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Ms. Vy, granddaughter, third generation heir, said, “More than 60 years ago, more than 60 years ago, my grandfather was the one who came up with the idea to design and build the villa. He was an architect, so he personally searched for skilled workers everywhere to build the villa, although it looks simple from the outside, it has a familiar, rustic, Vietnamese character.”
Ms. Vy added that her grandfather was a meticulous person, so most of the materials for building walls, flooring, and roofing were chosen by him himself. Up to now, the cool stone walls and old ceramic tiles have never been covered with moss, reducing their inherent beauty. The brick walls are thick and have reasonable ventilation holes, so the rooms are always cool in the summer and warm in the rainy season.
Up to now, everything about the ancient villa, from the overall structure to the decorative details, has been carefully preserved thanks to the care of 3 generations. And, the villa is more known from a small restaurant that the 2nd generation here opened as a family restaurant called May Bon Phuong.
The name of the restaurant was given by an uncle who was a pilot, with the symbolic meaning of clouds all over the sky because he was a pilot, so all around were clouds. At that time, it was also the uncle who came up with the idea to create unique dishes such as Pork Tongue Pate. Initially from acquaintances, then word of mouth, so more people knew about it from family, friends, ordinary customers, high-class customers, even famous artists-singers-actors of that time also visited a few times.
Talking about the specialty dish Pork tongue with pate sauce, it is a long story. At first, the uncle was the one who brought the pate back, around the early 1990s, but it had a strange flavor, not liked by many customers. After that, "my mother - Vy's mother" was the one who used pork tongue combined with pate. One time, accidentally going to Ben Thanh market, at a familiar pork stall, there was a pork tongue that my mother said was very delicious and she thought, why not try to buy this pork tongue to make something to eat with my uncle's pate, "if it's okay, then it's okay, but if not, then just try it out".
Failure, not suitable taste, not like anyone else's, are what my mother told me about that first time. The pate was not suitable, but the feeling of a home cook showed that she had to try more. Then she tried many types of pate and finally got the right taste for this Vietnamese style pork tongue.
The secret is: The pate must be rich and quite different from the pate eaten with bread. For the pork tongue, choose a familiar supplier to always have new pork tongue every day with fresh and delicious meat. Processing the pork tongue also has to go through many steps (cleaning the tongue, blanching in boiling water, cleaning the tongue again, then boiling...
Currently, the dish is sold for 110,000 VND/portion (about 5 USD) and served with bread.
