Driven by a desire to bring the specialties of his homeland closer to diners everywhere, Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan, a young man from Quang Tri born in 1991, founded the brand Ca Men with its packaged snakehead fish porridge product. To date, Ca Men porridge has reached customers in eight countries.
Nguyen Duc Nhat Thuan with Ca Men’s packaged porridge, featuring both the old (left) and new (right) versions.
Photo: NVCC
After moving to the city in 2009 to study at Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry, Thuan graduated and secured a stable job with a good salary. However, he decided to quit and pursue a career in the culinary arts. Today, this young man from Quang Tri owns Ca Men, a restaurant offering authentic Quang Tri dishes. He is also the owner of the packaged snakehead fish porridge brand Ca Men, bringing the flavors of Quang Tri closer to both domestic and international diners.
From Ca Men – A Restaurant Bringing Quang Tri Cuisine to the City
During his early days wandering around Saigon, Thuan noticed something: there were restaurants serving Hanoi pho, Quang noodles, and Hue beef noodle soup, but hardly any or no Quang Tri restaurants. At that time, his love for the specialties of his hometown prompted him to open a restaurant featuring Quang Tri’s signature dishes right in the heart of Saigon.
Deciding to leave his stable job, Thuan began building Ca Men from scratch. The restaurant, located at 3 Hoa Cau, Ward 7, Phu Nhuan District, has a cozy 15-square-meter space with decorations, furniture, cups, and chopsticks that exude Quang Tri’s essence. Thuan shared that Ca Men initially started with plastic tables and chairs set up in a small alley in Tan Phu District. It was only after some time that the restaurant moved to Phu Nhuan, where those who love the flavors of Quang Tri could visit more frequently.
Thuan noted that the first dish that established Ca Men’s brand was Phuong Lang wet cakes. Afterward, he expanded the menu to include other hometown specialties. Currently, Ca Men’s menu features a variety of dishes such as snakehead fish porridge, duck porridge, vermicelli with anchovy sauce, turmeric noodles, banh loc tran (plain tapioca dumplings), and stir-fried clams with rice crackers. Ingredients and spices used at Ca Men are sourced from Quang Tri and transported by air.
To Packaged “Instant Porridge” Cooked in 5 Minutes
Snakehead fish porridge is a familiar dish in Quang Tri, characterized by its rice or tapioca noodles cooked with flavorful, tender snakehead fish, resulting in a hot, savory, and slightly spicy porridge. For those far from home, especially those living abroad, finding a bowl of snakehead fish porridge is challenging. However, with Ca Men’s packaged porridge, anyone can prepare it themselves in just five minutes.
Ca Men only began packaging snakehead fish porridge less than a year ago. After several design iterations, Thuan now holds in his hands a compact package of snakehead fish porridge, similar in size to instant noodles. But unlike instant noodles, Ca Men’s snakehead fish porridge is entirely fresh, from the snakehead fish filets to the rice noodles, sauce, and seasoning. Ca Men uses no preservatives; the product is frozen to maintain its freshness for longer.
Currently, Ca Men is packaging the product by hand, with plans to launch a production facility in Quang Tri early next year. Thuan shared, “There are many reasons for choosing Quang Tri as the site for the factory, but the main reason is to create more jobs for the locals. I hope that once the factory is up and running, it will provide a stable source of income to help improve their lives.”
Determined to Bring Hometown Flavors to the World
Speaking about the inspiration behind the packaged snakehead fish porridge, Thuan said, “One summer, I returned home for vacation and was chatting with some uncles and aunts in the neighborhood. They asked me what I was studying, and I replied that I was majoring in import-export. One of my uncles said that I should try to see if there’s anything from our hometown that could be exported abroad to be truly successful. It was just an offhand comment, but it weighed heavily on my mind.” Driven by this thought and the experience he gained working in import-export, Thuan gradually found a way to bring packaged snakehead fish porridge overseas.
The instant snakehead fish porridge was launched in December 2021 and has since reached many provinces and cities across Vietnam. It is available at all Ca Men branches in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Binh Duong, Ha Tinh, Da Nang, Dak Nong, Buon Ma Thuot, and Quang Tri. Notably, Ca Men porridge has also been enjoyed by customers in countries such as Singapore, Thailand, the United States, Spain, Japan, and Canada. Ca Men’s short-term goal is to get these products into retail supermarket channels, and further down the line, to complete the necessary legal procedures for official exports.
The Ca Men founder boldly revealed that after the snakehead fish porridge, Ca Men plans to package more Quang Tri specialties. “This is not yet the perfect product. The Ca Men team is continually striving to improve it to create the most satisfactory product possible, helping our hometown brand go farther and be embraced by more people across different regions,” Thuan emphasized.
