4 DECADES OF INFLUENCE
Super Cao Nguyen celebrates 40 years before Asian District's Night Market Festival
Super Cao Nguyen celebrates 40 years before Night Market Festival
When the Asian District hosts its second annual Night Market Festival this weekend at Military Park, it will be thanks in no small part to something that happened four decades ago.
That's when a young couple named Tri and Kien Luong moved to town with their 2-year-old son Ba and infant son Hai to take over a fledgling Asian market. The Vietnamese refugees had owned a market in their home country and opened another in Fort Smith, Arkansas, before the chance arose to move to rescue a place called Super Cao Nguyen in Oklahoma City.
To honor the Luong family and their contributions to the community, local chefs will gather at the store to honor it with a food fair from 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday, preceding the Asian Night Market Festival.
Super Cao Nguyen has contributed as much to the local culinary conversation as any place I've covered in 11 years. The store is the best place in town besides a restaurant to find a local chef.
When I swung by Friday afternoon to take pictures with co-owner Hai Luong and chefs Vuong Nguyen and Alain Buthion, we ran into Vast's Paul Langer, who was picking up some supplies for service that evening.
Such is the role the Luong family's remarkable market plays in the culinary community, but first it was the hub of the Vietnamese community. Especially on Sundays.
“Sundays are still pretty crazy around here,” Hai Luong said. “But in the original store, people would come and stay all day.”
Chef Vuong Nguyen, who grew up in the Asian District, said the store has been his primary hangout since he was a child.
Same goes for Hai Luong, who said his first job was pricing. “I liked the sticker gun,” he joked last week during a podcast session. “I still do.”
Hai said he and older brother Ba spent a good portion of their youth at the original store while their parents