The American cousin of the snack food stall vendors in Asia, food trucks have served as an source of fast and tasty sustenance for many people. Misa Chien and Jenn Green are two friends from UCLA who have successfully established their own popular niche within this emerging industry. Their Nom Nom Truck, based in Los Angeles, has been featured in the media for its banh mi (Vietnamese baguette sandwiches).

21CB’s William Hsu spoke with Misa about her and Jenn’s journey toward establishing a booming food truck empire. Read on to learn just how Vietnamese cuisine managed to find its footing — or shall we say, wheel-ing?

Tell us a little bit about your backgrounds. What did you do before hopping into a truck?

Misa: Before Nom Nom, I previously owned several businesses in retail which provided experiences in marketing and starting up a company. I graduated with a double major in Global Studies and French from UCLA. As for Jen, she graduated from UCLA with a double major in Biology and English. She is the innovator in the Nom Nom business, bringing family recipes and her love for cooking to the trucks.

How did Nom Nom truck come about? How did you get from a concept to actually owning a food truck business?

We believe that we are one of the pioneers of the food truck industry. There were no manuals to running a food truck before we started and because of that we are writing the manual everyday as we gain more experience.

Really what happened was that Banh Mi was not available to the masses of central LA. There were no providers of fresh Vietnamese cuisine during the lunch hours. Our goal is to bring fresh Vietnamese cuisine to these people and make them happy with our great sandwiches and services. We call that the “Triangle of Happiness” where our teammates provide great services and a great product to the customers making them happy. When the customers are happy, the team is happy. We want Nom Nom Truck to be a great company to work for and to bring popularity of the Bahn Mi to the world.

Just what is it about the sound “nom nom” that’s so appealing?

For us, “nom nom” is more than just a name, it has a double meaning. First, there’s the onomatopoeia of the noise you make when eating. Then there’s the similarity to ‘Nam in Vietnam. It’s like reminding people not only of the delicious food but also where the food is from. Nom itself has also become part of our lexicon. We held a “Nom Word of the Week” contest and the winner was “nomivore”. We also had words like “nomworthy” which meant awesome.

To date, we have added around 500 entries to the “Nom Nom Dictionary” and these words are featured in the t-shirts we sell from our trucks and other merchandise and advertisements. With this we want to start a “Nom Nom” movement to keep our teammates and customers involved and engaged. The end result should be servicing worthy Banh Mi to America and bringing the love of the “Nom” to the greater world. For example, when we were on Food Channel’s “The Great Food Truck Race”, we were very happy with the great responses to our truck and our food.

So how did you and Jen decide on a truck as opposed to a restaurant?

Our decision was based mainly on the pros and the cons of owning a truck as opposed to the restaurant. With a truck, we are always selling out all the time since we have no standing inventory. There are also truck issues like flat tires and location changes, especially when there is construction obstructing our planned sites. This meant that things are always changing and we need situational awareness; something can always happen and our team needs to be ready. However with a truck there is mobility. It is important to what the goal is – bringing food to everyone in as broad a range as possible.

What was it like when you first started? How many trucks were there and what about now?

In the beginning we were one of the first food trucks to come out, just scouting out locations and places to go. Now there are up to a couple hundred trucks in the area, but LA is big and we have a strong following. We are always able to find new locations to bring the food to people. It is very interesting to see how far the industry has come and grown. It is a fast changing industry and we are excited to see where it goes next.

How about the food? Why was Banh Mi the chosen product?

Like we said, Banh Mi is not readily available in LA and in America. It is only served primarily in predominantly Vietnamese communities. So the general populace have no access to fresh Vietnamese foods like Banh Mi. Also unlike the other dishes, people are generally unfamiliar with Banh Mi, which is why we chose to bring it to America and to those that have never tried it before. Most of our customers have never actually tried Vietnamese cuisine before Nom Nom Truck. We want to get them interested into trying new foods that they have never tried. Beyond the Bahn Mi, we also serve Vietnamese taco, a different take on Asian Fusion that Jen wants to offer. She’s a great chef and a great innovator and we are excited about what we offer.

What’s your best selling Banh Mi?

“Honey Grilled Pork” is our best seller. It is made with classic grilled pork and Jen’s secret recipe, secret marinate. It is definitely the first thing we recommend to new customers. People who are more familiar with Banh Mi, we recommend the “Deli Special”, made with Vietnamese head cheese, meat loaf and pâté. People who never really had it really enjoy our Banh Mi, and we are achieving our goal of bring great and fresh Vietnamese food to the masses.

So who are the people you target and how do you find them?

Our target audience varies depending on location. Weekday lunch hours, we go to the corporate crowd. During dinners we tend to serve families in suburban areas. We are also a huge hit among university students, especially UCLA. We have a pretty large demographic. We generally serve in the early hours and not too late past dinner as we don’t want to tire our team out.

What is the truck schedule like and how do you decide where to park?

We work the trucks Tuesday to Saturday. We also park where demographic is such as near corporate buildings, schools, and suburbs. We learned from trial and error to decide where to park, finding space on the street to park and getting the right space to attract crowds. A lot of it is experience based because before us, there wasn’t a manual as to how to run a food truck.

We usually return to the same spots every week, try one new spot every week, and also attend a lot of food fests. It allows us to serve together with other trucks, try other foods and draw a large crowd.

Now that there are two trucks, how do you coordinate between the two?

We have a great event manager and a great team. It is all about working together as a team to bring our products to the masses. With two trucks, it’s like “double trouble”. It is twice as likely for things to impede food service and twice as difficult to find locations, but we have a great team to spearhead the “Nom Nom” movement towards our goal . We give our team the credit in terms of being successful in managing the two trucks

Most of the time, trucks go into their own areas, providing separate services unless there’s a large event. For example we held a “Noms for Nom-profit” event where 10% of our profits was given to charity for local schools and the Japanese tsunami crisis. It was fun to have the entire team together and serve side by side, it was fun to see the turn out and see the feedback.

Now that your business is very successful, featured in major media, what are your plans for the future?

There are so many different paths we can take; owning food trucks we are all about organic growth. We are very happy where we are and our dream is to bring Banh Mi to America. There are many ways to do that, adding more food trucks, expanding to other cities, starting restaurants. It doesn’t matter how we do it, we just want to achieve our goal and that’s what’s driving us and we will just see where it takes us.

Thanks to Misa and Jenn for their kind participation in this interview! Please read more about the Nom Nom Truck here.

(Photographs via Nom Nom Truck’s Facebook and William Hsu)

Jimmy Wong has received a good deal of attention on the Internet for his musical response to Alexandra Wallace‘s controversial YouTube tirade against Asians in the library. The phrase “ching chong ting tong ling long” will live on in infamy. Amidst the backlash from Asian and Asian-American communities, at times brutish and no less bigoted, Jimmy’s video stood out as a particularly gentle, playful, and thoughtful answer.

A graduate of Middlebury College (full disclosure: 21CB writers Tyler, Denise, and Michael attend Middlebury), Jimmy now makes his living in Los Angeles as a self-employed actor and musician. In addition to maintaining a popular YouTube account, he also runs the media production company Overcrank Media, which he co-founded with his brother Freddie Wong. 21CB recently chatted with Jimmy about the Alexandra Wallace controversy, racial representation, and his Internet fame.

So first of all, what was your initial reaction to Alexandra Wallace’s video? What compelled you to make a response?

I was both irritated and a little peeved at first. If anything I was angry at the fact that this video had to exist in 2011, and not 1985. But that anger quickly turned into amusement and eventually a smile because there was a lot of humor in the piece as a whole, it just took a little cooling down to see it. I was compelled to respond because I was unsatisfied with the rest of the responses posted on YouTube and throughout the internet. Here was  golden opportunity to make something positive out of a thoroughly negative situation.

What did you think of the huge – and at times offensive – responses to Alexandra Wallace? Considering the fallout (death threats, Ms. Wallace dropping out of UCLA etc), do you think that it went too far? What did you make of her apology?

No college student should ever have to face death threats. I won’t say Alexandra necessarily did or did not deserve the fallout, but I am saddened that death threats were a large part of it. If anything it’s the absolute most opposite way of dealing with a loaded situation and elevates it to an unnecessary and unproductive level. Not to mention I don’t think it speaks highly of you or the groups you represent if you’re the one issuing death threats to someone who offended you. I appreciate she issued an apology and I accept it. Ideally I would have liked to see more than just text in a newspaper, but I respect the fact that she probably wants to get out of the public light as much as possible at this point.

Have you been in touch with Ms Wallace? Do you know if she’s seen your response? Is there anything more you’d like to say to her?

Haven’t ever talked to her or met her. I’m assuming she’s seen the response, it’s probably the most likely one that would be forwarded to her out of all of them. If anything I think I’ve already said it in other interviews, I completely forgive her for the words she’s said but more importantly I’m hoping she can forgive us for lashing back out at her. I can only hope some positive change comes out of all this on both sides of the debate.

Do you think the video and the subsequent reactions stem from any kind of cultural disconnect between Asians and Caucasians in America?

There’s always going to be some degree of disconnect between races, cultures, and groups in America. The most obvious one to me is that people tend to group all Asians into one category of simply “Asian” when there are so many countries in that region of the world. It would be as if someone told you they were French, and you assumed they were just like someone from Germany simply because they were on the same continent.

To be honest, I think the cultural disconnect is as great or as little as we make it. We can’t just assume that someone knows all the intricate differences, politics, and history between certain Asian countries and ethnicities as much as we can’t expect immigrant cultures to know the same about American states. It’s a two way road and both sides have to contribute.

Can you offer some thoughts about the harms and benefits of your videos (yours and Ms. Wallace’s)? Sometimes when I see Asians in the library here on the phone, I can’t help but think of “ching chong ting tong ling long.” Before the video they were just another person on phone in the library. Have the videos sparked any important conversation on how we think about Asians?

I can’t yet gauge how much of an influence the video has had for racial discussion in America. I hope people don’t forgive people for being on the phone in the libraries just because of my song, but I think the underlying issue that Alexandra’s issue brought to light is that there are still some underlying cultural differences in the States that can be met with frustration and misunderstanding. I’m not clearing anyone on either side of any blame, clearly there were some Asians in the library being very loud and clearly Alexandra Wallace was being very offensive. I just hope we’re learning that there are always multiple roads to dealing with a situation. We too often choose the easy route of getting angry and distancing ourselves from what we can not identify with.

What has been the coolest/strangest/most interesting about this whole ordeal? What’s becoming an Internet sensation been like?

I’d say the coolest thing about all of this has been the huge amount of positivity I’ve received in response to the video. It’s great hearing people tell me they now use those words affectionately with their loved ones because it’s shown how you can defuse language of its power to hurt and be hateful if you handle it the right way. It’s also been incredibly inspiring and heartwarming. I’m glad people have accepted this all into their lives with so much vigor and positivity.

Is there anything you’d like to say or any advice to those who are graduating in the near future?

Do what you love! Always, always pursue what is your greatest calling in your heart. You’ll never forgive yourself ten, twenty years down the road when you’re working a job that you hate. Why do we listen to people who tell us life has to go a certain way? As kids, when we say “I want to be President!”, why do we listen and obey when someone tells us to “get real” and crushes a part of our dreams with it? No one’s written a guidebook on how we have to live life but we still somehow fall into the exact same patterns as the people before us. Some of us end up happy, but I’d say a lot of us don’t. So find what makes you happy, and don’t ever let it out of your sight.

Thanks to Jimmy Wong for his participation in this interview. Learn more about Jimmy by visiting his website.

(image via Facebook)