{"id":34996,"date":"2025-11-02T20:29:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T20:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/34996\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T20:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T20:29:11","slug":"helene-an-rebuilds-again-through-sf-restaurant-crustacean-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/34996\/","title":{"rendered":"Helene An rebuilds again through SF restaurant Crustacean | The City"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy to lose perspective when you set foot inside the colossal new downtown home of Crustacean, a longtime Vietnamese fine-dining fixture in The City that moved locations in July.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Your eyes can\u2019t help but zig-zag as you try to take in the full breadth of its elegant interior \u2014 the cavernous dining halls; colorful lighting piercing through blue, brown and clear liquor bottles lining across the bar; giant floral arrangements sprouting from every corner, including the ceiling; and the scattered obscurely shaped and uniquely patterned furniture and decor.<\/p>\n

You would never know from the enormity of it all just how small its origin was.<\/p>\n

\"Crustacean<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Crustacean restaurant bar at 195 Pine St. in San Francisco on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Craig Lee\/The Examiner<\/p>\n

Just a few years ago, the 6,000 square foot property on Polk Street was a pile of rubble and dry walls, all that remained from a demolished Japanese restaurant and 7-Eleven convenience store.<\/p>\n

There have only been a few constants during the An family\u2019s up-and-down tenure in America. One is the family\u2019s pioneering garlic noodles<\/a>, a revered dish that\u2019s become a fundamental staple of Bay Area cuisine and Asian American homes.<\/p>\n

The other constant is the family\u2019s propensity to rebuild and persevere.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandparents always said, \u2018You could lose everything, but you can\u2019t lose your family, the recipes, the knowledge.\u201d said Monique An, who runs Crustacean alongside her husband, Ken Lew. \u201cMy mom always says, \u2018Gosh, I\u2019ve lost things so many times. You can lose your material wealth just like that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Monique An\u2019s mother is Helene An, a trailblazing San Francisco\u00a0food icon, long hailed as the \u201cmother of fusion cuisine.\u201d In 2019, she won the Smithsonian Museum\u2019s Pioneer Award in Culinary Arts for \u201cintroducing Vietnamese food to mainstream America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crustacean is one of the family\u2019s six restaurants across the state, including its other Crustacean location, a\u00a0slightly younger outpost\u00a0in Beverly Hills. That spot, according to SF Eater, is a favorite among A-list Hollywood stars<\/a> including Will Smith, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian.<\/p>\n

Despite pleas from her family to retire, Helene An, now 81 years old, still oversees her restaurants, though the day-to-day operations are managed by her five daughters \u2014 Elizabeth, Catherine, Hannah, Jacqueline and Monique.<\/p>\n

Still, even after all the accolades and successes, Monique An said her mother couldn\u2019t help but fear the worst when the pandemic hit and devastated their bottom line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember talking to her on the phone, and I could hear the alarm in her voice, like she was flashing back to 50 years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was all happening again. Everything she had worked so hard to build wasn\u2019t going to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monique An said she and her four older sisters were born to aristocratic privilege in the Imperial City area of Hue, Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Even as the Vietnam War raged around them, Monique\u00a0An said, their day-to-day lives remained the same at their sprawling home, where they were served by\u00a0chefs and drivers and protected by private security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we were going to win the war,\u201d she said. \u201cWe thought everything was going well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Crustacean<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Crustacean restaurant dining room at 195 Pine St. in San Francisco on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Craig Lee\/The Examiner<\/p>\n

But like so many people across Vietnam, their standard lives in an instant came crashing down on April 30, 1975, when the\u00a0communist North Vietnamese toppled Saigon, the country\u2019s capital, claimed victory and seized control of the nation.<\/p>\n

Monique\u00a0An, who was 5 years old at the time, said a pilot \u2014 likely sent by her father, who was in the air force \u2014 knocked on the family\u2019s door that night and told them they had to leave the city immediately.<\/p>\n

Helene An and her five young daughters boarded a cargo plane, joining thousands of other Vietnamese at a refugee camp in Guam. Monique\u00a0An said they only took a few essential belongings with them because her mother assumed they would return home soon.<\/p>\n

But the Saigon airport shut down a few days later. The Ans would never return home, leaving behind countless family heirlooms and treasure. Monique\u00a0An said to this day, she has no pictures of herself as a baby.<\/p>\n

The family eventually landed in San Francisco to join Monique\u00a0An\u2019s grandmother, Diana, who had immigrated to the United States a few years before. Diana An had taken over a former Italian deli on 46th Avenue and converted it into the still-active Thanh Long, which the family claims was the first Vietnamese restaurant in The City\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


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Like many immigrants, the Ans\u2019 wealth, social status and achievements in their homeland did not come with them when they moved across the Pacific Ocean. The family went from living with royal privilege in Vietnam to cramming into in a one-bedroom flat in the Outer Sunset, Monique\u00a0An said.<\/p>\n

Her parents went back to college. Her father worked as a plane mechanic at United Airlines while her mother was an accountant \u2014 a job that inadvertently led her to one of the most important culinary inventions in Bay Area history when Helene An noticed her co-workers at the accounting firm frequently ate pasta with tomato sauce.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe thought that \u2018if all these Americans love pasta, then I\u2019m gonna create a pasta dish,\u2019\u201d Monique An said.<\/p>\n

She went on to develop her own Asian twist on pasta \u2014 garlic noodles, a dish Monique An said was unlike anything else at the time. Now, it\u2019s a favorite at-home lunch or dinner option inside Asian American households.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in it exactly? Other than a hearty helping of butter, garlic and MSG, hardly anybody knows \u2014 which is by design. To this day, the family has bent over backwards to keep the recipe private, going as far as building secret kitchens within the existing kitchens at each of their restaurants. Only Helene An and a few select chefs are allowed inside the secret kitchen to cook the signature dish.<\/p>\n

Soon after introducing the garlic noodles to the menu, Thanh Long\u2019s popularity soared, with the likes of Robin Williams, Danny Glover and Eddie Murphy lining up to chow on whole Dungeness crabs and garlic noodles.<\/p>\n

In 1991, the Ans opened their second restaurant \u2014 Crustacean, in Nob Hill \u2014 offering similar fusion flavors but with a far more upscale experience and environment. An said their goal was for guests to feel like they\u2019re walking into a beautiful home where they can feel warmth of a family while dining in elegance.<\/p>\n

Soon after it opened, San Jose Mercury News food reviewer David Beck wrote a story titled \u201cGarlic noodles worth marrying for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the third forkful of Helene An\u2019s garlic noodles I had a plan,\u201d Beck wrote. \u201cI would divorce my companion, marry An, get the recipe, divorce her and remarry companion No. 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat saved our business,\u201d Monique An said of Beck\u2019s review.<\/p>\n

Even Michael Bauer, the notoriously grumpy<\/a> San Francisco Chronicle food critic, eventually championed Crustacean\u2019s novel offerings, the first to bestow Helene An with the moniker \u201cthe mother of fusion cuisine.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2019, Monique\u00a0An and Lew \u2014 whom she met working at the restaurant when Lew was a customer \u2014 decided to move Crustacean from Nob Hill to the Financial District to be in a larger space and closer to downtown foot traffic.<\/p>\n

\"Crustacean<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Crustacean restaurant at 195 Pine St. in San Francisco on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Craig Lee\/The Examiner<\/p>\n

They signed a $4.5 million lease in 2020 to convert two neighboring structures into one facility, doubling the size of their original location. Contractors had just finished demolishing the old interiors when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March 2020.<\/p>\n

Over the next 2\u00bd years, construction stalled, leaving the blocks of cement untouched. Meanwhile, business at Crustacean plummeted, leading Lew \u2014 a businessman by trade \u2014 to wonder at various points whether the end of Crustacean was near.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was just no end in sight, you didn\u2019t know what was happening,\u201d Lew said. \u201cIt just destroyed the whole hospitality and commercial real-estate industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after the first shelter-in-place orders went into place, Monique An said, her mother called her, fearing that their history of losing everything was about to repeat itself.<\/p>\n

\"AN’s<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An\u2019s Famous Garlic Roasted Dungeness Crab and An\u2019s Famous Garlic Noodles at Crustacean restaurant at 195 Pine St. in San Francisco on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Craig Lee\/The Examiner<\/p>\n

But as the economy bounced back and restrictions lifted, Crustacean was able to stay afloat. It resumed construction in 2023 and finished earlier this year. Crustacean\u2019s sparkling new home debuted with a huge grand opening in July, attended by a wealth of prominent local restaurateurs.<\/p>\n

Not only did the sheer size of Crustacean\u2019s venue expand, but so did its menu since the chefs were able to do more with a larger kitchen.<\/p>\n

Still, even through all the change, two dishes born from secret family recipes remain: \u201cAn\u2019s Famous Garlic Roasted Dungeness Crab,\u201d created by Diana An, and \u201cAn\u2019s Famous Garlic Noodles,\u201d created by Helene An.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am amazed at how resilient my family has been to be able to lose everything in Vietnam and come here and rebuild their life, and still be able to impart their Vietnamese traditions on all of us,\u201d\u00a0Monique\u00a0An said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s easy to lose perspective when you set foot inside the colossal new downtown home of Crustacean, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105,15820],"class_list":{"0":"post-34996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news","14":"tag-the-city"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}