ThaiBinh Ho owner of Pho ThaiBinh in Desoto, Texas is rebranding on July 1st to Peaceful ThaiBinh to reflect a fully vegan menu.
After evaluating his return from being shut down for the month of May due to COVID, Ho decided to commit to his original plan of opening his restaurant to be 100% vegan. When he moved to Texas from California at the beginning of 2019, he was already vegetarian, but didn’t want to take away business from other vegan restaurants inside of the same marketplace, Grow Desoto Market. But after seeing the business opportunities to work alongside the other vegan vendors and have a positive impact on the community’s health, especially among COVID, Ho took action to make the switch.
“I can help people eat vegan with my food and that’s a win for the world”, shares Ho. “I aim to cook passionately and compassionately with every dish.”
It all started with a fitness challenge from one of Ho’s friends that got him to refocus on his intentions with his food. After doing a simple “50 push-up challenge at the beginning of COVID, Ho knew he wanted to do more for not only his health, but the people he serves as well.
“The message is easy, ‘Garbage in, garbage out'”, shares Ho. “It’s what I teach my son and the teenage high school students that work for me, ‘You’re not just earning a paycheck, you’re learning life lessons as well.’ ‘You take in garbage, you will spit out garbage.’ ‘Do the right thing and it will return.’ As a Buddhist, I believe in Karma, or ‘Cause and Effect’ and I believe the compassionate food we eat reflects in our lives”.
Peaceful Thai Binh is not only moving to a fully vegan ingredient list, but will also be free from refined sugar and MSG. Ho uses natural sweetneers like fruit or agave in his drinks and dishes. While we were tasting the food, we enjoyed they Salted Plum Lemonade and Mangojito that was deliciously sweet without any additional sugar! Ho even makes all of his sauces and pho broths from scratch, including his own vegan fish sauce and peanut dipping sauce for his spring rolls.
In the beginning of 2019, Pho Thai Bin started with only 3 menu options, predominantly pho only. It has now expanded to over 20 dishes, that were already mostly vegan with an animal protein option, but by July 1st will be all vegan.
“I think that anyone can enjoy food as a whole and vegan food is available for everyone now. My rebrand slogan will be “Fresh, Healthy, Delicious” with being fresh and healthy, people will gravitate towards that but without being tasteful or delicious, they will not enjoy it as often”, states Ho. “That element of being all 3 fresh healthy, delicious, will make people keep coming back, no matter if they’re vegan already or not. I have already told my meat-eating customers of the upcoming change and they are still excited to come back to eat more of my food”.
The spring rolls that Ho makes from scratch, now with Gardien’s chicken, were actually inspired by one of his meat-eating customers that he adapted the spring rolls for to show how realistic the vegan chicken could be. His customer’s response: “I can do this, I can eat vegan!”
Great to hear makes my heart happy!