TEXAS Is Taking Over Vietnam?!

Yo guys, I am proud to announce that Fonebro's Sma La Sauce is about to hit 270 HEB supermarkets across Texas. That's huge and we wanted to celebrate in a way that felt true to Asia and Texas. So today we're checking out some of the best Texas-inspired food here in Saigon. Some of these places are serving authentic Texas barbecue while others are really blending flavors in creative Texanamese ways. Let's see how a little piece of Texas has found home in Vietnam. What's going on guys? We are live from Saigon right now. Welcome to a very special episode of Fonebro's Food in celebration of Sma La Sauce being sold in 270 HEB stores across Texas. Today we got a Texas food crawl. Yeah. Danny Nguyen, you're from H-Town, right? H-Town, holding it down. What are we doing today? We're gonna go to one of my favorite barbecue spots, Texas style, in Saigon that I found. There's not many authentic places here in Ho Chi Minh, but this place is right down the alley. It's called Pit Smokers and it's one of my favorite spots. You come here all the time, right? I come here all the time. Let's check it out. Listen guys, from what I have been told and what Danny said, this is the most authentic Texas BBQ in Saigon. Yep. From the Pit Smoker. Established 2023. All right. Hell yeah. All right you guys, we've arrived at the Pit Smoker. This is their signature menu right here. Tell me about the brisket. What's in a good brisket? So Texas BBQ brisket is basically the main item you'd want to get. Texas style is basically smoking it in the smoker for about 8-10 hours. So you're saying this is what you're obsessed with? Yeah, meat brisket. And you grew up eating this? And they even sell this to you in school and stuff? Not in school, but it's everywhere in Texas. Okay. What about smoked chicken legs? Yeah, you can get that anywhere. You cannot get this in Seattle where I grew up. Really? We don't eat smoked meats. I mean, we have our kind of Texas chains, but they might not be too authentic. They got sausages. Is pretty Texas? Yeah. I mean, sausage is popular everywhere, but it goes well with the brisket. You know, I heard this comes from a lot of the German and Czech immigrants that were like sort of the basis for, you know, Texas. German and Czech. You know, Mexican too. Aren't you guys, the feast has arrived here at the Pit Smoker. Authentic Texas BBQ. We've got smoked chicken legs. We've got a chicken sausage. We've got pork sausage. Texas smoked beef ribs. But tell me about the brisket. So the brisket is pretty much what we came here for. It's smoked for a long time. There's a dark bark on the outside to make it crunchy. And then the inside is moist. This is how you want it to be. Many places in Saigon do not have this. Aren't Texas people like, they care about how it bends and how it pulls apart? I mean, it depends on your preference, but it shouldn't be too dry on the inside. And then you want to always dip the brisket in the sauce. All right. Look at this pink smoke ring right here underneath the bark. How is it? It's really good. In honor of Smala being in all HEB stores around Texas, 270 of them, I'm gonna go Smala on the brisket. How is it? It's good. Just look at the way it bends. Look at the way that it flops around. Look at the way that the fibers kind of pull apart. Oh my goodness. Do you hope that Asians can more adopt this method? Or do you think maybe people are like, it takes too long? I'm not sure why it's not popular in Asia. I mean, I think beef, for one, is more expensive in Asia. Beef quality here is not the same like in the United States. Let's be honest, especially not Texas. Yeah, Texas beef, it's hard to get that here. Whatever they inherited in Texas from the Czechs, you know, the Germans, it became uniquely Texas. Man, it is delicious. We got more food. Oh my goodness. We got the candied bacon too. Oh my goodness. Dude, this is one of my first time having smoked chicken in a long time. Yeah. Since I used to live in Dallas, Fort Worth, I lived in the DFW area for like a month. How was it? It was excellent. You know what always stood out to me about Texas was in the airport, they got like big ass smokers in the airport. They do? Yeah. Mac and cheese, potato salad, and would you say like corn are the three staples? Yeah, there's a lot of staples you can eat in a Texas barbecue. Dude, I just put Smala on the Texas mac and cheese, man. I heard it's very milky and really high fat. You know what the most important thing is? It's gonna be delicious. And of course, candied bacon, Texas BBQ style. You think as more VQs, which is overseas Vietnamese from Texas, move to Saigon, you will see a proliferation of like, you know what I mean, like Texas theme spots. Yeah. I'm wondering if this place is actually owned by someone that, you know, lived in Texas or was from Texas. It was like your neighbor growing up. Well, could be. This is pretty, pretty authentic. What's one thing from Texas you would bring if you could snap your fingers? If I could snap my fingers? The Cajun scene. I feel like the Cajun scene out here is still not up to par with what I've experienced in Texas, to be a Cajun. Overall, man, what do you give Pit Smoker? As a Texan, compared to the market here in Vietnam, like eight out of 10. I'll tell you this, Pit Smoker is hella good. All right, you guys, our number two Texas in Saigon spot is Texas Chicken. This is actually Church's Chicken in America. It was started in San Antonio, Texas in 1952. San Antonio is where the current corporate headquarters of H-E-B is. And that is where Sma La is featured at 270 H-E-B stores across Texas. We're here to get some honey butter biscuits. We bring the flavorful, legendary taste of Texas to Tao Dien. I love that, man. And like we said, Texas has such a huge Vietnamese population, Chinese Vietnamese, Chinese people as well. Just all those three groups, super heavy in Texas. They love taking your phone to Vietnam, man. That's one thing that I had to learn. I had to become comfortable with. In the US, they're never going to take your phone. All right, thank you. Listen, guys, it is absolutely packed here at Texas Chicken. Look, look, just go in the wide. Vietnamese people love this place. They stand by it. I heard they rank it over KFC. They rank it over McDonald's. I'm just going by what the people say. Look how American this is. They took the machines straight from Texas. All right, you guys, every fried chicken spot in Asia is going to have the hand wash station here. Much appreciated. I actually don't know why they don't have this in the US. This would be lit. Like we said, guys, we got our Smala right here. I got three different types of Texas Chicken, Church's Chicken from Texas. We've got the original recipe, of course, and we've got the original honey butter biscuit. I've got a special orange edition. I've got herb, garlic, and butter. And then over here, I've almost got just a sweet and sour version that's more like Asian influence. I've also got what they call the Texan wrap right here. Man, we might just have to lead off with this just because we were doing all the Tex-Mex. This is like a grilled stuffed burrito. Like we said, Tex-Mex in Vietnam. Let me rip this open for you guys. I got this spicy. Went well with the Smala. French fried chicken. Tastes like Burger King. Here we go, guys. This is Saigon's favorite chicken. They're only in a few cities in Vietnam. I believe they came in in about 2012. And they said they use fresh Vietnam farm-raised chickens. The chicken is juicy. That's moist. Honestly, that straight up looks like a commercial. Like wow. Guys, this is my first time having Texas chicken in Vietnam. And I'm telling you, this is incredible. Like straight up, I'm putting it number one. Number one on the Vietnam American fried chicken list. You can tell the chicken sourcing is there. The breading is there. Let's get into the honey butter biscuit. Break that open for you. Wow. Remember Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster? Everybody's going crazy for those. Okay. Now we're going to get into the Asia-centric choices, guys. I got herb garlic chicken. Like we said, in Asia, all the fried chicken chains, they got to just do something different because people are not like, you know what I mean? Like these southern fried chicken recipes, they're not like native to the region. So they got to freak it and do some more different stuff with it. Of course, we got another Asian option right here. Like we said, Asia with the pizza huts, all the domestic chains from America, they're going to freak them differently because it's a different culture. People grow up eating different things here. In a way, they're a lot more open-minded. Ooh. Ooh, what? That's almost like a sweet and sour barbecue sauce. Kind of tastes like General Tso's. Wow. This one, this one, I can see people saying it was better. I don't know about the herb garlic, but we're going to dip this in the mashed potatoes. Wow. Hold on. Guys, if you come to Vietnam, dip this in the mashed potatoes with the sweet and sour General Tso's flavor. It's not even part of what I eat anymore. And last but not least, we've got the orange honey butter biscuit, a little bit of extra twang on it. Listen guys, sometimes fusion flavors are a hit. Sometimes they're a miss, but they're always interesting. And I got to tell you this, my Saigon friends were always telling me that Texas chicken, church's chicken in Vietnam was their favorite one. I could see why. Listen guys, Tex-Mex is in the word Texas. Tex-Mex, it started in the late 1880s and now it is a global phenomenon. This is just one of many Tex-Mex restaurants known in Vietnam and Taodan. Let's just go across the street, check it out, because man, I have not had some good ranchero beef with some cheddar cheese in a while. Here we are. I mean, you got the luchadores, you got the los dias de muertos. H-E-B, 270 stores. And it's crazy. My man right here, looks like he's straight Oaxacan from Mexico, but he's from Vietnam. Hola. Is this your restaurant? No. Are you from Mexico or are you from Vietnam? Philippines. Oh, Philippines. That's the half-half. That's the half-half. Can we sit and just get some Tex-Mex food? Hell yeah, thank you. Listen guys, this is a Tex-Mex feast. Now everybody has a different definition of Tex-Mex. Some people are talking about stuff from the 1950s, which is all hard shell tacos. They could be talking about a 1990s menu, a little bit more updated. Nowadays in New York City, there's all the hyper elevated Oaxacan foods in the Lower East Side. This is, I would say 2010. This is 2010 Mexican. This is a salsa verde enchilada. Enchilada has actually come from the Aztec people 500 years ago. And it morphed into this over time with a lot of places like Texas. You know why? Because Texas is right on the border. Salsa verde. Thank you. Guys, we're going with the beans, refried beans. People partying here, bro. These carne beef enchiladas, man. I'm telling you, this with the slice of the abo. Like I said, you know, everybody's going to have a different definition of Tex-Mex because it's evolved and changed so much over time. Even in these nachos, I looked it up. These nachos were invented in actually 1943. And like we said, you know, Rancheros, Mexicans. They've been in Texas for so long, particularly a lot of Mexicans from like North Mexico, which was more closer to Texas. So they got that like beef, you know, just straight Ranchero culture, you know. Carne enchilada. Delicious. Like I said, guys, this might not be like a Taco Bell, like 1950s sort of Tex-Mex menu. This is certainly a year 2010 Tex-Mex hard shell taco because it's more like a tostada chip. This is the camarones shrimp. Daddy Yankee on in the background. Al pastor. Oh, actually, I'm sorry. This is crispy battered fish, more of a baja style. You guys got to let me know which era of Tex-Mex was your guys' favorite, because there's so many different eras, so many different evolutions. That's pescado taken to the baja. Guys, I dead ass think I'm in New York City right now. There's a reason why Tex-Mex food is so popular. It's because they're just combining this ancient fusion between Mexican culture, Mexicano culture, and Texan Americana. And some fusions, they're just an A plus banger. And of course, last but not least, on our Texas and Saigon crawl, we've got churros. Churros actually came from Spain, Spain to Mexico, Mexico to Texas. Tejas. This is chocolate. I must be in San Diego right now. I said New York earlier because that's mostly where I've been eating the last seven years is New York. But New York actually improved as Mexicans seem tremendously recently. But like I said, Texas, they've been had it forever. I went with caramel and chocolate. Guys, a nice cool Saigon afternoon, reggaeton, district federal, having Mexico and Vietnam. It don't get more fun than that. All right, guys, I know you guys have been waiting for it. Where's the fusion? If we're seeing Vietnam and Saigon, where are we going to see Texas smoked barbecue eel? Where are we going to find super Asian recipes? Well, that's why we're here at Black Pit, guys. They actually imported their smokers from Texas, but the proteins and the produce that they're using are more localized to the Vietnam region. So take a look at that. That's like straight chuck wagon, you know, Texas BBQ as it gets on the technique side. But we are going to be getting some wood roasted eel, all types of stuff. Like we said, guys, this video is all about the celebration of Small Assault being in 270 HBV grocery stores across Texas. We're talking about Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston. Boom. Look at that small line to smoke mackerel. Like we said, the owner of Black Pit is a vehicle who lived in the South, lived in Texas for like over 10 years, came back to Saigon, built this fusion. Great macros, too. You want to call it a mackerel because macros got great macros. Moving on here, guys. Wood fired, smoked, grilled watermelon. You got feta on top, pistachios. Man, I'm telling you, the vehicles that went all around the world, they brought back some crazy stuff. But I think the vehicles from America and Australia did the most fusion stuff. What the hell? Watermelon's warm. Feta is banging. Arugula is arugula-ing. Man, let's throw some Small Assault on there. Small Assault on the watermelon with the feta. Like we said, fusion proteins from the Mekong Delta. This is grilled conger eel, grilled in a Texas Black Pit wood fire grill style. Fusion. I love that. Boom. Little Small Assault on top, conger eel. Yo, I saw this being smoked out on the wood. I'm telling you, you want to talk about woody flavor, this is it. Like obviously you guys can't taste it through the camera, but the mesquite, the logs. Oh my goodness. Listen, I'm not saying it's Texas, but it sure is done Texas style. And you got like some nice shallots in between. This is amazing fusion. That's Aji Verde. Aji Verde with the Small Assault, grilled conger eel Black Pit. This piece for some reason was extra hitting. You know what it is? This piece was way fattier than the first piece I had. The first piece, it was just like, maybe that was like the muscle part of the eel. This is the fatty part of the eel. This was the donk of the eel. Highly, highly recommend this. Try this at home, whether you're watching from the US, you're watching from Australia, Singapore. Honestly guys, it tastes a lot like salmon collar, but it's a lot more dense and you just get more meat per square centimeter and definitely highly underrated. But I could see why it's like not as popular, but just because like it varies on which part of the eel was fattier. This is a cooking style that has been around for hundreds of years, guys. I mean, if you're just looking at Texas frontier history, chuck wagon from the east, the westward migration, some people push all the way to the west coast. A lot of people stay in Texas. It's the wild west. It's the frontier as cowboys. Obviously, of course, it's so much more than that. It's H-E-B in 2026, but I'm just saying that's the heritage and heritage matters, man. I got a grill sausage in there right now, right here. They're cooking it up. This one's made out of fish and chicken. That's the fusion element. Like we said, it's really a Texas grill BBQ, but we use different resources. Listen, guys, this looks like a traditional Texas smoked sausage right here, right? But this is actually made of fish and shrimp. Super excited to try this one, man. I love fusion items. You know, like I said, the bigger sellers are going to be your more base staple items realistically, but man, small is a fusion between Chinese and Italian. I'm going to try just small on this one. But you know, I'm not just saying that small is so versatile. We can dip it in with the cream aioli right here. That's going to even add more layers of flavor and we're just stacking them. Like everywhere around Asia, everybody eats fish cakes, right? Fish cakes are super popular from Japan down to Vietnam, to elsewhere, Malaysia. This is a fish cake sausage and literally on the flavor side, it's more like a fish cake, 60%, 40%, but obviously on the texture and the vibes, it's like 70% sausage, 30% fish cake. It's good though, for sure. I mean, look, listen, if you're somebody who's had Texas BBQ, 10 out of 10 version, and you had a fish cake, the 10 out of 10 version, try this. It's going to tickle your mind. We're not going to put the small on this one, but look, they poured out a lemon and then they put creme brulee on it and then they seared the top. This is an amazing presentation. And a lot of times in Asia, due to the labor arbitrage and differences and just how cogs get factored, you can get cool stuff like this that maybe in the U.S. it would only be available at a gastronomic, Madison, 11 Madison, New York-y thing. Wow. Straight up, guys. It's not fully Asian. It's not fully Texan. It's both. It's Black Pit. I'm a fan. This is Texas meets Saigon in a venue. Listen, if you guys are looking for something that is quintessentially Texas mixed with something quintessentially Vietnam, this is a different type of fusion. We are Khoan Ut Ut, which is a mixture between a Khoan Ngao, which is a Vietnamese drinking spot, and a good old Texas BBQ smokehouse, man. Straight from San Antonio. Let's check it out. Hi. Yeah, two people. Yeehaw. Yo, check out these. Is the owner from Texas? Is he BQ or is he? Listen, guys, a Texas smokehouse authentic experience can take like three hours. You're drinking beers with your friends. You got the game on, maybe some NASCAR, whatever it may be. Football. However, here in Vietnam, a Khoan Ngao experience can also take three hours. So an American, Mark Susan Stopson from Chicago, he came to Vietnam. He saw Khoan Ngao culture. He saw Texas smokehouse culture. He blended it together and that's how you have Khoan Ut Ut. Guys, let's take a look at here. Fried chicken skin. This is huge in Vietnam. It's huge in Thailand as well. You know, you got to use different parts of the chicken. Moving on. Something else that really is emblematic of the region. We got, you know, a lot of oysters in Texas, especially in Houston, because it's the third coast. This is a cheese oyster right here. Guys, the Vietnamese oysters taste unique. They're really good. We got pulled pork shoulder. You guys saw the pit that they were cooking it in. This is legit stuff right here. Grilled Vietnam pineapple. It's not as sweet as America. It's more crisp like an apple. We got a barbecue chicken. Smoke, of course, you see the smoke rings, the redness. Of course, we got the mac and cheese with the smile on H-E-B. So this is different than the mac and cheese we got at Pit Smoker because this is using a mixture of American and mozzarella and cheddar. Whereas, at Pit Smoker, we use a white cheese. You can make your mac with any cheese. There's a lot of different cheeses in Europe. Got the rib tips right here. Pork. Vietnam is a pork country. Number one pork consumption in all of Southeast Asia. Okra. Vietnamese okra. A lot smaller than the U.S. lemon. Pork sausage. I think like, you know, Black Pit, it represented like an Asian mind. And this represents like a Western mind fusing Vietnamese culture and Texas smokehouse culture. Whereas, Black Pit was more of a Vietnamese mind fusing with Texas. That's a good pork sausage. And of course, we got our bacon here. Like, look at all the families just enjoying. It's like everybody is having a good time. I think a lot of these are families because they want something that's like America, but also Vietnam all in one place. Guys, this is the cheapest bacon we've had in this video because Quang U is quite affordable. This is absolutely the best bacon we've had. Listen guys, if you look at this menu, it is so Texas, but it is so Vietnamese at the same time. Oh my goodness. Oyster, Hoi An. Dude, I think the most underrated thing I've had that you guys might not know about in the U.S. is Vietnamese chicken is amazing. The chicken flavor is like double chicken. And Vietnamese oysters from Hoi An are super underrated globally, like on the global oyster sourcing ranking scale. I got some small on there, like we said, in 270 HEV stores. That's hot, but that's good. And look, this is super Texas roadhouse right here. The way they just got the paper towels with the wooden thing. That's Texas BBQ style. That's authentic-o. Listen guys, if you're American and you find yourself in Taotien, and you want to find yourself a one-of-a-kind experience, come to Quang U. Aren't you guys, we are at Smoke & Roast right now. And I'm telling you, we are in a very fancy part of North Taotien, and we're going to be trying Beef Rib Com Tom and Smoked Texas Brisket Wagyu Pho. These sound like dishes that you would find in Orange County or on Bel Air Boulevard in Texas, but we're here in Vietnam. Check it out. Hi. Can I get for two? Guys, we're at Roasting Smoke right now, North Taotien, very fancy area. And I'm telling you, this is smoked brisket pho done in a Central Texas style, grilled over Lungan wood from a, Lungan province, city. Look at that. Central Texas style. This is something you would find in Texas, Austin, Dallas, Houston, but it goes to show you there's that much Texas influence in Taotien. First of all, let's go for the broth. I'm going to tell you this guys, that is the smokiest pho broth I've ever had. See that red, that smoke ring right there? That's crazy. This isn't pho by the way. You guys got to see this broth. This broth is the smokiest broth I've ever had for pho. And even times where I've had smoked brisket pho, which is kind of like starting to be a thing in America, the broth is never that smoky. Guys, come to Roasting Smoke, fresh noodle, not necessarily fully wide, but definitely not fully thin. Next fusion dish at Roasting Smoke, like we said, which is a really high end sort of Central Texas inspired spot. And we've got smoked pork rib com tom. Smoked pork rib com tom guys. Look at that. It works perfect because that's low and slow. The meats are low and slow. The pork sinks up perfectly. We're going to go with a fish sauce on the rib, of course. Dude, you would be surprised. Texas and Vietnam, it's low, slow simmered broth, low, slow simmered BBQ. First with the com and com tom, which is rice. Oh, that's a high quality com tom in here. Listen guys, I'm not going to lie. We had a lot of fusion spots in this whole video, in this smoked rib com tom, in this smoked brisket pho, were the best ones. Roasting Smoke, they did it right. It's only been open for a few years. This com tom was incredible. You know, the funny thing is with Texas food, you also get preserved pickles as well. But here you've got the preserved daikon and the carrots in the com tom. The most underrated aspect, the tomatoes here are not going to taste like the hyper-industrialized ones in America. Look at this, guys. This is quintessential Central Texas meets Vietnam. I'm going to give both of these dishes. All right, so I'm going to give the Wagyu brisket pho a 4.5 out of 5. And straight up, this com tom, this is my favorite one I ever had. I'm going to give this a 5 out of 5 here at Roasting Smoke. But of course, we're going to go a little small lie, small lie on the rib, in honor of being in 270 HEB supermarkets. It sounds crazy, guys. See this? We're going to go small lie on the pho. Wow. Dude, I'm not even going to lie, I didn't know how that was going to go. Small lie on the pho broth, it works. Yo, straight up, guys, I don't care if you believe I'm just saying this, this small lie smoked brisket pho Central Texas meets Vietnam meets Sichuan is absolutely a banger. This went from 4.5 to 5 out of 5. You're going to think I'm just saying that I'm not. Yep, I'm not making this up. The sweet and sour fried chicken from Texas fried chicken with small lie and this smoked brisket small lie pho are the absolute two favorite things that I've eaten in this video. Also, the creme brulee lemon dessert at Black Pit. That's it. Those three were absolute bangers.