Rainbow Chinese: Dinner and Stories with Chef Owner Tammy Wong (Southwest)

Yia Vang is the Executive Chef and Owner at Vinai. Vang is a trained chef with extensive experience at top restaurants across the Twin Cities. In 2016, Vang started nationally acclaimed Union Hmong Kitchen, a restaurant that features Hmong culture, stories, rituals, foods and flavors that quickly became a community staple in Minnesota. In July 2024, Vang opened Vinai, to serve as a love letter to his parents. Vang spearheads the kitchen at the restaurant and crafts a menu that features classic Hmong dishes that entice people to grab a seat at the table and open their minds to new experiences. Vang has been featured in the New York Times, Nat Geographic, and Bon Appetit, as well as showcased on PBS, CNN, among others. Most recently, Vinai was featured on the New York Times 2024 50 Best Restaurant List and Eater’s 2024 Best New Restaurants in America.

Timmy Truong is the Chef de Cuisine at Vinai. Born and raised in the Twin Cities, Truong became fully immersed in the restaurant industry during his early childhood, lending a hand at his family’s small Vietnamese restaurant, Jasmine Deli, in South Minneapolis. In 2015, Truong attended Le Cordon Bleu Bakery School for Patisserie and Baking. Truong worked his way through various roles in Minneapolis during his culinary career. In 2019, he went on to open his first independent venture, SoulFu, a tie between Southeast Asian cuisine and Southern comfort soul food. In 2022, he opened his second independent concept, Chelas, serving up Vietnamese and Latin tapas before joining Chef Yia Vang as Sous Chef for Union Hmong Kitchen in 2023. Truong went on to join the opening team at Vinai as Chef de Cuisine in summer 2024. In his current role, Truong manages and oversees the day-to-day operations and enjoys working with the team to create new dishes and help develop them into better chefs in the kitchen, and better people outside of the restaurant.