When Liza Queen got priced out of the space where she ran Queen’s Hideaway— her quirky Greenpoint restaurant where the food depended on Greenmarket ingredients and her mood–she ended up in Saigon for two years, cooking Western food for expats. Though her day job failed to inspire, by night she explored the city, taking in all the shrimp paste and Vietnamese street food she could. Now she’s back in Brooklyn, once again cooking whatever she feels like, but if you look carefully, there’s a little bit of Vietnam in every dish. Read the story for more on how another nation’s cooking philosophy inspired a self-taught Brooklyn chef.
