Regulars at Thanh Tam II, the hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese food joint on Valencia Street, know Johnny Le as the guy behind the register, or the one running up and down greeting customers seated at less than a dozen small tables often filled with locals. The register and ordering window splits the area between the tables and the kitchen.
Le’s definitely not in the kitchen. He doesn’t like to cook. His mom, the chef behind all the recipes, still works there a few times a week. When she’s not there, other cooks fill in.
“This is her place,” Le said emphatically. Nearby, a large photograph of his mother, who immigrated to Oakland in the 1980s, hangs on the wall.
Le’s favorite item on the menu is the fried rolls — “I ate that way too much,” he said.
Le first started working as a teenager at the original Thanh Tam in the Excelsior, which the family opened in 1992. Eleven years later, in 2003, they opened Thanh Tam II on Valencia Street. By about 2005, they had to make a choice — only one could remain open. They decided on Thanh Tam II, and it has worked out.
Le, now 36, has been on the job for more than 20 years, and he says it is demanding, but also something he can do on autopilot.
“It’s gotten to the point where I feel like a robot, because there’s no thinking involved. I can close my eyes. I turn my brain off. I can do everything I need to do in a day, without having to think,” he said as he sipped an iced Vietnamese coffee.
Vietnamese cuisine, he says, is a lot about contrast. Fried, oily rolls with leafy greens. Fatty grilled pork paired with tart, spicy sauce. The Bánh Xèo, he says, is a perfect embodiment of the contrast — a crispy crepe made of rice flour, filled with shrimp, pork and bean sprouts.
San Francisco residents are familiar with beef pho and bánh mi, and assume all will be alike, but everyone makes them differently, Le said, even just an hour away in San Jose.
At Thanh Tam II, he says, they are less concerned about “an authentic flavor from back home,” and more focused on “affordable, tasty food.”
The family struggled early on, and those memories inform their goal of offering affordable food, like a soothing bowl of noodle soup, or a hearty and filling pork sandwich.
Up until a few years ago, Le worked seven days a week with his mom, a scenario that required a ruthless separation of responsibilities. Otherwise, Le says, “we’ll talk over each other, or try to control each other.”
“It’s a love-hate relationship,” he said.
Unlike many of his peers, who drifted away from their parents as they grew up, Le has always been in close proximity.
The work has also prompted Le to reflect on his relationship with food. Disconnected from the food he served at first, Le said he “took for granted” the fact that he was able to experience a wide variety of food early on in life.
Nowadays, he has more of an appreciation for the nuances of each dish. Take the famous pho, for example. Despite its ubiquity, northern- and southern-style pho are cooked and served in distinct ways, with different noodles, broths and sides.
“I can either be really close to food and understand where it came from, or just gloss over it and not realize what it took to make a dish,” he said. “I guess it takes more time to appreciate certain things differently.”
My favorite place for hot and spicy soup