In her experience, most vegan dishes at Vietnamese restaurants in the Netherlands are not actually vegan, as they’ll often contain chicken stock or fish sauce. Being vegan herself, that’s how she ended up having her own vegan Vietnamese food truck!
Ha Bui-Versteeg is originally from Vietnam herself. She has been cooking since she was 10, for family. The first time she tried eating vegan/vegetarian for a while was when her grandfather was sick. According to Vietnamese Buddhist superstition, if you eat vegetarian for a month it will bring good luck. Her grandfather became better and she also quite liked eating vegetarian. She knew one day she wanted to go vegan.
She moved to the Netherlands and eventually became vegan when she moved in with her vegan husband. Since she loves Vietnamese food but got disappointed in Vietnamese restaurants she developed the ambition to cook Vietnamese food, but truly vegan. That’s how Chay originated. ‘Chay’ means vegan/vegetarian in Vietnamese.
Having a background in business studies helped her to launch the company. She started serving food from her cute yellow foodtruck in Amersfoort about a year ago. Here she’s still a few days a week. She expanded to Amsterdam about a month ago, you’ll find her at the Albert Cuyp market every Wednesday.
Bánh mì and bubble tea
On the menu are four dishes, three savoury and one sweet. Ha’s personal favourite is the Bánh mì sandwich, a well-known Vietnamese dish. Her version consists of a baguette (Ha bakes these herself) filled with vegan paté, aioli, vegan ham, pickles, cilantro, cucumber, and maggi! Other dishes are a summer roll (rice paper roll), noodle bowl and cassava cake (from cassava and coconut).
For drinks (hot and cold) she offers various teas as well as coffee in the bubble tea style: with chewy tapioca pearls inside. The Coconut Milk Coffee is her signature drink and comes with coconut milk, sugar syrup and tapioca as well!
You’ll find the foodtruck at the eastern end of the Albert Cuyp market, just when you enter from Van Woustraat. Tram (tram 4) and metro stops (station De Pijp at Noord-Zuid lijn) nearby.
Chay Foodtruck
Albert Cuypstraat
Open:
Wed 11:00 – 17:00
