Vermicelli for Thanksgiving: Vietnamese restaurant owner pays it forward

Clients at Siloam Mission got to taste some far-away flavours this Thanksgiving weekend when the owner of a local Vietnamese restaurant delivered 100 meals for lunch.

Tam Nguyen, owner of Tam's Pho on Portage Avenue, says he received a lot of help when he was growing up in Vietnam and when he moved to Canada 37 years ago at the age of 23.

"I'm so lucky I got the right direction, I grew up by myself when I'm only 13 years old, and anywhere I go, people help me out," Nguyen said.

Many of the people who have helped him in the past are now far away, or don't need his help, so Nguyen said he wanted to "pay it forward."

"Somebody might need my help, so I share the luck and whatever I have, I give out of that. The more you give, the more you receive."

Nguyen closed his restaurant on Saturday to prepare the lunches, packaging 100 vermicelli salads with spring rolls and delivering them to Siloam Mission on Princess Street.

Chris Buffington, food services manager at Siloam Mission, said he's grateful for the help. In a normal day, Siloam Mission serves 1,400 meals, he said.

"It's really great to see the whole community of Winnipeg helping out to make what we do here in the kitchen a little bit easier. It's great to see that people want to help and want to provide meals for those that we're serving."

This is the second year Nguyen has prepared a Thanksgiving meal. Since most people have turkey at Thanksgiving, Nguyen wanted to give people a different experience.

"Last year I did another group and they said, 'Oh thank you, I never had Vietnamese food before. I never tried,' But they're willing to try, and they love it. They like it a lot."

Nguyen said he plans to do this again next year, and he hopes to serve an even bigger meal for a larger number of people.