Chefs Nicole Routhier and Huy Hoang LE

COLONIAL

o one is happier to see American audiences becoming more adventurous eaters than Nicole Routhier. More than 30 years ago, when she moved from Vietnam to the States to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, she says Vietnamese food was a tough sell because people didn’t know what it was—even though it’s a cuisine rooted in traditions that date back centuries. Although we are familiar with banh mi and pho, Vietnamese cuisine is delicate and sophisticated, with a much larger repertoire.

When Routhier was asked to create Le Colonial’s first menu decades ago for its debut location in New York, she started with traditional Vietnamese classics and modernized them with French ingredients and beautiful presentations. Le Colonial’s fifth location opened in Delray Beach this past February, with several more cities in the pipeline.

Le Colonial’s menu respects tradition, Routhier says proudly, and avoids modern techniques like foam or sous vide.“At the end of the day it comes down to flavors. If you blend your flavors in harmony with each other, then you don’t need to wow people with some obscure technique,” Routhier says.

Tips

• Always have fresh herbs available.

• Buy a rice cooker.

• Freshness is everything. If you start with fresh ingredients, you’re 90 percent there.

When owners Joe King and Rick Wahlstedt, alongside Routhier, were looking for an executive chef to oversee the Delray outpost, they found the perfect match in Huy Hoang, a Vietnamese native who most recently ran the celebrated Katsuya brand’s concept at the SLS South Beach. His hometown of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) had been ruled by France for nearly 100 years, and thus its cuisine was heavily influenced by the colonists. Hoang says he grew up eating French food with Vietnamese flavors without even knowing certain dishes drew inspiration from the French. Historically meat was a luxury, so while the French wanted a steak and a starch, Vietnamese chefs interpreted the dish by slicing steak, cooking it on the wok and presenting it with a generous serving of greens and herbs to make the dish seem more abundant.

• Marinate meat first with fish sauce, garlic, lemongrass, shallots, Thai spice powder and sugar. Let it sit for 15 min. Slice the meat before it hits the wok.

Both Routhier and Hoang underscore the cuisine’s attention on fresh vegetables and herbs.

Chef Eric Baker ALLEYCAT

ne of Eric Baker’s first memories of Asian food was trying sushi with his parents when it hit New York City’s dining scene in the early ‘90s. So, although Asian food has been pervasive in our culture for decades, he says it’s the recent elevation of these cuisines into the realm of fine dining, alongside French and Italian gastronomy, that has shifted society’s perception and thus contributed to the increased demand for Asian restaurants, whether that’s Japanese, Korean, Thai or Indian.

“At the end of the day, what dictates American cuisine are the restaurants commanding a high price point, that are bringing in a high revenue,” Baker explains.“Now that those (Asian) cuisines are commanding a higher price point, that’s why they’re exploding all over the country.”

A testament to this is Baker’s decision to close Rebel House this March, one of Boca’s iconic restaurants for a decade (he owned it for the last four years) to give the much larger space to AlleyCat, his Japanese izakaya restaurant he started with David Bouhadana of Sunset Sushi and Sushi by Bou in late 2021. Baker has been a student of Asian culture for his entire career, traveling extensively throughout the continent. When he was thinking about his next concept, he landed on Japanese izakaya because of its fun atmosphere, where food is paired with cocktails or sake and shared

Tips

• Go to a local Asian market, wander around, familiarize yourself with the products. This will also be helpful when reading a recipe.

• Be a student first: Read and learn about ingredients and vocabulary.

amongst loved ones. That sense of community and the opportunity to taste different types of food in small plates spoke to him. He says there’s a beauty to its simplicity, which he thinks is palatable to our chaotic minds. In a sense, the food is calming. Baker also has seen a shift in diners’ perception of value. No longer looking for value in portion size, we’re now looking for value in the quality of products and their preparation.

One of his most interesting takes is the pastrami sando, a Western-inspired Japanese sandwich (see, fusion works both ways!) usually made with Wagyu that’s lightly breaded and fried. The meat reminded him of pastrami, so he went with it.“That’s what I think is great about AlleyCat; I can bring in my off-the-wall ideas, and they fit. You don’t feel like they’re forced or that they don’t belong. That’s what I search for and stay true to.”

Baker’s favorite dishes: AlleyCat’s spicy scallop roll and Big in Japan’s Wagyu beef tartare with Asian pear and barbecue brisket that’s smoked for 16 hours.

Trending Now: “Korean food is having its moment. It’s very cool for that to happen, because I think their cuisine is very exciting.” He also hopes that as Boca grows, we see more homegrown concepts, and that operators flourish.

Glossary

While some readers may already know these terms, to some this list might be unfamiliar. So test your Asian culinary lingo or continue reading to learn a few key words.

BÁNH MI

Baguette sandwich

BAO BUN

Fluffy, sweet, flour bread

DAL

Lentil stew

DIM SUM

Chinese meal made of small plates, like Spanish tapas

GHEE

Clarified butter

HOISIN

Sweet, savory, tangy Chinese condiment—can be used as a marinade, dipping sauce, or drizzled over a dish

KOFTA

Minced or ground meat rolled into a meatball with onions and other spices

KOREAN BARBECUE

Thinly sliced beef prepared on a grill in the middle of the table

MASALA

Broad term for any spice mix in Indian cuisine

MOCHI

Rice cakes with different fillings, like ice cream or peanuts

NAAN

Leavened flatbread

NORI

Dried seaweed, can be used in making sushi

NIGIRI

A type of sushi where rice is molded by hand, and fish (or other topping) is pressed on top

OMAKASE

A Japanese phrase that means “up to you,” so in a restaurant setting diners allow the sushi chef to curate the dishes they will eat, like a tasting menu

PANEER

A non-melting fresh cheese that’s cubed

PHO

Vietnamese soup made of broth, rice noodles, herbs and meat

ROTI

Unleavened round flatbread, also known as chapati

SAMOSA

Pyramid-shaped dumpling stuffed with a variety of items like potatoes, onion, peas, lentils and ground meat, and then deep-fried

Spices To Have On Hand

PUSHKAR:

SASHIMI

Fresh fish or meat sliced into thin pieces

TANDOORI

A dish made in a tandoor, or cylin-

Lemons or limes

Sugar

Salt

Thai chili (fresh or dried)

Onion

Garlic

Mustard seed

Curry leaves

CHEF NICOLE & CHEF HUY:

Fish sauce

Lemongrass

Thai spice powder

Star anise

Garlic Sprouts

Lime leaves