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Even before they opened their food truck, Fil N ‘Viet, on the East Side at the end of March, married couple Kevin Truong (the Vietnamese-American) and Rosie Mina-Truong (the native Filipino) often sat around at home and the gastronomic similarities between theirs explain the respective family lines. “Lumpia, for example, are very similar to Vietnamese fried spring rolls,” says Truong. “We kept discovering these kinds of parallels and thought it would be fun to create new dishes that combine these flavors.”
After his job as a cook at Fairmont Austin was dropped during the pandemic, Truong decided to set up on his own and worked with his wife on the category mixing tariff they had experimented so many times in their own kitchen. Crunchy Sisig, the minced pork dish that Mina-Truong calls “Filipino Bar Food”, was paired with calamansi pate, fresh herbs, pickles, and an Easy Tiger Hoagie Roll for a banh mi that has become Fil N ‘Viet’s most popular offering . The spicy chicken adobo, the national dish of the Philippines, also gets the sandwich treatment – but with coconut milk and wild mushroom tofu instead of poultry.
As Truong quickly admits, “Vietnamese food has had its time, but Filipino food is still relatively unknown here.” In addition to their shared passion for the two kitchens, they see their caravan as an important bridge to the city’s gastronomic education. If more familiar ingredients like lemongrass, baguettes, and daikon radish can serve as a gateway to the diverse world of Filipino cuisine, that’s just the icing on the cake
Sundae. Or better yet, the tapioca pearls swirled around in the sago’t gulaman.
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