ORLANDO, Fla. — With each dish one couple churns out from their food truck, it’s a love letter to Laos and Cambodia.
And while Brittney Keophoxay-Lam and her husband, Dan Lam, worried at first that their food wouldn’t find a receptive audience, their fears were allayed when they moved from Tampa to Central Florida.
“What’s the best way to have other people understand your culture? Through food,” Dan explained. “We’re just enjoying ourselves and being passionate about what we do about the food and giving it a new look.”
The culinary couple run Mae Tao & Son’s Kitchen, a staple at the Tasty Takeover in Orlando’s Milk District.
What began as an idea to share their heritage with creative twists on staple dishes and pop-up events in Tampa turned into a food truck and a desire to maintain their cultural integrity.
Mae Tao & Son’s Kitchen, run by Brittney Keophoxay-Lam and her husband, Dan Lam, puts creative twists on staple dishes from Cambodia and Laos. (Spectrum News/Elmancie Kelley III)
“We were also told that in order to be more marketable, you need to label yourself as Thai food. And, you know, we’re not Thai; we’re Cambodian, Lao,” Brittney said.
Yet, the couple, whose parents escaped their respective countries during the Vietnam conflict, stuck with it, and what makes them different turned out to be their superpower.
“For some reason, Orlando was just very open arms about it, and they were curious. They were responsive to the food,” Brittney said.
Orlandoans have been very responsive to the dishes served up at Mae Tao & Son’s Kitchen, co-owner Brittney Keophoxay-Lam says. The food truck attracts eager foodies at the Tasty Takeover in the Milk District. (Spectrum News/Elmancie Kelley III)
Soon, the Lams gained a following, and even more recently, gained attention from a Central Florida icon: Disney.
They’re currently working on a collaboration with Disney Springs, though they cannot reveal specific details yet.
“One of the executives over at Disney had tried our food, and they were like, ‘Oh my, this is so good. Like, what is it?’ ” Dan said. “They had reached out and emailed us, and we were like, ’Is this real?’ I didn’t think it was real.”
In the meantime, as the law school student and her creative chef husband dream of a brick-and-mortar location and building out their brand, they’re also building something else: a family, with a baby boy due this summer.
“We want him to be able to tell our son that mom and dad worked really hard to build something up,” Brittney said. “We want him to be able to be proud of his cultures, both Lao and Cambodian cultures.”