From the very beginning, I’ve struggled with the concept of authenticity. The word holds a strange kind of power. Something either is or isn’t authentic. Real or fake. Tradition or imposter. It can make people feel proud, but it can also make people feel small.
I think that feeling is universal. Most people, at some point, have felt not good enough. Not productive enough. Not successful enough. Not enough for the room they’re standing in.
When Vit Beo first opened, I wasn’t prepared for how emotionally complicated that word would become for me. Authenticity feels especially rigid in the world of ethnic food. People are often far more comfortable deciding what is or isn’t authentic when it comes to someone else’s culture.
I knew early on that I didn’t want to do exactly what everyone else was doing. I wanted Vit Beo to feel personal. But it took a long trip to Vietnam for me to understand why.
I’m different.
I’m not a local. I’m not a refugee. I’m not even fully ethnically Vietnamese. I’m Viet Kieu — foreign Vietnamese. Somewhere between places. And the more I reflected on that, the more I realized that pretending otherwise would feel far more inauthentic to me.
What I learned on that trip is that I don’t need to have lived every hardship to understand its weight. I don’t know what it’s like to flee from home. I don’t know what it’s like to survive war or occupation. But I was raised close enough to feel the gravity of those experiences in the way my family cooked, worried, sacrificed, adapted, and cared for each other.
That understanding changed the way I think about Vietnamese culture and, in turn, Vietnamese food.
Vietnamese history is filled with adaptation. Influence. Survival. Reinvention. The food itself reflects that reality. It has always evolved through movement, trade, colonization, migration, scarcity, resilience, and joy. Change was never separate from the story.
In Vietnamese culture, we don’t always say “I love you” directly. We say things like:
“Have you eaten yet?”
“Message me when you get home.”
“Be careful on the road.”
Love often shows up as care, labour, worry, feeding people, and quietly carrying burdens for one another.
I think about that a lot when I think about hospitality.
Vit Beo was never meant to preserve Vietnamese culture in amber. It was meant to honestly reflect my relationship to it — shaped by family, memory, Toronto, contradiction, and adaptation.
Maybe authenticity was never about staying unchanged.
Maybe it’s about being honest about where you stand in the story.
What does it mean to you?
By David Huynh
Quán Bánh Xèo 46A in Ho Chi Minh City
A must-visit for visitors looking for more than a bowl of pho. This place is a super busy roadside spot with rows and rows of tables. These ladies make bánh xèo non-stop all day long.
Pongour Waterfall, Da Lat
My father has a picture of himself standing at this waterfall at the age of 23 with his long biker hair. Here I am, 40 years later, with my long hair at the same waterfall. I wish I could find the photo of my dad.
Hanoi Old Quarter Movie
I took this photo because it’s emblematic of history and life happening. The layers of paint, graffiti and never-ending electrical wires suggest an unending accumulation of generations and stories. The most compelling realization is that Vit Beo is the movie projection. It doesn’t cover the wall; it doesn’t change anything about the wall. It borrows the wall to tell a different story, and the wall and all of its details become a part of it.
Hmong Valley
The heavy mist of a relatively cold evening quietly gathers in the dark, but as the sun rises in the Hmong Valley, the mist lifts out of the valley slowly. The sounds of morning roosters call out as the sheer cover is pulled away over the endless terraces of rice paddies, right over the peaks of the mountains.
All in the Cake
I’m five years old. I’m delighted by the cake my dad sets down in front of me. My grandma is in the background just over his shoulder. She’s just as delighted. The family I have in Canada is big. The family that I have in Vietnam is also big. Delight!
Newly Everything
My parents met in Canada. Regina, Saskatchewan, to be exact. My sister and I were born in Regina. When my father fled Vietnam, he did so without the knowledge of his parents or siblings. A few days after I was born, my grandparents caught wind of my dad’s survival and reached out from Toronto. My parents packed their bags and moved from Regina to Toronto.
Calm waters,
Hoi An
At 6:30 am, these women are waiting for the boats to come in with their catch. They are seen here having coffee and breakfast and chatting with each other. In mere moments, this scene will erupt into absolute chaos. Each one of them will be vying for the best fish at the best price.
Fish frenzy
Chaos has erupted. Buying and selling, everyone is trying to get the most. Lots of yelling and haggling. There are deals made so quickly, it is almost imperceptible. A daily occurrence, yet for most, the day has barely begun.
Family frenzy
A different chaotic scene of trying to get our aunts and uncles to organize themselves for a Christmas game. Just as much yelling, with similar intensity to the fish market in Hoi An. Same Same But Different.