| When Peng Her and MaiZong Vue (r-l) married, they lived in Beloit. Her would drive to Chicago for his job as a research physicist at Argonne National Laboratory and Vue would commute to Madison to work. Raising a family with this lifestyle would be impossible and so they moved to Madison. While Her loved science and research, he also enjoyed working with and meeting people. After taking a leave from his engineering job in Madison when their son was born, Her took a job with the Madison Children's Museum preparing and showcasing the $750,000 Hmong at Heart cultural exhibit. Her and Vue, who works for the Wis. Dept. of Workforce Development's Migrant Services program, spent part of their summers serving up food. "We would sell food at the state fair," Her said as he took a break at Taste of Asia, the restaurant in the East Madison Shopping Center that they have owned going on four years. "We had a booth for a couple of summers. We really got to know our customers. Some would come back just to eat at our food booth every summer. Then I have a brother-in-law in Milwaukee who has a restaurant. I told my wife that some day; we should open up a restaurant just to showcase Hmong food. I told her that when I first came to Madison, I wasn't impressed with the Chinese cuisine here. There really wasn't any authentic Asian food. I thought about having different lines of food, not just Thai or Chinese. We toyed with the idea for a while." When the site for Taste of Asia became vacant, they jumped at the chance to make their dreams come true. For Her, it was an opportunity to introduce Madisonians to Hmong cuisine, while still offering a broader fare. While most restaurants will specialize in a particular cuisine -- most notable Thai and Chinese -- Taste of Asia is a gateway to Asian cuisine. "We offer Lao, Thai, Hmong, Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine," Vue said. "When we started, we were thinking that people like to stay where they are. They are creatures of habit. They go to one restaurant and then kind of stick to that choice that they know and then they don't venture out. And they order the thing that is within their comfort zone. And then they may go to another restaurant and do that. And so, when we started, we thought it might be fun to put all of the favorites that we like into one place and have people try it. That way, people who never tasted Thai, could try a little bit of Thai and vice versa." Over the course of the past three-and-a-half years, Vue has noticed some crowd favorites in the different ethnic cuisines. "If people like curry, there's the Thai curry squash," Vue said. "If people like Vietnamese, they come for the spring roll or the Vietnamese salad that is seasoned with vinegar and a little bit of sugar and spice. It's more of a light fare. People like the spring roll if they are more health conscious. They are freshly made without grease. They are very popular." "A lot of people are trying Hmong cuisines that we are introducing," Vue said. "People have acquired a taste for our sour bamboo with ground pork, which is a very traditional Hmong dish. We keep that now in the buffet. One of the latest dishes that we have is the mustard green with onion. We keep that as a seasonal because greens are much more expensive in the winter than they are in the summer. And then moving on to the Laotian dish, the favorite is the soup where you make your own, but you put the noodle, the cabbage and the cilantro on a cold salad bar. You put other ingredients in separately. That's the kind of dish that a lot of people have enjoyed, especially those who enjoy a little bit of spice. We have a lady who drove all the way from Appleton to have that soup. A lot of our customers tell us that we are the only place in Madison that offers it. We call it Soft Noodle Soup. Of course, our Hot and Sour Soup is also a favorite as well. We have our wonderful stuffed chicken wings that won third Best of Ethnic Foods when we entered the Taste of Madison. And of course this year, our Pad Thai and Curry Squash won second place Asian Cuisine at Taste of Madison. Of course, we have our popular Hmong dish, sweet rice wrapped in banana leaf. We still have to tell customers to eat only the rice and not the banana leaf." Some of Taste of Asia's customers refer to it as the 'Happy Place' because families or couples with diverse tastes in Asian foods can usually find something that will please everyone in the group. Over the course of their tenure, Her and Vue have had to deal with the pressures of suiting American palates while staying true to authentic tastes. "We try to balance between the traditional and suiting American tastes," Vue said. "When people who are not used to it come in, they say 'Well, you're not cooking it right.' So then you have to tell them 'Try this, you might like it,' without offending them. We do more authentic Thai than some Thai restaurants. People, who are very familiar with Thai food,expect it that way where it is just sweet and sour. We do more like home cooking. We have Thai students from the university who come and we'll chat. They say that they come to Taste of Asia because the food is more like home. So that makes us a little bit special. We draw in people who are really particular about their food. We attract people who are well-traveled and know what is commercialized and what isn't. Our niche is catering to people who are looking for different foods and not the typical fare they might find in different places." While Taste of Asia is best known for its buffet, people can also order off its menu. And for those commuters who don't have time to sit down and eat, Taste of Asia offers the "buffet-to-go." "If they are on the run, they can pick up some good food and take it with them," Vue said. "We give them a tray and they can take whatever they like for the same price. Other buffet places weigh it and charge by the pound." Taste of Asia is there to meet the needs of its customers and welcome them to the diverse world of Asian cuisine. Taste of Asia, 2817 E. Washington Avenue, is open Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m. -9 p.m. It offers dine-in, carry-out, delivery, catering and buffet. For more information, call 240-0762. |
| Taste of Asia Restaurant Gateway to Asian cuisine By Jonathan Gramling |
 |