Giong Giong means the flavors of Vietnam and Guatemala are kinda ‘same-same’

Two chefs join forces for an unlikely but fitting fusion.

By MIKE SULA

Living in Vancouver in her mid-20s, Jeanette Tran-Dean was struck by the similarities between the food she grew up with and the food her Guatemalan friends ate. “I’d go over for their grandfather’s birthday party or something and they’d have, like, a tamale wrapped in a banana leaf,” she says. “I was like, ‘Vietnamese people wrap everything in banana leaves.’” Another friend’s mom regularly made the Central American-style quesadilla, which is a lot like a sweet, cheesy, rice-flour pound cake—and a lot like the Vietnamese cassava-coconut cake called banh khoai mi nuong.

“The Vietnamese love corn,” she says. “We have avocados. The countries have the same ingredients. They’re just so far apart that they don’t use them the same way. But I think if they were ever introduced it would make so much sense.”

It would take a pandemic to do it, but the two cuisines were finally introduced in November when Tran-Dean, who’s worked in fine dining kitchens all over the city (among them Grace, Oriole, and Smyth) put her head together with her friend David Hollinger, a pastry chef who works at Aya Pastry.

Hollinger grew up Guatemalan in Wausau, Wisconsin, before he moved to Chicago and started cooking in a broad array of Asian

Last Saturday they o cially launched Giong Giong, a three-weekend stand at the South Loop sandwich shop the Ruin Daily. Conveniently pronounced “yum yum,” with a finishing upward lilt, the expression is Vietnamese for “same-same,” as in sorta the same latitude, same climate, same ingredients, same flavors.

The showstopper on the focused eight-item menu is the banh bao, a sweet, pu y steamed dumpling “as big as a toddler’s head,” according to Tran-Dean, stuffed with Vietnamese pork-mushroom filling, herbaceous Guatemalan longanisa sausage, and a pickled quail egg. “It’s like several di erent experiences all in the same big package,” says Hollinger.

The chojín salad ri s on the citrusy, minty Guatemalan staple. “There’s tons of these cold radish-pork-based salads in Guatemala that you serve with crunchy things like tostadas,” says Hollinger. From its Vietnamese papaya salad analogue goi du du, they’ve taken fish sauce, shredded papaya, shrimp paste, and shrimp chips.

Tran-Dean and Hollinger, who frequently finish each other’s sentences, say it took them about five minutes to conceive their bruleed fusion of the Guatemalan quesadilla and banh khoai mi nuong, with a side of ice cream.