Malada Wongsamant explains the process as Viengkham Phanmanivong fries up an egg to top what they call a “Vietnamese pork chop” in the nearly complete kitchen of their new restaurant.
The two women have been friends for nearly twenty years. They work together seamlessly, the outgoing Wongsamant fast-talking, while the more reserved Phanmanivong laughs. Their cheerful bantering matches the sunny orange paint and sparkling wall hangings of their restaurant located next to the Subway in the downtown Bethel business complex.
The small but bright interior of Bethel Pho-Thai Restaurant is filled with pictures of the restaurant’s dishes and large potted plants. The sounds of the two joking blend with the smells of cilantro, peanut, and hot curry. Their menu includes Thai dishes like pad thai and tom yum kai, as well as Vietnamese food like pho tai and pho bo vien.
Back in Anchorage, both women independently owned restaurants. However, both restaurants ended up closing. Wongsamant explains, running a restaurant on your own is hard.
“You have to pay for gas, you have to pay for this, for that… It’s too much. But now I’ve got a big help. She’s a one hundred percent help. That’s why I said, ‘okay, if you do this then we do it together’,” says Wongsamant.
Wongsamant moved to Bethel with her family for a job as a chef at the hospital. About a year ago, Phanmanivong started thinking about trying to start up a restaurant again.
“In Bethel, a lot of people here make food and it’s good food for them, but they don’t have a Thai restaurant here. So we try to open like that,” Phanmanivong says.
She approached Wongsamant a month before her planned opening date and asked if she’d be interested in joining as partners. Wongsamant, seeing an opportunity to start up a new restaurant with her good friend, jumped at the opportunity.
Both Phanmanivong and Wongsamant became refugees from Laos after it became a communist state. They came to the US within eight years of each other.
Phanmanivong came to Anchorage in 1988 to live with her cousin. A friend in the town taught her how to cook Vietnamese food, a skill she used to support herself.
Wongsamant and her family moved to Anchorage in 1981 to live with her aunt and uncle, who helped her parents run a restaurant. Wongsamant’s mother was Thai, so she learned to make Thai food from her family and friends to help support her parents and five siblings.
“It was only me that worked in the kitchen. My sister, she works at the bank. My brother, he works at the hospital and one works at the police department in Anchorage. They all got good education, except me. But I tried my best to learn how to cook,” says Wongsamant.
Phanmanivong and Wongsamant met as young women when they worked for a company that prepared airline meals. They continued working together over the years, and worked well. Their friendship is the backbone of their business, says Wongsamant.
“When I opened my restaurant in Anchorage it seemed to be only her that came around. Normally friends, when you go to open a business, they will say okay I will come see you, but at the end you see only a couple that will come and support you,” says Wongsamant.
Now, in this new venture, they’ll be supporting each other. The restaurant provides the first Thai offerings in Bethel. They plan on opening later this month.