I've written this somewhere else before, but the next city over from where I live in Long Beach is called Westminster. It's the biggest Vietnamese community in the US and several blocks along Westminster Blvd. are referred to as Little Saigon. They have a parade for Tet every year. We've been enjoying pho and banh mi there for many years. The cuisine has spread all around SoCal now. There is also a Buddhist monastery here in Long Beach and I occasionally see monks around town in their orange robes, as well as a Buddhist temple in the next town over form where I work. It's beautiful and draws many from the faith to live nearby. North Long Beach also has the largest Cambodian population, in the US having fled the Khmer Rouge in the late 70's. Little Phnom Penh or Cambodiatown, as the neighborhood is called, has many great restaurants and a few years ago a friend of mine married a Cambodian woman and their wedding reception food was amazing!Reef monkey wrote:Anyone else have a restaurant near you that gives off a Magnum PI vibe, ie feels like it could be from Honolulu in the early 80s? Maybe a favorite Chinese or sushi restaurant? Houston has a very large Vietnamese population , the second largest in the country, I guess our hot steamy climate felt like home to the boat people who fled Vietnam in '75. There is a huge Vietnamese enclave that stretches for miles along Bellaire Boulevard in southwest Houston with lots of asian stores and restaurants, and Buddhist temples. It's called "New Chinatown" ("Old Chinatown" is just south of downtown Houston and is almost completely regentrified now), but it's really much more Vietnamese than Chinese. There are whole areas where the official street signs are in both English and Vietnamese, and there is a "Saigon Plaza", a statue dedicated to the soldiers of the ARVN (which looks eerily similar to the Three Soldiers statue at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC). The whole area feels Magnum-esque, reminds me of scenes where he's walking around Honolulu's Little Saigon looking for information, except a lot nicer. Plus the food there is fantastic, and most of the restaurants have a very Vietnamese atmosphere. Houstonians of all backgrounds have been eating pho and banh mi for a couple decades before these foods became trendy with hipsters nationwide.
I guess we never saw Magnum eating a banh mi sandwich or bowl or pho or bun (vermicelli bowl)?
Stay safe Reef Monkey