Ngoc Tran

Tell us a bit about yourself and Shop Bao Ngoc. 

My name is Ngoc (pronouns she/her) and I am a triple Capricorn - meaning I can’t sit still and am ✨multifaceted✨. I used to run Shop Bao Ngoc as a full time Vietnamese restaurant but have since pivoted into a cute community/third space for so many community baddies. Nowadays, we just host pop ups and fundraisers whenever we have capacity. We share the space with many folks in the community - who use it to cook, host workshops, fundraise or just need a chill space to hang out with their friends. 

What inspired you to transition from a more traditional commercial enterprise into a community space?

When I started cooking supper clubs from my bedroom in 2016, I fell in love with it as a creative practice and a way of building community and connection. I spent a lot of my childhood growing up in community houses and it has definitely shaped how I move through the world. As an adult, I always dreamt of a space that I could share with the community - where we can dream and play together. I really wanted Shop Bao Ngoc to become that space but I felt so trapped in the hospo grind and it was slowly taking me away from the things I deeply cared about. 

Three and a half years later, we were getting so busy from the viralness of a banh mi post (where I grilled people for their expectation that asian food should be cheap) and were slinging over 500 banh mi (as well as a full menu) each week with a three person team. I was working with my partner in the kitchen and we were so fucking exhausted and burnt out - we kept fighting with each other and crying in between orders. One time, I bawled my eyes out while assembling a bowl of pho in front of the customer lol. 

All I wanted was space to cook creatively but I felt trapped in other people’s expectations of me. Anyways, I remember sitting in the back room crouched down and crying after having therapy during my break and thinking ‘fuck I need to shut this whole thing down or I might not come out of this alive’. That night, I wrote a post to say that we were closing but deep down I knew that this wasn’t the end. I just needed this chapter of my life to compost before it can reincarnate into what it is today. 

It was probably one of the best decisions I have made in my life so far. It gave me so much more space to build relationships with the community around the shop, allowed me to heal my relationship with my body and food and since then, I have learnt so much about the importance of boundaries and rest. 

What does community care mean to you, and how does food play a role in that?

Community care means collectively building grassroots networks to support each other beyond governments and institutions. As a daughter of Vietnamese refugees/immigrants, community care is second nature to me. One of my earliest memories of food is aunties dropping cooked meals and fresh produce from their garden at our house. Mum would do the same for her neighbours and friends. My mum and her community had set up local infrastructures to support themselves away from the institutions that often dismissed or forgot about marginalised communities. They would often trade skills and share resources. 

I learnt so much from my elders and how they show up for kin, even beyond these fake borders - I wouldn’t be where I am today without the resourcefulness of my family network.

What do you love most about the work you’re doing in your community?

If you ask my friends, most will tell you that I need to rest more, set better boundaries and increase my pho prices etc. But to be honest, everything I do at and for the shop is purely out of love (as cheesy as that sounds). 

Once I realised that following your passion under capitalism is a scam, I got myself a part time job in the higher education sector so that I can spend the remaining time doing things I love most at the shop. Now I get to play, rest, create, run workshops, host pop ups and fundraisers - all without stressing about whether or not it can pay the bills. 

I think spaces like the shop are so important to the community and keeping it alive as long as possible has always been a priority for us. Witnessing strangers build their own relationship with the shop has been so special too. My heart feels so full every time I attend an event at the shop and share space with others - feel so safe and held by our silly little shop. 

What kind of future are you trying to help build - for your community, or more broadly?

Have you ever heard of prefigurative politics? It is a political approach where we strive to embody and practice alternative worlds that we want to move towards. Ever since I was teenager, I have been involved in some form of community organising. I joined a socialist political group when I was 16 where I helped organise meetings and handing out flyers at the local election. At 18, I was organising community bbqs at my community centre. In my early 20’s, I volunteered at some not for profits but soon had a mental breakdown when I realised that real community building was outside of those fancy buildings. 

Looking back, all the things I learnt on the way have led me to this point. Building and maintaining community networks around the shop through the medium of food has been so life affirming for me and I hope for others too! This space is for all (no dickheads obviously) to feel seen and be heard. I hope that this space and the shelter it provides can emotionally nourish all who come through, especially my queer chosen family. It has truly been an honor to dream and build alternative futures with all who have touched the shop (whether physically or spiritually!).

What’s your big dream for this project - where would you love to see it go? 

I’m not sure tbh. We are just trying to survive day by day in this burning world. Sometimes, I wake up and scroll on my phone and feel so defeated - I often wonder ‘what's the point of anything?’. We are so fucking privileged to ‘open when we feel like it’ - everyone deserves safety to rest and slow down but colonialism and late stage capitalism really said no.

I hope our little shop inspires the people around us to forge their own path and move against the status quo. I have met so many people who have told me how they’ve been ~influenced~ to finally say ‘enough is enough’ and prioritise themselves too! At the moment, we are all about degrowth so happy to just move with mother nature and make some space for rage and deep breathing. 

Where do you think small actions fit into bigger change? 

Small actions are building blocks of bigger change. They don’t just ‘fit into bigger change’ - they’re usually how it starts. While our everyday choices may seem insignificant on their own, their collective power can have ripple effects. They are replicable and when accumulated, can create larger impacts that demand for change. 

I think about this a lot in the context of cooking and ancestral food knowledge - I think about all those chefs, cooks, ancestors who came before me and fed their community and what impact they had on the people around them and the generations after. I think about how they nourished for the sake of nourishing, to build stronger communities, away from the accolades and celebrity chef status. These are the kind of chefs that inspire me to continue what I do today.