When Ho Chi Minh City had an outbreak, Ca Men restaurant cooked 700 loving meals every day to give to nurses, doctors and poor people in blockaded areas.
Every early morning, from 4:00 a.m., 6 members of Ca Men’s kitchen team begin preparing and processing ingredients for loving meals sent to hospitals and quarantine areas.
At about 8:00 a.m., the fragrant grains of Quang Tri rice, along with fresh meat, fish, and stir-fried vegetables, are stacked neatly in trays, carefully boxed, waiting for the transport truck to take them to the destination.
Regularly, for nearly 2 months, the Ca Men kitchen has been cooking 700 loving portions of rice every day. Each meal receives care and meticulousness with delicious and clean ingredients, contributed from all over Ho Chi Minh City and many regions of the country.
“Cooking with love, we pay attention to each portion we give. I’m fine at home, but doctors and nurses work hard so they have to eat well to have strength,” Nhat Thuan (born in 1990), owner of Ca Men restaurant, shared with Zing.
Bring Quang Tri to town
“Announcement: the restaurant will temporarily close from July 9, 2021, only cooking for charity.”
This is the inscription posted in front of Ca Men restaurant since the days when Ho Chi Minh City was relaxing under Directive 16. Before temporarily ceasing business, the restaurant also started cooking meals for hospitals and people in difficult circumstances.
Ca Men was founded by Nhat Thuan, a native of Quang Tri who has been attached to Ho Chi Minh City for more than 10 years.
“When I was a child in the countryside, I often carried rice to the fields for my parents. Later, Ca Men became the place where I ‘brought Quang Tri to town’. This is also the slogan I set for the shop,” Thuan shared.
For the past two months, Ho Chi Minh City has fallen ill and Ca Men’s business has been temporarily suspended. The kitchen turned to lovingly cooking rice to donate to places in need. Not calling for support, Ca Men has something to cook, hoping to contribute to fighting the epidemic.
Initially, the kitchen mainly gave food to people facing difficulties in blockade areas. Some time later, when they learned that the doctors and nurses in the field hospital were lacking in food, Thuan and the Ca Men team focused on cooking rice for the hospital and sent more gifts to the people.
“Seeing that people are in difficulty and the doctors and nurses are struggling, I want to help, but it’s not a big deal. Compared to those hardships, our contribution is very small,” Thuan told Zing.
Ca Men’s loving kitchen uses ingredients from the restaurant’s daily supply of fresh meat and fish. Green vegetables are often sent from Da Lat, the West.
Because of current restrictions in Ho Chi Minh City, the kitchen faces many difficulties in purchasing items and accessing ingredients. Furthermore, because they did not call for support even though they stopped doing business for more than a month, the kitchen sometimes ran out of cash.
However, over time, Ca Men has sorted out the above issues. Charity funds know about the kitchen’s meaningful actions and support ingredients such as rice, vegetables or send money to buy meat and fish.
Thanks to that encouragement and contribution, Ca Men has more motivation and resources to maintain operations to this day.
Don’t accept charity
On the journey of giving out loving meals, Ca Men kitchen encountered pitiful and painful situations, forcing the whole team to try harder no matter how hard it was.
Thuan sadly recalled the time he delivered meals to people’s homes before Ho Chi Minh City implemented Directive 16: “We went to a quite remote area in Hoc Mon district. There was an old lady, probably close to 70 years old, who received the kitchen’s meals. Suddenly she cried loudly, saying that she hadn’t had a meal for a whole week, making the whole team cry too.”
Every day, Ca Men’s loving kitchen donates more than 700 meals to doctors and nurses in quarantine areas and field hospitals.
Thuan was also very touched by the sacrifices of the doctors at the field hospital and hoped to contribute a part to help the medical force improve their health and spirit.
“Once Ca Men sent rice to the hospital, told the doctors and nurses to give him some cakes, and if he was hungry in the afternoon, he took them out to eat. Thank you, but please decline because I don’t have time. That incident made me appreciate and appreciate the doctors and nurses even more. To fight the epidemic, they don’t have time to eat, drink, or sleep,” Thuan said.
After 2 months, Ca Men and Thuan kitchen felt that what they were doing was still small and could not alleviate the hardships people had to endure. Even so, the whole team still agreed to spread love through delicious, sweet meals rich in Quang Tri flavor.
“I have never considered what I do as ‘charity’, because certainly a portion of rice or gift wrapping cannot help people escape their current situation. But I believe that receiving rice and loving gifts, doctors and people will be given more energy to overcome the difficulties of the epidemic season together,” Thuan said sincerely.
