Mike Thelin, Author at Sunnyside Neighborhood Association

Getting to Know Your Neighbors

Q&A with the Vuong Family at Annam VL

Portland is home to many wonderful Vietnamese restaurants, but those owned by the Vuong and Luu family are probably the most well known—both in Portland and beyond. With two James Beard nominations (Best Chef NW: 2017, 2018 and—breaking news!—2024) and accolades in publications from Portland Monthly to Bon Appétit, this family of self-described “professional home cooks” has for 20 years established a devoted following at their two locations Ha VL (2738 SE 82nd Avenue) and Rose VL Deli (6424 SE Powell). In December, the family opened a third location, Annam VL (3336 SE Belmont), in the Sunnyside Neighborhood. We caught up with the family, the third generation of which is helping run the restaurants, in January to learn more.

Welcome to the neighborhood. Why did you choose the Sunnyside Neighborhood and Belmont Street?

Our original plan, which was heavily influenced by our mother, Christina Luu, was to open up the third VL restaurant in Beaverton. Unfortunately, the early times of COVID delayed many projects. With restaurants stabilized by early 2023, we began looking again. We wanted a more central Southeast Portland location and just happened to see a storefront for sale at the perfect time. We did restaurant renovations within about 30 days of receiving the keys—all with the help of our daughter and sons, extended family and significant others.

Tell us about your family’s culinary history in Portland restaurants. Also, what is signified by the “VL” in each of the restaurant names?

Ha VL was the first restaurant to open up in 2004 by our parents, William Vuong & Christina Luu, starting out as a Bánh Mì shop (Vietnamese sandwiches) and later evolved to feature súp (Vietnamese noodle soup). Our parents opened their second restaurant, Rose VL in 2015. The meals we serve are a reflection of our culture and the taste comes from the memories of our past. We like to call ourselves professional home cooks, as we mainly cook for our family and children. The VL initials are a representation of both surnames in the family, Vuong & Luu.

Your restaurants have been written about locally and nationally in major food publications. What do you feel sets them apart?

We limit our súp in batches to focus on quality over quantity. Each broth is simmered for hours, and delicately seasoned. With a rotating súp menu, no main ingredient is recycled to keep our standards up. We have a rotating menu to show that there is more than just Phở for Vietnamese súp. Our menu is a way to educate others about súp from all different regions of Vietnam. Our influences are from north and south Vietnam, and even the combination between the two different regions.

Tell us about the menu and what to expect each day?

Our rotating menu is influenced by different regions of Vietnam. These are all family recipes we have enjoyed at the dinner table. With Portland’s growing diversity, we are able to have access to more specialized ingredients in the last decade to help us cook and reminisce about our time back home. Our súp is heavily influenced by William’s Middle Vietnamese cooking style and Christina’s North Vietnamese cooking style. There are many other different regions, and even different family methods on the interpretation of traditional meals. There’s no right or wrong; it’s a matter of interpretation. What we bring to Annam VL is our presentation of our family’s súp, continuing to showcase traditional Vietnamese cuisine outside of the familiar.

How is business so far, and how has the neighborhood responded?

We are extremely grateful for the kindness, hospitality, and love from the Belmont neighborhood. During renovation we had our doors propped open for the small social gatherings, conversations, and shared meals we had from locals and neighboring stores. From the property management, restaurants, tea shop, grocery store, bars, and much more, we are just overwhelmed with the support we have received. There is a true feel to the Belmont neighborhood that makes it feel like a community. The benefit of being able to converse with our guests and receive feedback helps our business. Annam VL did not anticipate such a crowd during the first few months of opening.

Do you have any plans for future restaurants in Portland, and are there other neighborhoods that you believe would be good for a restaurant?

As parents, we can only desire that our restaurant follows tradition and is passed down to future generations. While it’s exciting to think of new locations, we are focusing on the quality service we can provide and community building. Our schedule is currently full.

What are your favorite restaurants in Portland?

Our family has always loved visiting local restaurants of all cuisines—including food carts! We love our next door neighbors at Straight From New York Pizza for the quick bites. We really enjoyed the innovation and food done by Peter Cho & Sun Young over at Han Oak (511 NE 24th Ave). Our family treasures would be Jin Jin Deli (8220 SE Harrison) with our favorite items being bánh bột Chiên (fried dough cake), cơm chiên cá mặn (salty fish fried rice), and Hủ Tiếu sa tế bò (beef satay noodles). While we haven’t had the chance to visit many of the new Vietnamese restaurants that are opening throughout Portland, it’s inspiring to see how much Portland has progressed to have these local businesses.

Getting to Know Your Neighbors

Q&A with Louis Pearl and Jetty Swart

How did an accomplished accordian player and singer from the Netherlands and “the Amazing Bubbleman” from San Francisco meet and find their way to Portland? Jetty Swart (her stage name is Jet Black Pearl) and Louis Pearl (who your kids may know simply as The Bubbleman) are a creative power couple who have lived in Sunnyside since 2014. We talked to them about how they met, what they love about Portland, and how one becomes a bubbleman.

Where did you meet?

Jetty: We met in 2009 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I had a friend who was performing there and I went to visit her.

Louis: I was performing there. I had lunch at a little terrace outside and I had just done two shows in a very hot theater. I was hungry and tired and there were no empty tables. There were three women sitting at a table for four, and I said, “Is anybody sitting in that seat?”

Jetty: I said, “I don’t see anybody, do you?” My friend started selling her show to Louis, but instead we all ended up going to his show the next day.

Louis: And I selected Jetty out of the audience and put her in a bubble…and now we’re married.

How did you choose Portland?

Louis: We got married and Jetty came to my house in Sebastopol. And I loved my house. I had two acres, a redwood forest in the backyard, and a hot tub in the forest. But Jetty was from the Netherlands. She’s a European city dweller.

Jetty: Yeah, I want to go on my bike to a store.

Louis: She said, I’ll move to America to live with you, but I’m not ready to retire. So we decided to sell my house and move closer to San Francisco. And here we are, because once you start looking in San Francisco, it’s crazy. We looked for 18 months and made 13 offers – all over the asking price. We finally got an offer accepted on a house in Oakland, but I found out there’d been two shootings there in the last year, so I just nixed it. And we came to Portland.

But why Portland?

Jetty: I had been to Portland a couple of times. Do you remember Myspace? One day, this accordion guy wrote me a message: Hey, if you’re ever in the United States, come to Portland and visit me. And so I did. Every time I’d visit Louis in San Francisco, I would come to Portland because I liked it. I thought: this is a good town—lots of music going on.

Louis: I love it. It’s taken me ten years, but I really love it here. Jetty got me into riding bikes a lot. I always rode a bike, but living with a Dutch person—I’d say I’m going to the gym and I’d get in the car and she’d go, “You’re driving to the gym?” It makes no sense. So now I ride my bike. During the pandemic, I couldn’t go to the gym, so I would just ride up to the top of Mount Tabor—it’s a haven. I love that park on top of the mountain.

Jetty: And the houses. I love the houses—all the Craftsmans with all the colors. And the Goodfoot. And then the neighbors we got to know during the pandemic, because we would do shows.

Louis: Jetty was doing little lawncerts here on our front lawn. People would close the street and we’d bring chairs and tables and bottles of wine. We have a neighbor who is a world-class jazz pianist (Gordon Lee, a Q&A subject in Nov. 2020), who was doing concerts on his front porch. The same people would come, so that’s how we got to know a lot of people… Normally, I’m touring all the time, but during the pandemic we were just here. We went back to our roots and started busking. We’d go out on 28th and Ankeny and she’d play music and I’d make bubbles and put the hat out.

How has the American audience received your music, Jetty?

Jetty: In the beginning, I’d mostly play the French standards. That’s not what I did in France, but I thought it would be more accessible for people here because my original songs were in French and there’s nothing as annoying as playing a funny song in front of people who don’t laugh. So I fell back on the repertoire that people imagine when they think of French music, and people liked it. Then I started writing in English and I got a whole new repertoire eventually.

Louis, how does one become a professional bubbleman? Did you apprentice with someone? Are you self-taught?

Louis: I was a toy inventor. I made this toy—I had this bubble pipe in 1980 that made bubbles like that [extends hands wide]. Back then there weren’t big bubbles. I couldn’t sell the toy to any shops, so I went to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and I just started blowing bubbles. And people loved them.

How many people in the world have your job?

Louis: At my level, there’s only a couple. But now there’s thousands of people doing bubble shows. When I first started, there were maybe three.

When you say at your level, you mean able to be fully self-supporting through bubble income?

Louis: Oh, there’s a lot of people who are self-supporting through bubble income. But doing theater shows…

Packing theaters?

Louis: Packing theaters, yeah. Only a couple.

Devin Boone is a writer and reporter living in Sunnyside. She recently launched her own Substack, The Portland Stack, which tells stories about housing, the homelessness crisis, public safety, and the social contract. Her first story, about why it’s taking so long to get people housed, has the feel of a Chutes and Ladders game (as the housing process sometimes feels like a Chutes and Ladders game)—with beautiful illustrations by artist Ian Patrick. You can find it at portlandstack.substack.com.