(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Linda Gastonheimer, and welcome to Food News and Views. Glad to have you joining us. Well, have you tried Vietnamese cuisine? Well, what are the flavors? And how does it compare with other Asian cuisines? Well, Kathy Ariegy is the creator and owner of the new Vietnamese Asian Gao restaurant on Miami Beach, and that's Gao G-A-O. She has a very special attachment to Vietnamese food, and she's here to tell us all about it. So welcome, Kathy. - Hello, Linda. - Thank you for having me. - Well, thank you for joining us, and congratulations on your new restaurant. - Thank you. - Well, let's start with why did you decide to open up what you call a modern Vietnamese Asian themed restaurant. - Okay, modern, but still, authentic Vietnamese cuisine, but modern in the sense of the presentation, modern in the decor, the restaurants, the way we serve food, the way we present food, but is authentic cuisine, is not authentic cuisine. - It's authentic Vietnamese. Now, tell me what you mean by modern and the way we present it. - It's not presented in the family style, more like modern way of present reasons. - In other words, it's, of course, it's an individual choice to have. Okay, well, then what is your culinary background and why the Vietnamese? - Because I'm half Vietnamese and half French, of course it can't be exact. And so I grew up eating Vietnamese food, growing up in the restaurant business, because my parents has always been in this industry. And later on, I own several restaurants myself in France. I moved to the US and I have, of course, loop for kind of Vietnamese cuisine, but I have not found yet something that would be close to my vision. And that's why I said to myself one of these days when I will find the right location, the right space, I will open the restaurant with my vision of the Asian Vietnamese food in the modern way. - I must say, you certainly found a beautiful spot at the southern end of Miami Beach and it's beautifully decorated and all, we'll get to that. But you mentioned that, you know, Vietnamese and French, and they're very connected. And I think historically Vietnam was a colony of France. - Yeah, it was a French colony. - Right, and there's wonderful, wonderful Vietnamese food in Paris. Now that I can attest to. - No. (laughs) - And I was so happy when I could taste your food here in Miami Beach. So tell us a little bit about Vietnamese food. What are the special flavors? What should we look for? - Vietnamese food is mainly very flavory, in terms of herbs that we put a lot of fresh herbs. It's very, it's a very light cuisine compared to the, for example, to other Chinese with just like heavier, with more sauce. Vietnamese is something, it's much lighter and very flavory. - Well, one of the flavors that I happen to love that's not used very often in Asian or either any kind of cooking here is lemongrass. - Yes. - And it's such a wonderful flavor. Tell us a little bit about that. - Lemongrass is very flavory. We use that a lot to marinate, as a matter of fact, our pork ribs is marinated with lemongrass. We use lemongrass in our beef harmony dish. Lemongrass is very much used in the Vietnamese cuisine, as well as Thai cuisine. - Right. Well, you know, when you say Vietnamese food is very light, I want to talk about some of my favorites on your menu and just in general. And Paris, they're called rudo de prantan, which are rolls of Vietnamese food. But tell us about it 'cause you make your own roll. - Beautiful accent. - Wow. - Thank you. - Yes, it is what we call the spring rolls. Spring rolls is everything, of course, is homemade. Spring rolls, we have two different ones, the traditional one, which is made with pork, mushroom, rice, vermicelli, onions, scallions, and then this is fried. Then you can have it with a lettuce and mint, coriander, soybeans, you know, as I say, Vietnamese food is made of a lot, a lot of earth. It's very, very important. To eat it in the right way, to get the right experience. - Well, and eating it in the right way, I have to tell everyone, you've got to get your hands in this. - Yes. - You take all of the ingredients you just mentioned, you put it inside a lettuce leaf, you roll up the lettuce leaf, and then you dip it into a little light sauce. - Yes. - And it's really, really good. - Yes. That's why it is very important. And our stuff is being trained very closely that we have to kind of educate, if I may, our patrons in order to experience the right way, you have to eat the right way. So it's important that you follow the instruction of the waiter. - Right, and I must say that they're very good at helping people and others. And then another very famous Vietnamese thing is faux, P-H-O. - Yes. - That's a soup. So tell us a little bit about why this faux is so, it's very light and very flavorful. - Yes. It's made with beef or rice noodles and beef and with cilantro, herbs and lemon. And that's made, that soups so light and fresh. - Right, and that's the word I love to use in the Vietnamese food is that it's light and it's fresh, porous things you've been saying. And so then tell me more about what are the popular dishes that are served at Gao. - Popular is, so I would say it is spring rolls because spring rolls is like international. When you go to a Vietnamese restaurant, you cannot miss that dish. - Right. - We have our pork caramel, our tamarind soup, which is very traditional. - But what's the first one, it's a caramel, pork caramel. Pork caramel is the pork belly is the stew pork belly cooked in the coconut water and it's very, very good. It's very traditional. - Right, and it's just wonderful, so unusual because you're getting the sweetness from the coconut. It's not overly sweet, but it's just a blend of sweet and spice, which is really very, very nice. And before we finish our meal, you said, I had to have something called a tango, a P-A-N, P-A-T-O-N-G-K-O, what is that? - This is, it's like a donut. Is donut served with condensed meal ice cream? - Condensed milk ice cream. - Yes. - Wow, okay. Well, it was really very, very, very good. And the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is the name of the restaurant, G-A-O-Gao. What does that stand for? - Gao means grain of rice. - Well, now why did you pick that as the name of your restaurant? - Because rice is like the main thing in the Asian cuisine. You cannot eat any meal without rice. So rice is something very important. And I think that it is a cute name, it's short, it's easy to remember, and it's nice. - I must say, I was very impressed with, there's a mural on one of your walls. The whole picture are rice grains, but you don't notice it until you get right up and almost touch it. - Yes, it's a wall made of gold leaves, and with a decor that is with each grain of rice, it was outline each design. - Amazing. And one other thing that I thought was very, very interesting, I don't know if this is a good luck, a traditional charm, but on one of the tables, a round table, in the middle of the restaurant, is a big chandelier hanging down. And also that chandelier are many, many, many pieces of paper with writing on it. What is that all about? - Okay, this chandelier actually has nothing to do with Asia is from a designer that I love. His name is Ingo Maurer. And the idea is to have those lamps, having people sign something and hang it on all those clips. - So it's a little message center. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But it's very pretty, because the papers are hanging off the lights and the light shines through it. It makes it an unusual kind of centerpiece for the room. - Yes. - Well, Kathierigee, tell me, where can we find out more about Gail? - You have to come? (laughing) - We might have looked you up or look about, more about what it is where we look on Instagram. - Yes, we have our Instagram. We have our website. And you can make reservation on the open table. We are on Google, so, right. - So go to GAO or your website. - Yes. - And go, if you live in Miami area, certainly go over there. But if you're visiting this area, it's a beautiful spot. Very southern point on Miami Beach. So Kathierigee, thank you so much for joining me. She's the owner of the new Gao restaurant. - Thank you, Linda. - Well, I'm Linda Gassenheimer, and this is Food News and Views. - Well, joining me now is Miguel Ortiz. He's in charge of the bar at Gao. So welcome, Miguel. - Thank you for having me. - Well, tell us a little bit about the bar at Gao. It's a very beautiful bar, I have to tell everyone. Tell us a little bit about it. - It's like a nice embarrassment, beautiful bar. It's designed by the owner. She's picked everything and she designed everything. - You know, when you say she designed everything in the bar and it amazes me because the restaurant is just beautiful and she designed all of that and she's told me. So it's very, very nice. What is your background of running the bar, of being a bartender? I don't really call you a bartender because you're managing the whole bar. - Yeah, so like I have a lot of experience in the bar. I started like 15 years ago. I started from the bottom, like I got the bus here. So I worked up and learned a lot about drinks. I have a lot of experience in working in the bar. I love to do a lot of fresh stuff, like all my stuff is fresh. I love to do everything fresh from the beginning. - Right, when you say everything is fresh, so you make every single cocktail freshly made. We've been talking about Vietnamese food and Asian food and the influences that goo. So have you created drinks, cocktails at the bar there that will marry well with the flavors from the Vietnamese food? - Yeah, we have like your drink that are really nice. They come with a drink, like passion from Arorita. Also, we have like a passion from Antini, a really refreshing, like everything is really fresh. They come really well with the food that we have. - Okay, so you have a passion fruit. So it's sort of like a regular martini that you have some passion fruit juice in it. Is that what it is? - No, it's not a regular martini. It's like a passion fruit. - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say any of your drinks are regular. Tell us what's special about your martinis. - No, this is like a special martini that I created. It's like really refreshing because right now, like passion fruit, like one of the best to make. So it's like creating that I make. And that's really refreshing. - Well, if passion fruit has such a very strong, wonderful flavor, in fact, when I'm cooking with tropical fruits, I like to use the passion fruit because it keeps the flavor. It doesn't lose the flavor when you're using it. So that's nice. And I noticed that you also have something like a dragon pearl. What is that? - A dragon pearl is like, we name it a dragon pear, but it's like a leishimatini where I'll touch. It's a really, really nice drink. - Does it have dragon fruit in this? Is that it? - No, this one, we have a dragon fruit martini that has dragon fruit on it. The dragon pear is with the lychee. It's really refreshing. - That sounds really wonderful. What are some of the popular cocktails there than at your bar at Gao? - We have a really nice drink that's spicy. We call it a mango heat because it's a little spicy. We make a fresh mango and it's really refreshing. - Okay. Tell me, what goes into making your chips for making a great cocktail? What are the elements you need in it? - The fresh is like the alcohol, it has to really be a nice alcohol because when you buy the regular cheap stuff, it's not going to go, wow, what a drink. And we would have higher alcohol. Also, if you're making a drink, it has to be fresh. I taste all the juices I make, it has to be your fresh. So the lime juice I squish every day, so everything will be fresh. And that's what people love in the drinks. - So if you want to drink there, then none of the juice, nothing's made in advance. It's all going to be done freshly for that drink. - I'm at the minute, but we make it on the same day. - Okay, wonderful. Well, what are your tips then if I wanted to make cocktails at home? Do you get, have you got any tips for me there? - Of course, make everything like fresh and when you're making and buy a really nice tequila, or buy a gin if you love or vodka, you know, it's going to go well with any drink that you could want to make. - Okay, so buy good quality, good quality. And just quickly before we end, I noticed you have a huge list of sakes, which is very nice with Asian food. I had no idea there were that many different kinds of sakes on your list. What is the basic differences amongst all of them? - It depends if you like dry sakes, if you like sweet, you know, and if you like a dark, you know, it depends the way you like because, you know, it depends on your palate of what you like. But we have a nice, very sakes, so, you know, it depends on your taste. - Right, okay, and of course, we have to say that you do have a lovely wine list there as well. And how long has Gao been open? Have you, how long have you been there? - I've been there for a few months already, but we've been open like two months, but we're doing great. I love a place, you know, the people that we receive, they always like drink the food, like the chef is amazing, you know. - Yes, that's a lovely place to work, I love it. - Right, and I noticed it has a French touch as well because the Vietnamese and French food are sort of married very nicely together. Well, Miguel Ortiz, thank you so much for joining me. - Thank you for having me, thank you so much. - And I'm Linda Gassenheimer, and we've been talking about the new Vietnamese-style restaurant Gao. We've been talking with the owner, Cathy Arrigri, and their bartender, I should say, really bar manager, Miguel Ortiz. 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