True-blue northern Vietnamese fare
A Vietnam native living in the Klang Valley has opened a charming restaurant devoted to the food of her homeland.
SIX years ago, Vietnam national Jane Hien Nguyen, 34, moved to Malaysia with her husband, who is Malaysian. Like most people who emigrate to a different country, she was extremely homesick for the first few years and understandably missed her family, friends and the food that she grew up with.
Nguyen also quickly realised that the Vietnamese food available in the Klang Valley was largely devoted to southern Vietnamese staples as opposed to the northern fare that she was familiar with as a denizen of Hanoi.
“Malaysian food is very different from Vietnamese food, which has a lot of vegetables and is quite well-balanced and healthy. So I missed home food a lot when I relocated, so that’s why I started to cook Vietnamese food for myself,” she explains.
Although she had a promising corporate job, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Nguyen decided to finally take the plunge and quit her full-time job in pursuit of a home food business, as cooking for herself had become a strong passion and she longed to share her food with more Malaysians.
In March 2020, her home business Jane’s Nem was born. In the beginning, Nguyen only made her signature crispy spring rolls (nem means “fried” in Vietnamese). The response was excellent and the business soon flourished.
“I received a lot of feedback from residents in Petaling Jaya as well as from family and friends, so after six months, I moved my business out of my home and into a central kitchen,” she says.
In December 2021, Nguyen took her thriving online business into the offline scape, when she opened her first physical restaurant, also called Jane’s Nem, in Section 17, PJ.
But the road to running her own F&B business hasn’t been an easy one, and Nguyen has thrown herself into learning the ropes through any means possible.
“The first six months were the hardest – I had a lot to learn and made a lot of mistakes. I had to get used to running a commercial food business, so I attended a lot of courses on commercial business and even professional cooking classes. From there, I learnt a lot about organising the kitchen, packaging and marketing.
“I learnt everything from scratch, but I am still always open to feedback from customers, family and friends, because I feel that is the best way to improve myself and the business,” she says earnestly.
To begin a meal at Jane’s Nem, indulge in the Banh Mi Original (RM12.50) which has pate and pork ham, coriander leaves and chillies encased in a homemade baguette.
Baguettes were introduced in Vietnam by the French in the mid19th century and have since become deeply entrenched in the local culinary tapestry, especially in the form of banh mi, which offers a curious East-west interplay of ingredients from ham to chillies.
At Jane’s Nem, Nguyen makes the baguettes herself from scratch, typically whipping up to 300 loaves a day! You know what they say, practice makes perfect.
Nguyen’s baguette is da bomb – a rustic, crusty exterior yields to innards that are incredibly doughy and soft and plied with the meaty overtures of the pate and ham, which coalesce beautifully with the herbaceous undertones of the coriander leaves and the fiery chillies in the mixture. Definitely a sandpho wich to remember.
Up next, try the Beef Noodle Soup (RM15). In this iteration of this famed Vietnamese dish, Nguyen slow-cooks the beef broth (made up of beef bones) for 16 hours every day, eliciting as much flavour as possible in the process. The resulting meal features the aforementioned broth alongside Australian beef slices and beef brisket, bean sprouts, chillies, garsuperpowof nish, lime and noodles.
This is a meal whose ers lie in the simplicity the broth, which is nuanced and flavoursome but also has a wholesome, nutritious appeal. The other ingredients add crunch, freshness and fire, but it is the broth that ties this entire meal together, forging appeal and memorability in one fell swoop.
Nguyen’s signature Fried Spring Rolls (RM15) are also worth a try and feature crispy spring roll logs that are the perfect guilty treat. The spring rolls also come with a sweetspicy dipping sauce that is a worthy sidekick to this fried snack.
Perhaps even more alluring in the spring roll category is the Fresh Spring Rolls (RM12) which feature clear rice paper wrappers wound around lettuce, rice noodles, pork and prawns in what is essentially a no-frills affair that gets taken to a whole new level when you dip it into the spicysweet dipping sauce on the side. The sauce really elevates the spring rolls and gives them a pep in their step and verve to match.
Finally, have a sample of the Serai Satay (RM12). Here, pork meat is wrapped around lemongrass skewers that have truly imbibed the herbaceous spirit of the lemongrass, which means the meat (which is tender and still retains some juiciness) has rich tropical nuances and a wonderfully perfumed, aromatic quality that will inspire sure-fire addiction.
Given the support she has received for her little business, Nguyen says she has been inspired to think big and expand her footprint. “Actually, by early next year, I am planning to expand and open a few more outlets in other locathe tions in Klang Valley. So I am looking at areas like Bangsar and Hartamas, because my target customers are people who have healthier lifestyles and also people who like to discover new tastes,” she says.
Order from Jane’s Nem through Grabfood, Oddle or by sending a Whatsapp message to 012-331 1835.