Many moons ago, when life was all about hanging out with friends as soon as the workday wrapped, Elaine Phuong invited me to her home in Culver City to try her mother’s cooking. It was a dinner party, a taste test and a pop-up event all in one, with steaming bowls of pho, crispy fried egg rolls and more delivered to about a dozen guests gathered around the table.
The dishes we tried — each one seemingly more flavorful and delicious than the last — eventually became the culinary foundation of Nong Lá Vietnamese Cafe. Helmed by Elaine, her brother Victor, her uncle, Raymond Phan, and her mother, Khanh Phan, the family-owned restaurant debuted on Sawtelle Boulevard in 2012.
After immigrating from Vietnam in the early 1980s, Khanh settled in L.A.’s Chinatown. A small child then, Elaine remembers a home full of people — her and Victor and her mother, plus her mother’s parents and grandparents. Her mother worked a lot, so the older generations prepared meals using family recipes. But Khanh proved to be a quick student in the kitchen, one with excellent taste buds.
“She can taste a dish and know what the cook did,” Elaine told me one day over coffee. “Or, she’ll try a recipe and say, ‘Oh, I think this would be good with x, y or z.’”
Honoring her mother’s cooking through Nong Lá’s menu has always been the goal. This isn’t fusion, Elaine says, because that’s not what Khanh ever cooked. Instead, they keep things simple, transforming limited ingredients into different dishes. Take, for example, customer favorite pho ga, or chicken pho — an aromatic soup with rice noodles (which are delivered fresh daily from Monterey Park), white and green onions, cilantro and a side of additional fresh herbs. Chicken might also get stuffed into a French baguette with house mayo, pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro and jalapenos (from the Vietnamese sandwich known as banh mi), or it might be used as a primary ingredient in goi gai, a chicken and cabbage salad with white onions, peanuts, shallots, cilantro and Vietnamese coriander that’s topped with a fish sauce vinaigrette.
“These are classic Vietnamese dishes,” Elaine says. “They’re fresh and delicious; they’re comfort food.”
In the beginning, Khanh was in the Sawtelle kitchen daily, hovering over the soups and other dishes. When Elaine had her twin daughters — which was right after the second Nong Lá opened on La Brea Boulevard in 2015 — Khanh shifted into grandmother mode, caring for the kids and spending a bit less time in the restaurants. She’s still the matriarch, even though her time in the kitchen has been curtailed.
“Every time she sets foot in the door of one of the shops, she’s checking the soups,” Elaine says. “And someone in the front calls out, ‘Mama’s here!’”
A Culver City resident herself, Elaine is excited to bring her family’s recipes to the downtown Culver area. Slated to open this spring on the corner of Culver Boulevard and Irving Place, the third Nong Lá seats 42 people in an updated space that was once home to Santa Maria BBQ, Wise Sons Jewish Delicatessen and a Tex-Mex shop by Josef Centeno. To help ensure good energy around their own move-in, the Nong Lá team had a feng shui master assess the space.
“He said, ‘Something’s making too much noise for me, and you have to set it straight; I need you to redo the floors.’ And feng shui is one of those things — you can’t ask and not do.”
So, they ground away layers of flooring that had piled up over the years and added some auspicious red-orange design touches in the dining room. Photographed scenes of Vietnam adorn one wall, while others look out onto the street.
“It’s a simple, modern place,” Elaine says. “You can do a quick lunch or a long dinner or takeout — we’re good for that, too. And we’re dependable. We have good flavors and we’re here for you.”
Khanh Phan’s Pork Loaf
When Khanh Phan is cooking at home for her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughters, she tries to keep it simple and quick. This steamed pork loaf is an easy weeknight dish in her rotation. Serve with rice and a sauteed veggie of your choice.
Ingredients
1½ pounds ground pork
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon chicken bouillon
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
½ teaspoon corn starch
½ teaspoon pepper
½ white onion, finely chopped
½ teaspoon garlic, finely chopped
Mix all ingredients together well, then place in a glass pie dish (9 inches wide or so).
In a large pot, place a steamer rack and one inch of water.
Set the full pie dish on the rack, cover the pot and steam on medium heat for 30 minutes.
Remove from heat, cool for 5 minutes, then slice and serve.
