The heartiest course, bánh canh bột xắt, brought hand-cut rice noodles in a blue crab broth with crab cake, quail eggs, Vietnamese coriander, and green peppercorn—plus hand wipes and plastic gloves. Like nearly everything else on the menu, the noodles were made entirely from scratch. Thu’s team hand-cut roughly 65 kilos of noodles, one of many marathon prep sessions undertaken in pursuit of authenticity. “It was a labor of love,” she said.
The handcrafted details extended beyond the plate. The crystal-shaped paper lanterns casting a warm amber glow on each table had been made in Huế and shipped to New York, while a large screen flickered with footage the couple filmed from a recent research trip to Vietnam, learning from family artisans and sourcing speciality ingredients.
The lantern dessert at the end of the night, too, was born from that trip, where the couple lit lanterns on an evening boat ride on Huế’s Perfume River. “Since Huế is such a quiet city, there was something so soulful about watching them drift away,” Thu said. Taylor became inspired to recreate the feeling for the dinner, spending months prototyping illuminated lantern boxes while Thu refined the desserts they would carry.
Photo: Isa Zapata
