Today we’d like to introduce you to Vivian Tu.
Hi Vivian, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
The foundation of my childhood revolved around spirituality, kitchen magic, and culture… Unbeknownst to me, it seems not much has changed in my life since then. And if anything, my relationship with these contributing factors have blessed and expanded my reality in ways unimaginable. My family’s values were deeply rooted in religious ceremonies and hospitable weekly house gatherings, where mum would summon me to lend a hand in large preparations for our dinner guests. My mother has been my biggest inspiration. She’s been an excellent kitchen sorceress for as long as I can remember. And she carries herself with a great sense of warmth, selflessness, and fierce grace. She’s golden. Accompanied with these house gatherings was my parent’s love for culture and music. They had a formed a group coined “CT BAND” who always played as the closing act of the evening, serenading our guests into the late hours. Many of their gigs were fundraisers for the less fortunate of Vietnam. I still have vivid memories of old school Vietnamese smoky lounge blues, to Edith Piaf covers sung by my mother, to Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” sung and played by my father and his guitar. We always had a wide range of tasteful music in our household. PA on full blast. I found it a fascinating and tormenting experience to say the least. Little did I know, I’d end up curating something like this with my own twist – 20 years later at Shyama.
Mum and dad are 1st generation immigrants from Vietnam. Both were brought up Mahayanist Buddhist. Upon their landing on western soil, they converted to Catholicism, had me, and off I went to private Catholic school. My grandmother lived with us for most of my formative years, and I remember watching her prepare vegan meals at home while chanting, “Namo A Di Da Phat” on her hand tally counter, always attached to her right pointer finger and thumb. I always felt more drawn to the Buddhist influence in our family but could never put a reason as to why. Again, little did I know I would also follow in her spiritual footsteps with my own japa mala (counting beads), as an animal rights activist through adhering to an ahimsa vegan lifestyle years later. The woman in my family have imprinted great jewels within my consciousness and I am forever indebted to them for it. And to my father, I’m grateful for the inspiration of his hardworking nature and tasteful sharings of world cultures and music.
Curiosity of my ancestral bloodline, historical culture, healing modalities, and foods of these places has been a great source of inspiration for me over the last decade. I started my search in Vietnam, looking to uncover the roots of my family’s spiritual lineage and shortly after that, I somehow found myself in India. Hence the name of our restaurant, “Shyama”, which will be explained later. Upon my arrival in Saigon, I hopped on a tourist bus to ancient temples along the coast, stretching all the way up to the gorgeous regions of northern Hoi An. For me, the experience seemed a bit underwhelming as all the presiding deities of these temples seemed to be of newer Buddhist manifestations. I saw a lot of Quan Yin (female Bodhisattva of Compassion) and Lord Buddha… Most of the temples visited were built only 200 years ago.. so I continued my search for older temples and deities. The next place I landed was Cambodia. Angor Wat had been on my bucket list since I was a child, so this was exhilarating for me. The second I entered temple grounds, the air was different. The architecture, the deities, the landscaping…it was a revelation. I quickly asked around for a guide to answer my inquiries and ended up speaking to a monk. I asked him why the presiding deities were so different to the ones I had seen in Vietnam and what Their names were. He smiled and replied, ” Our temple was built 900 years ago in the 12th century Khmer dynasty. These deities here are Indian Hindu Gods named Visnu (Krsna/Shyama) and Brahma.” And there it was. My answer and entrance into the greatest rabbit hole of my life. Around this time, I stumbled upon a book that changed everything for me, called the “Bhagavad Gita”, translated “The Song of God” – spoken by Krsna (Shyama) Himself, transcribed a little over 5,000 years ago.
This book enlightened me on the deeper essences of transcendental Yoga and drastically changed my views on animal exploitation and meat eating, inspiring my decision to continue my grandmother’s example of veganism and deeper spiritual practices. Through more research, I later found that the whole South East Asian region was once an extension of the great Hindu Cosmopolis through maritime trade route weavings from ancient Kalinga Kingdom (modern day Orissa), all connected through Sanskrit lingua franca since the 1st century CE. Historians have found that a 4-8th century South Indian King of the Pallava Dynasty married a Naga Queen from Champa in South East Asia. Recent studies have uncovered that this Champa Kingdom is our modern day Vietnam and there are architectural remnants of this Kingdom’s antiquity still standing in that region to this day. Southeast Asian political marriages were very common during this era, and history also speaks of the peaceful social transformations of these regions inspired by Indic political leaders and high-ranking priests. The circumference of South East Asian countries that were blessed with the golden touchstone of Indic spirituality and culture spread throughout the Indonesian islands, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, and Laos. Which now leads us back to our humble restaurant and cultural space, Shyama.
My family had opened two different restaurants in the last 25 years. The first was named “La Pagoda” and the second, “Pho CT”. The Pho restaurant was my mother’s passion project and she had been handling it like a boss for a little over a decade and yes, my parent’s “CT Band” would play there often. When 2020 lockdowns hit, I had just returned from a sabbatical in India with plans to make some quick money to travel back and study Ayurveda. Before I could do that, mum expressed to me how she was ready to retire. It was probably the worst time to even consider selling the shop due to the unsteady state of the world. No one budged to buy the place, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and had so much fun curating the whole project. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d have a restaurant of my own, but it seemed like the universe was conspiring for this to happen. So I went with it. In my time away, I had learned so many different styles of cooking and gathered so many exotic recipes.
Naturally, I’ve always loved to cook for my family and friends, so I figured the undertaking wouldn’t be too hard. While designing our menu, I made it a point to highlight traditional delicacies of Indochinese cuisine and had fun finding innovative ways to veganise them. Fusions of foods & spices that traveled through the silk road and maritime trade routes were my muses. I wanted to offer new and exciting dishes with history behind them for our Los Angeles community. Shyama has been a humble meeting place for cultural events, world music, and an educational space for conversations on holistic approaches to life through a panel of doctors from various backgrounds such as Ayurveda (Indian holistic medicine) to Sufi naturopathy. We even had a good friend of mine from Oxford University share his research on tantric Sakta traditions. I’m grateful to each and every person who’s collaborated with us in the space. It’s been such an epic journey and I’ve had so much joy watching this passion project become an entity of its own. I’m humbled that Shyama was an offering space to the place of my childhood. And it’s truly as if my journey has come full circle, back to those days of cooking with my mother and grandmother, infusing their loving spirit into food, and facilitating a wholesome meeting place for art and music.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Due to the circumstances of 2020 lockdowns, we definitely started on the wrong foot transitioning to Shyama. Mum and I barely had enough money to revamp the space into its new image. I re-painted and designed the whole space mostly on my own and sometimes with friends. When we officially opened the restaurant, we couldn’t afford to pay for help. The restaurant launched with just me, my mother, and one of my best friends (Love you Gaura!). I honestly don’t even know how the hell we pulled it off. Most nights were flooded with customers but we somehow we got the job done. We were ecstatic to see that the restaurant was taking off so quickly and it was our grounding source of inspiration to keep pushing.
Most of our help has been through the selfless hearts of my friends and family who have come to volunteer. Our financial support has come from angels and a gofundme made by my good friend Aastha. Without everyone’s support, we definitely would have been forced to walk away from 12 years of work tied to this space. I did my best to maintain my mother’s legacy. We all did it together and I’m eternally grateful for Shyama’s outcome. To all the customers who showed up with an open mind and heart, thank you for being so understanding of our circumstances. We love and appreciate each and every person who has written a positive review on Shyama’s platforms.
At this point in our journey, it’s still an uphill battle. We still haven’t been able to find long-term chefs to take my mother’s place in the kitchen and she deserves time to rest. It’s also been financially difficult to hire more employees due to the inconsistency of customer traffic. Our shop is 2k sqft and it’s been a huge undertaking for us to maintain on our own – buying groceries, cooking, cleaning, 5 days a week while serving large numbers. Thankfully, we’ve accomplished our goal of paying off the previous restaurant’s debt… though with a heavy, heavy heart, we are saddened to express that we’re currently in the process of selling our current location and are looking to move onto new Shyama ventures. We’re currently working on getting our products into local grocery stores, so please keep an eye out for that. I’m also in the beginning stages of writing my first cookbook, highlighting the golden history of South East Asia. Our journey isn’t over it yet and we are excited for what’s to come.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Prior to this restaurant endeavor, my work overlapped between the worlds of holistic medicine and private cooking/catering. I am a certified Usui & Tibetan Reiki Master (Level 2), KRI certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher, as well as a Traditional Chinese Medicine bodywork therapist — practicing modalities such as Fire Cupping, Gua Sha, and Acupressure. I also had a lot of fun adding my love for Nikola Tesla’s violet light Ozone therapies into the mix. The majority of my work has been private cooking, meal prepping, and TCM bodywork. I’ve also helped clients through detox packages incorporating alkaline diet plans alongside TCM deep tissue + lymphatic drainage therapies. Unfortunately, since the restaurant opened, I’ve had to put a pause on my personal studies and private offerings but look forward to helping others in this realm again soon.
Pricing:
- Private Cooking $60/hr (travel + grocery included)
- Fire Cupping $80/hr
- Gua Sha $70 (Full Back)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shyamarestaurant.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shyamarestaurant/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shyamarestaurant
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/shyama-vegan-south-east-asian-kitchen-canoga-park
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/bodhisattvalove/
Image Credits
Sabrina Che Photographer, Editor, and Book Designer based in Los Angeles. Upcoming Exhibition: “Gilded Consciousness” @ GAS Beverly Hills, CA [TBA] www.sabrinache.com @sabrinamche (Photos 1-4) Ted Soqui www.tedsoquiphoto.com @tedsoquiphotography (Photos 5-8)
