different than the Portland I live in now. My day to day interactions are mainly with People of Color now. And I think part of the whole thing within All the Homies is that we’re trying to exude this lifestyle that we found like our peoples and we want to keep building this community. And I think the overall goal for us is to prove that Portland is changing in a really dope and diverse way.
Chávez: What do you think winning a James Beard Award like this does for All the Homies Network?
Lê: If I’m being honest, leverage. We were in the same category as Top Chef and Bon Appétit, two huge names within reality food media. The fact that we won this award, I still get kind of emotional thinking about it. Mike and I have talked about this numerous times. It’s how All the Homies is really just about us living our lives and pushing out our lifestyles, it’s not even about really anything else but us being ourselves. And the fact that we won this award just being authentic showed a lot, not just to us as a collective, but to everyone that is a fan of All the Homies. Thinking about that and about how impactful that is not only for us presently, right now, but for the future.
You can chase dreams. You can believe that what you have is pure and unique. And if you really believe in it, you could win a James Beard Award. It’s kind of crazy.
Chávez: I want to go back to what you said, [that] you just won this award being authentic. Could you talk a little bit more about what you mean by that? Why is it important to you that that was how you were spotlighted?
Lê: [From] my own personal experience of being here in Portland, I was tokenized when I first got here. And [I want to] lean away from being tokenized. I was smart enough to address it early on and now I’m in a position where I’m inherently the person that I am through my identity and just through being Vietnamese American. I think that level of authenticity is found through a lot of introspective work. I did a lot of work internally to find myself. And I think the person that I am now is what 15-year-old me wanted to be. I’m very proud of this and being able to exude myself, to be authentic on camera and be myself, and then also to be appreciated for it. I’ve learned recently that I’m a words of affirmation person, to receive all the love and praise from just being myself has furthered my pursuit of continuing that level of authenticity.
Chávez: Richard Văn Lê, thank you so much for joining us and congratulations again on this award winning video.
Lê: Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for having me on.
Chávez: I’ve been speaking with Richard Văn Lê. He’s the owner of the Vietnamese food cart, Matta, in Portland and a member of All the Homies Network.
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