A taste of Vietnam W
Diners can nosh on pho, spring rolls at T Quinn in Pawcatuck
Stonington hen Hatlasith and Thuy Phoumindr looked near their Pawcatuck home — a place they landed after respectively immigrating from Laos and Saigon, and then bouncing around multiple Connecticut towns — they saw plenty of Thai food but no Vietnamese restaurants. So, they decided to open their own.
They purchased the building at 20 Mechanic St., formerly Han’s Dynasty, and opened T Quinn Vietnamese Cuisine on Jan. 9. Thuy explained that the restaurant is named for her grandchildren, Tommy and Quinn.
She said the most popular items among customers so far have been the egg roll, spring roll, Vietnamese pancake and pho.
Thuy explained of the egg rolls, “We have a different recipe inside. The Chinese usually will put cabbage in there but we don’t put cabbage; we put carrot and onion and pork.”
The spring rolls are not fried but involve wrapping shrimp, lettuce, rice noodles, cilantro, basil, cucumber and bean sprouts in rice paper, like what’s known in Cambodian cuisine as nime chow.
Thuy said making the pho, a type of noodle soup, involves cooking the beef bone for eight hours, adding seasoning and cooking for three more hours. Other options include a vermicelli bowl with pork (bun thit nuong), sour soup (canh chua), and the banh mi sandwich of pork, pâté, white carrots, cilantro and cu
cumber.
Hatlasith works as a chef at T Quinn with Thuy’s uncle, who was working as a chef in Oregon before coming to the restaurant to help.
“So far, the neighbors, everybody loves the food,” Thuy said.
The restaurant offers delivery during lunchtime and has happy hour from 3-6 p.m. It has a bar in the middle, and in the future, Thuy wants to get some Vietnamese beer.
T Quinn will have ribbon-cutting March 18, and it will be represented at the American Velvet Mill’s annual Fusion event May 8.
From Vietnam and Laos to Connecticut
Thuy, 60, said she had a good life growing up in Vietnam until the communists took over, and then there was “no freedom.”
When Thuy was 16, she said her mother, stepfather and stepbrother escaped by boat while she was home with her grandfather. By the time she tried to get on a boat, it was too late.
Thuy later escaped via boat with her father to Malaysia, where they stayed for six months before making it to the U.S. Thuy was first living with her mother in Old Saybrook when she came to America, and a neighbor volunteered to be her English tutor.
“My tutor, she asked me if I had any friends, and I say, ‘No, not really,’” Thuy recalled, “and she said she has some students, if I want to meet.”
Thuy ended up meeting Hatlasith through her neighbor’s student. Hatlasith had escaped from Laos via the Mekong River and made it to Thailand before a church helped him get to the U.S.
The couple then moved to Westbrook, and Hatlasith worked at Electric Boat before getting laid off. The Phoumindrs then started buying investment properties, sometimes living in one unit of a multifamily home and renting out the rest.
Thuy also spent the last 22 years working at Foxwoods.
The couple went on to live in East Lyme, Old Lyme, New London and Norwich, where they also owned a laundromat, before moving to Pawcatuck. The Phoumindrs have two adult children, a son also living in Pawcatuck and a daughter in Washington, D.C.