Crystal Wise
Today, Vietnamese restaurants can be found in nearly every pocket of Fort Worth, from upscale, high-end spots to tiny neighborhood joints; the cuisine is practically as common as burgers.
But 25 years ago, when the first location of My Lan (pronounced me lon) opened in a strip mall in Haltom City, Vietnamese food was still in search of an audience beyond its own community. In a city raised on burgers, barbecue, and chicken-fried steaks, My Lan staples such as vermicelli, chao, and chow fun weren’t a part of the city’s culinary vernacular, at least on a widespread scale. Not many knew what pho was, much less how to pronounce it.
“The reason why we opened in Haltom City was because there was already a strong Vietnamese community,” says Michael Bui, whose parents, Kiem Bui and Quy Nguyen, opened the restaurant in 1996, naming it after their daughter, Lan Trinh. “To us, we were just opening a restaurant to serve the neighborhood. We didn’t know it would go beyond that.”
Through word of mouth, My Lan eventually became one of the city’s most beloved restaurants. Its popularity helped boost the profile of Vietnamese cuisine in Fort Worth, paving the way for so many others to follow. Now, more than two decades later, the family is in expansion mode. Trinh opened a second location last year in Colleyville, and Michael Bui and his wife, Trang Do, opened a third location, called My Lan Bistro, recently in far north Fort Worth.
The latter quietly opened in January, then shut down amid the pandemic. Last month, it reopened with new safety measures firmly in place.
The family’s goal, Bui says, is to bring Vietnamese food, their family’s food, the food they grew up on, to those who may be unaware of it. Twenty-five years ago, that was a healthy chunk of Fort Worth. Now, the family is moving into areas like Colleyville, where there are few Vietnamese options. Ditto for far north Fort Worth, where My Lan Bistro resides in Alliance Town Center, a monolithic shopping mall dotted with every kind of restaurant — Japanese, Tex-Mex, burgers, seafood — except Vietnamese.
“We look for areas that don’t already have a lot of Vietnamese restaurants,” he says. “We’re not trying to compete with other places. We’re trying to bring our family’s recipes to people who may not know Vietnamese food.”
Boasting more than 100 items, the menu at the Haltom City mothership can be overwhelming for newbies but a goldmine for the devoted. The spinoffs have abbreviated menus, offering My Lan’s greatest hits: large, steaming bowls of pho, accompanied by side plates spilling over with lime, basil, rings of jalapeño, and bean sprouts piled like kindling; chow mein and chow fun, bird’s nests of crunchy or soft noodles topped with protein and veggies in an addicting gravy; barbecue pork ribs, etched in black crust.
Each restaurant offers a different experience. In its pre-COVID life, Haltom City was a bustling ball of energy. Servers hustled from table to table, yelling out orders to the kitchen, while cooks yelled right back at them, creating an amusingly chaotic atmosphere. Diners sat in numbered booths along the walls or at community tables where strangers could become fast friends over plates of chicken fried rice. (In COVID-19 times, the community tables are no longer in use.)
Colleyville is the direct opposite. It’s a more elegant experience with tablecloth-fitted tables and hovering service.
The new location in Alliance is somewhere in between. It’s not as rough around the edges as the original, but it’s not as glitterati as the Colleyville store.
“That was intentional,” Do says. “Each restaurant has its own personality. It gives you a reason to visit all three.”
My Lan Bistro, 9180 North Freeway, Ste. 504, 817.750.2121
