Last August, Restaurant Beatrice held it’s first Viet-Cajun dinner. It was more successful than chef Michelle Carpenter and co-owner Hanh Ho anticipated, selling out and generating more engagement on social media than the average post for the restaurant, Ho tells Eater Dallas. So, they’re bringing it back as a celebration of Lunar New Year, or Tết, on Sunday, January 29.
“[T]here were a number of guests who weren’t able to come the first time. We have a platform and Vietnamese-Americans deserve to experience their food in an elevated setting that celebrates their culture with respect, attention, and care,” Carpenter says in an email, adding that putting the menu together included a contentious effort to respect the origins of the ingredients. For example, Carpenter looked at the ways thịt kho, which appears on her menu for the evening as braised pork with soft-boiled eggs, manifests in different Asian cultures. “As a Japanese chef, I grew up eating buta kakuni,” she says. “Filipinos eat pork adobo. Taiwanese eat lu rou fan. Every Asian culture has a version of this Chinese dish.” Creating her version at Beatrice meant considering how the Japanese consider pork belly a “decadent, indulgent treat” while in Vietnamese dishes it is both a comfort food and a dish that can show up on holiday menus.
The idea for the first Viet-Cajun dinner came, in part, from the restaurant’s desire to work with Song Cai gin, which has the first gin distillery in Vietnam and can be found on the cocktail menus at numerous Michelin-recognized restaurants worldwide. The brand only broke into the Dallas market in the past few years. “As our distillery continues to work in partnerships with farmers and foragers in Vietnam, we strive to honor in equal parts the terroir, diversity, and peoples of Vietnam,” accounts manager for Song Cai Brennan Davis tells Eater Dallas. “In this regard, Beatrice is exactly the type of establishment, team, and vision we hold closely to the driving force behind our brand as well.” Song Cai is critically acclaimed and built with the idea of sustainability and diversity as the brand DNA. It runs parallel to what Restaurant Beatrice does, as demonstrated in its. designation as the first B-Corporation-certified restaurant in Texas.
Viet-Cajun menus are more popular in Houston and Louisiana than Dallas, and Beatrice intends to put its spin on the cuisine. “At Beatrice, we adopt a French-style serving format for the dinner, service à la russe, so courses are served in order for this dinner, whereas traditional Vietnamese food is served family style,” Carpenter says. “Many of these are dishes, like bò lá lốt and bánh xèo, that are found in Vietnamese mom-and-pop enclaves in Arlington or Carrollton, and we’ve respectfully married them with Western techniques and approaches.”
The tasting menu will be available for one night only, on Wednesday, January 29. The cost is $129 per person and reservations can be made online.
2025-01-23T14:41:13Z