PANO - There is no doubt that there exists, right in the centre of the Mozambican capital city of Maputo, a Vietnamese Pho (rice noodle soup with beef or chicken and several herbs and spices) restaurant.
The restaurant, named Vietnamta Bamboo, belongs to a Hanoian Nguyen Ngoc Bao who opened this restaurant not only to earn a living, but also to enable the overseas Vietnamese in the country to enjoy the traditional dish of Vietnam.
He confided that every morning, after enjoying a hot bowl of Pho and then a cup of brown tea, he feels even more homesick.
Like other Vietnamese expatriates in Mozambique, Bao wants to popularize Vietnamese cultural features among local people and foreign visitors to this African country. For him, the easiest way to realize his dream is through Pho, a specialty of Hanoi.
It is difficult to open a restaurant serving Vietnamese dishes in Mozambique because of the lack of required materials, herbs and spices. The only place he could find ingredients for his Pho is a Chinese food store. However, his Pho is still not 100% the same as the original in the home country.
Bao later decided to bring his wife to Mozambique to assist him to make Pho and other Vietnamese food. Besides, he asked Doctor Dinh Thi Hien, who had been assigned to the Maputo Central Hospital to help improve Mozambique’s health sector, to be a “special consultant”.
Apart from anaesthetizing local patients on operating tables in the hospital, Hien teamed up with Bao and his wife to attract customers to the Vietnamta Bamboo with Pho.
As a result, the restaurant not only attracts Vietnamese expatriates in Mozambique, but also others from the Republic of Korea, Japan and China.
In addition, its employees also wear red shirts with the yellow star, the symbol of the Vietnamese national flag. A Mozambican who works for the restaurant said that she loves Pho and other Vietnamese dishes.
According to Bao, the restaurant has become a good place in Maputo to introduce Vietnamese cuisine to international friends.
Translated by Van Hieu