Cha gio in France
A Vietnamese couple's restaurant in Lille, France, attracts lots of French
customers
It was 12 o'clock, the peak time of
Dung-Thoai's restaurant at
Wazemmes open-air market in
Lille City. Buyers were queuing
up in the front and along a
two-meter glass window, waiting
for their turn. Inside, Dung, Thoai
and their daughter,
Marie-Therese, were handling
the
customers while bagging food and receiving money at the same time. In
the back, Jacques Bennavette, an assistant, was continuously turning
over his drainer containing cha gio (spring rolls), tom tam bot
(flour-covered shrimps), and chicken wings. The restaurant of Nguyen Thi
Dung, 45, and Nguyen Thoai, 49, is one of the few restaurants selling
Vietnamese food in Lille, a city which lies in northern France and almost
has no sunshine the whole year round.
Is it due to the cold weather that one of the locals' favorite dishes is cha
gio? Dung said, "They do like this kind of Vietnamese food but not every
style of spring rolls. The food must be made Western style."
Dung migrated to France 20 years ago. After marriage, the couple
Dung-Thoai opened a mobile shop selling Vietnamese-style fried food,
including the main dish, cha gio. "I drove my car pulling a bin containing
food for sale to every market, from Arras, Roubaix to Tourcoing," Thoai
recalled. Arras, Roubaix and Tourcoing are small cities adjacent to Lille.
Later, it finally came to their mind that cha gio, just like other exotic foods,
had to be made Western style if they were to sell it to the French.
Thanks
to this understanding, their restaurant has gradually drawn customers.
For
12 years now, they have stopped driving around to sell their food at
open-air markets in Lille and its proximity, but have done it in Wazemmes
only. They sell only on Sundays, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
The open-air market of Wazemmes meets three times a week - Tuesday,
Thursday and Sunday, also the most crowded day. People sell
everything at the market, from needles and thread to clothing and
cosmetics. All are sold at relatively low prices.
According to Dung, many citizens of this sunshine-lacking city just wait till
Sunday to go to Wazemmes and eat her food because they have
become her habitu‚s. Right in front of her restaurant, there is a Chinese
restaurant which also sells cha gio but it is far less busy than hers.
Dung's cha gio fall into two kinds: the bigger ones cost 1 euro each while
the smaller ones sell for 0.7 euros each. This is the fastest-sold dish. In
the peak time of that Sunday, for visitors, more than 200 big spring rolls
were served. Other dishes available at Dung's restaurant include cha ca
(fried grilled fish), selling for 0.5 euros each; canh ga chien (fried chicken
wings): 2 euros; and tom tam bot chien (fried floury shrimp): 0.7 euros.
All
of them are fried at home and are warmed when sold at the market.
There is also one dish which is not fried, that is, goi cuon (rolls of meat
and vegetables) which sells for 1.4 euros/roll. It is the food that Saigonese
women often eat along sidewalks or at Ben Thanh Market. But in Lille, it
has a very poetic name: "rouleau de printemps" - rolls of spring.
By Ngoc Tran - The Saigon Times Weekly - June 22, 2002.
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