The Seattle Met broke unhappy information late final week: Sam Ung, the founding father of Phnom Penh Noodle Home, has died from a coronary heart assault on the age of 70.
As Eater Seattle reported a couple of years in the past, Ung began within the restaurant enterprise when he was a baby within the Cambodian metropolis of Battambang, chopping meat and greens in his mother and father’ restaurant when he was simply 14 years outdated. Then the Khmer Rouge got here to energy in Cambodia and unleashed a wave of violence and loss of life that compelled Ung and his pregnant spouse, Kim, to flee first to a refugee camp and finally to Seattle.
“In 1987, Sam opened Phnom Penh Noodle Home, one of many first Cambodian-owned companies within the metropolis, and infrequently its solely Cambodian restaurant,” writes the Met. “I keep in mind him saying how many individuals didn’t imagine in him,” his daughter Dianne (who now runs Phnom Penh along with his different two daughters), instructed the Met. “He got down to show all of them incorrect.”
The restaurant grew to become a hub for Seattle’s Cambodian neighborhood, and in 2013 Ung handed it on to his daughters. 5 years later, it quickly closed due to a household well being tragedy, however reopened in 2020 due to a crowdfunding marketing campaign and a grant from the town. (That’s the place that image of Ung after which Mayor Jenny Durkan comes from.)
The Met has extra on what Ung did since leaving the restaurant:
After retiring in 2013, Sam returned to Cambodia however didn’t fairly cease cooking. He hosted gatherings within the village for grownup elders and kids within the neighborhood who didn’t have sufficient to eat. “You’d see pictures of in all probability 50 to 100 folks,” says Diane. “He would simply feed them and ship them off with a bit bit of cash in a purple envelope to bless them.”
His daughters will probably plan a celebration of his life within the coming days. You’ll be able to comply with Phnom Penh Noodle Home on Instagram for updates.
Now on for extra — and happier — information you must know:
Grasslands Barbecue is coming again to Holy Mountain for its annual pop-up
It’s spring, in order that signifies that former Seattle resident Drew Marquis is mentioning a bunch of meat — 3,500 kilos, to be actual — from his acclaimed Oregon restaurant Grasslands Barbecue. Marquis and his workforce shall be serving a full menu of meats and sides at Interbay’s Holy Mountain Brewing from midday on Friday, March 14 till they promote out and from 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday till they promote out. And so they will promote out, since these pop-ups are extremely anticipated for barbecue followers. “We’ve enlisted a bunch of associates to assist us out and attempt to transfer of us by the road as fast as attainable however we count on it to be busy,” Marquis tells Eater Seattle. A full menu will be discovered right here.
The School Inn is closing completely
Final yr we reported that the house owners of beloved College District dive the School Inn have been seeking to promote. Properly, they haven’t discovered a purchaser so that they’ll be shifting on from the enterprise and shutting it down in June. As we wrote earlier, they’d no intention of taking it on completely when the purchased the beleaguered bar in 2020. The School Inn’s final day of service shall be June 15, the day after the College of Washington graduation. “Let the UW neighborhood have their celebration earlier than we do our final name,” co-owner Jen Gonyer wrote in an e-mail.
Darts?
The Puget Sound Enterprise Journal studies that the previous Flying Fish area in South Lake Union is being taken over by one thing known as Flight Membership — a London-born chain of dart bars. “The chain brings tech-based darts and an upscale 1800s-style British pub environment,” writes the Journal, noting that Flight Membership serves “sharable plates” of sliders and tacos and that type of factor.
