Next generation
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday June 16, 2009
A family business expands its space and clientele, who are spoiled for choice. THERE'S no way you could miss Taste. The huge, high-ceilinged Asian supermarket sticks out like a giant orange-and-green billboard among the huddle of small shops selling fabrics, food, sugar-cane drinks and groceries on Cabramatta's main street.Some locals say it looks like a Woolworths, which delights its energeticco-owner, Truc Minh Woo. "We gave it an English name to break down the barriers," she says. "We want it to be for everyone, not just for the Vietnamese."But there's no denying Taste's Vietnamese heritage. Woo, who used to work for an insurance company, is one of the second generation of a Vietnamese retailing family. She runs Taste with her sister, Helen Kung, and brother, Sam Woo. They own the three-month-old venture with their father, Nam Woo, who arrived from Saigon in 1979 and set up his original Xuong Mau Grocery across the road and down an arcade. He still works in the small shop, crammed with products from the floor to the low ceiling, while the fruit and vegetables spill out the door.At first, Truc Minh Woo wondered whether they were killing their ancestral business by opening the modern face of retailing so close by. But the traditional customers have stayed loyal to her dad -- they come to her if they can't find what they want at Xuong Mau while new customers bring their prams and kids to trawl Taste's spacious aisles.There is a lot more to buy in a space that is four times the size of the original shop. Woo proudly says her freezers house six vegetarian brands and more than 80 products. Another bank of freezers holds local and imported dumplings, wonton wrappers and gow gee pastries as well as ice-creams from the Philippines, Hong Kong and Thailand.The tofu section offers five brands, from seasoned and silken to cooked and hard. Even the mushrooms have multiplied in choice, with enoki, shiitake, oyster, king oyster, pearl, shimaji and button varieties.Woo goes to the markets daily to buy the fresh produce, from gai lan to jackfruit and winter melons to watermelons.On the shelves, there are oodles of instant Taiwanese noodles, plus stacks of sauces, marinades and pickled products including jars of fermented bean curd. Woo points out a naturally fermented one from Taiwan.The fish sauce, or nuoc nam, selection is mainly from Thailand but has several Vietnamese brands: the ones produced on the island of Phu Quoc are consideredthe best.NOUGAT In last week's Off the Shelf, the prices for the nougat (in the style of Montelimar) at Sweetness the Patisserie should have read $7.50/150g; $13.50/300g.Taste102 John Street, Cabramatta, 8764 0355Daily, 7.30am-8.30pm.Best buysBitter melon, $4.50kg.Persimmons, $3kg.Du Son (Phu Quoc) Vietnamese fish sauce, $4.95/750ml.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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