13
Years at Westgate
A Korean family kept the kitchen of a Vietnamese restaurant in Westgate. Then we kept cooking, the only way we know how. 13 years and 100,000 bowls later, we're still refining it.
In 2013, a Vietnamese restaurant opened at Westgate. Soon after, the original owner left. A Korean family kept the kitchen, and kept making Vietnamese food the way Korean hands make it.
There was no menu strategy. No "concept." Just a pho broth that needed to be made every morning, and the instincts of cooks who grew up with gochujang, doenjang, and the patience to layer flavour properly.
Vietnamese cinnamon went into the broth. Korean black pepper went in with it. The quiet fusion, before any chili was ever wok-fired.
Within a year, what people were ordering wasn't quite pho, and wasn't quite Korean. The regulars started bringing friends. We called it fusion because there isn't a better word.
13 years later, we're still here. Same family. Same recipes. Same pots, mostly. Most days we don't think of it as fusion. We just think of it as lunch.
The broth still gets made every morning. The wontons still get folded to order. The herbs still come from the supplier we've used for a decade.
What's changed: Alphonse, who grew up at the wok and the pho pot, runs it now. The menu has grown. Online orders go through Mobi2Go. What hasn't changed: the same recipes, cooked by the same family, by people who still care whether you liked it.
We don't combine cuisines for novelty. We combine them because the chemistry asks for it. Here's what that looks like on a Tuesday lunch shift.
Bone broth, built every morning. Cinnamon, charred onion, fish sauce, black pepper. The Vietnamese foundation, with the one Korean addition that's been in the pot since 2013.
Pho gets ladled. Our spicy fusion gets wok-fired. Heat, oil, chili, seafood, broth, all in one pan, all hot at once. The chili goes into the wok, not on top of the bowl. It's the Korean way of building heat into a soup.
Vietnamese herbs land at the table: Thai basil, mint, lime, bean sprouts. The wok-fire comes from the Korean side of the pass. Two cuisines, one bowl, no compromise on either.
"Hospitality from 18, all the way through my engineering degree. Tried the engineering career after. Eventually came back. This was the work that actually fit."
The engineering brain didn't disappear when he traded clients for customers. It just runs the kitchen now. Why this broth at this temperature for these minutes. Why this chili in this oil for these seconds. Every dish on the menu is a system someone tested before it shipped.
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