Inside NYC’s Hottest Vietnamese Dessert Pop-Up | NYT Cooking

your timer is fine, thank you for having a product that is the hardest and the easiest what time are you going to fry 12 12 okay, let's do it U First, the steaks are there because you know people are going to come and expect a certain amount. start with 20 you need to keep people coming back give me some time i'm just going to put out these dishes you're making yourself vulnerable by posting your own creations ok 10 minutes i've been first in line a couple of times which makes me look like a fan of these products that I can offer that no one else can offer.

Everybody's okay, yeah okay, we have a pop up on Sunday and we're doing a pre-sale, we have it available normally like the Monday before the pop up and but then, it's pretty quick, very quick, less than 5 minutes until They sell out, it's a little crazy that we started all this from Instagram, that's crazy to me, my name is Lauren and I'm a pastry chef. I also make traditional Vietnamese cakes. Also traditional French pastries, but there's a little twist where I use flavors that I really enjoy and a lot of them are Southeast Asian flavors. Vietnamese coffee, condensed milk, bang bong, which is a honeycomb cake.

My signature is like a pandan coconut chiffon. Pandan to Southeast Asia is like vanilla beans to the West, it's a staple food, it has such a distinctive smell, it's like a vegetable, a little bit nutty. I was born in Houston but moved to Washington when I was 2 years old. I have two older sisters. Dad is an accountant, my mom is a pharmacist. They came to the United States in 1975, around the fall of Vietnam. It took me about 2 months to tell my parents that I wasn't going to finish my medical school applications and that I wanted to move to New York. and go to pastry school all the things I was afraid they would say, they said why' you even go to university like you're not going to make money, who's going to want to marry a pastry chef and they didn't say It must be painful because they come from a country devastated by war and wanted stability for their children.

Our sale just started a minute ago and everything is already on cards, which means it's like it's sold out. I'm sorry for everyone. who never gets something I don't know how people do it, so after graduating from pastry school I made the decision that I really wanted to work with Meo at Grimer Tavern. A month into working there, Meo was hosting their annual pie contest and I honestly thought, what am I going to make? Like you know, a pumpkin pie. It just hit me and I thought: pandan, like pandan and coconut, go perfect. I clearly remember Mro asking the judges if everyone likes pandan and they said, yes, we do.

I love Pandan, honestly this boosted my confidence like crazy because I won, I had to go to The Tavern menu in my mind. I thought, okay, I have this all planned out. I'm opening as a bakery after working at a couple of Michigan star restaurants for 5 years and then the success of 2020 was laid off. I had all this time to myself, my favorite things to bake before were always French pastries, so I thought, okay, I'll make French pastries, but every week. I'll be highlighting a different Vietnamese

dessert

and then I said, "Okay, that's my pastry box to get it back to its soft and fluffy texture.

Put a slice in the microwave. It's too long. Okay. Okay, how we did it at the principle". I would post something. on Instagram I think I made 4 boxes and it always sold out within a couple of hours whenever someone liked the orders. I just like to keep getting text messages. We lived in a really small ten-apartment building, like the Chinese one. I liked to occupy every available square. inch that we had, I would wait until they texted me and then I would grab their slice of cake from the refrigerator, put it in the box, wrap the box and then run out and it was a little crazy at first because we didn't really know.

I had something set up so I started creating similar systems and processes to help her manage that workflow or if you want to schedule it for Tuesday, so I tried to help as much as I could with the non-baking stuff. I was still working at the company, however, long hours. One week it was super fun to do something different, work with my hands. I like the first few days of prep because it's easier, but now I feel like we relax and prepare everything, so we've done pop-ups many times. from different restaurants and what I think a lot of people don't realize is that they are not intended for bakeries and pastries, so Garla and I have made up a list of everything we need to bring, so basically I have several sets of equipment that I have for popups only.

Can you put some ice on these for me halfway? We have hooked on so many cuisines that we really learn to adapt. We have to get out of here at 10 so um nudie Branch can make his The kitchen team can start preparing it at 10:30. Honestly, the luxury is that we've been able to store our stuff here because it's become our home base because Jeff and Matt are so cool and so supportive. I bought this card game, it's like you have these questions with your parents and then it was like why are you proud of me? So I was there and I asked my mom that and then she said like when you set your mind to something to do.

If you're ambitious, um, but I really wish you'd gone to Brad's school, should I be sure? If you remember, disappointed, oh, February 2021, we had just sold like a Lunar New Year collab that we were going to do and Then I get a call from my dad saying that he's in the hospital and something's wrong. I think we just texted, emailed everyone who placed an order and booked a flight. Lauren has the biggest heart, he likes her, she cares deeply, it took a lot for her to come. In terms of that, it was very clear to me that we had to cancel these orders because you're not going to be able to bake the same way if you're worried about your dad in Seattle hi mom hi yes dad I'm I'm FaceTiming you right now, but you paused me, okay? ?

Once all the test results came back and my dad was fine, a lot of my friends were like, Lauren, you should do a pop-up here, like why not do it in Seattle those first few months when I was

cooking

everything. My parents' house was crazy because I kept making more CU, we were selling very quickly. I bought a lot of kitchen. You know, the gcer is sick and the comments were amazing. We enjoy seeing all the customers come. I had a TI for I'm coming to get the cake to go home. I think that's what pushed us to really believe that we had to open something corporate quickly.

We got married when we returned to New York. It was time to go all out at what is 145°F on CSI. It's 62.8 out of why is this a 74? Damn, waking up in the oven on Sunday morning is always the hardest. I only slept for like 3 hours, oh my gosh look what happened, it feels very unburned again. In my first oven, I think I just was. I wasn't really into it, I tossed around a bit and was really scared, something was off temperature. Did you see this sign Allan made here? It's so cute, isn't it so cute?

I couldn't do this without my friends volunteering. its time by B we are on time we are always early now yes Chrissy do you think I should write a menu by hand? I shouldn't, I shouldn't care, okay, okay, at the end of the day, like my name is in the business and people are looking to talk to me or meet me and it's really surreal. I must say that this is the fourth time I have come to one of their pop-ups, so you won't find many people who like Vietnamese flavors. I think about cakes often. around town I came to the latest pop up and I love their

dessert

s so I wanted to bring my friends here this time we were early yeah I think you're at one I can't hear it and there um actually we're going to I'll start in a second.

I'm going to address everyone outside. Okay, we're ready. It's really cool that people are excited to follow this. This is pandan honeycomb cake, so it goes very well with morning coffee, so but. We only have the panda slice but we have the cake molds. I feel like I've met a lot of these clients too. Thank you, you know, Chef Scott. I worked with Chef Scott. Oh, really, because sometimes I talk back and forth. with them on Instagram, did you work with Jamie? So yeah, it's always nice to put a face to these names, it's hitting the 12 hour mark, so it's cool, sometimes I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't remember him and I remember his Instagram account.

I was like UPS as well wait, yeah people were still partying and we thought it was time to start making once I realized it was helping give more exposure to Vietnamese desserts it got bigger than me, it became bigger than alone. baking I think a lot of care was put into them, she was like you're buying all this French stuff. I really want you to try something Vietnamese too, that's for you, even in a city as diverse as New York, you're not. You're going to find a pendon coconut cake at the average bakery you go to, have you run out of it? um, we're exhausted, um, a couple of things, this has been a crazy, crazy ride, it's like this really wild ride, no one could have anticipated any of We're trying to build something that will hopefully last a long time and preserve our New York neighborhood, and you know, a basic garland is not print.

Garland has required many tasks so that she can bake when we are married, I told her we can do anything, the last 2 years have reaffirmed that we are walking towards a possible store. We have been looking for a brick and mortar for maybe like 2 years, this is our lives, we are pouring everything we have into it. in this we think we're there we think we found something like the restaurants I worked in you're in the basement you don't see anything else so this is yeah this is pretty ideal where would the tables be? I'm probably going to grade here right now, just double checking that the local guys are the right size.

We can do it. If I can.