Sam Ung, founding father of Phnom Penh Noodle Home, introduced Cambodian meals—and neighborhood—to Seattle.
Seng Kok “Sam” Ung, founding father of the Chinatown–Worldwide District restaurant Phnom Penh Noodle Home, handed away from a coronary heart assault this week on the age of 70. He survived the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge earlier than settling as a refugee in Seattle and opening one of many metropolis’s first Khmer-owned companies in 1987. The restaurant continues to function in the present day, now run by his daughters, Diane, Darlene, and Daybreak, who proceed their father’s legacy.
“Serving to others was a lifestyle,” says Diane of her father, one thing he discovered from his personal mother and father. Sam grew up in Battambang, the place they ran a preferred restaurant. He watched his mother and father cook dinner and noticed how they gave again to the neighborhood, feeding the hungry and volunteering.
Sam adopted of their footsteps, cooking on the restaurant, and, sadly, additionally by fleeing his dwelling nation—Sam’s father had fled China in 1937 to keep away from conscription into the military. In 1975, the violent and merciless Khmer Rouge got here to energy in Cambodia, and Sam went from cooking to pressured labor underneath brutal circumstances. He finally escaped to a refugee camp on the Thai border, and from there arrived in Seattle in 1980 with two units of garments, his spouse, who was eight months pregnant with Daybreak, and nothing else. He labored a number of jobs, together with as a dishwasher at Ivar’s Acres of Clams, whereas dreaming of opening his personal restaurant.
In 1987, Sam opened Phnom Penh Noodle Home, one of many first Cambodian-owned companies within the metropolis, and infrequently its solely Cambodian restaurant. “I keep in mind him saying how many individuals didn’t consider in him,” says Diane. “He got down to show all of them flawed.” With the abilities he picked up in his mother and father’ restaurant, Elvis hair, and a knack for dialog, even in his newly acquired English, Sam turned Phnom Penh right into a neighborhood hub. “Dad had such a presence within the restaurant,” says Diane.
Sam Ung arrived in Seattle in 1980 with nothing however a spare set of garments and went on to open a restaurant that continues on after almost 4 a long time.
He would print out photographs of well-known individuals who had eaten on the restaurant, which Diane remembers considering was humorous on the time. However now she sees it as spectacular: “You need to advocate for your self, and once you’re pleased with one thing, you share it with the world.” Sam thought of cooking for President Invoice Clinton and Vice President Al Gore one in all his best accomplishments—that one even received t-shirts, she says.
Whereas Sam labored tirelessly, he additionally supported the neighborhood, donating time, meals, and cash for fundraisers and social causes, serving to the Wing Luke Museum, and auctioning off cooking courses for the Asian Counseling and Referral Service. However maybe his best contribution was his memoir, I Survived the Killing Fields. He wrote and revealed it in 2012, then arrange an exhibit about his expertise within the restaurant, to assist different survivors share their very own troublesome tales, to advertise therapeutic and neighborhood satisfaction.
After retiring in 2013, Sam returned to Cambodia however didn’t fairly cease cooking. He hosted gatherings within the village for grownup elders and youngsters within the neighborhood who did not have sufficient to eat. “You’d see photographs of in all probability 50 to 100 folks,” says Diane. “He would simply feed them and ship them off with slightly bit of cash in a pink envelope to bless them.”
Sam Ung survived one of the vital horrific intervals of the 20th century, then went on to reside out the American dream, elevating three youngsters in a spot that gave them the chance to do no matter they wished. Which, it turned out, was to hold on their father’s legacy of feeding folks—and assembly them. Studying by messages after her father’s demise, Daybreak noticed how essential these eating room conversations have been in constructing the neighborhood hub. “That’s how prospects preserve coming in,” says Daybreak. “It is nearly like meals is secondary, and that connection is main.”
Diane, Darlene, and Daybreak hope to plan a celebration of Sam’s life in Seattle within the close to future, these enthusiastic about extra info can examine in on the restaurant’s social media.
