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Adventurous chef Bobby Chinn has made Vietnam his home and the world his kitchen
Although he has restaurants, a cookbook and TV shows to his credit, celebrity chef Bobby Chinn hasn't always been focused on cuisine. In fact, he started his career in finance rather than the kitchen.
The son of a Chinese father and Egyptian mother, Chinn was born in New Zealand and raised in London and San Francisco. Chinn moved to New York after graduating in finance and economics to seek his fortune on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. However, trading wasn't for him, so he left and found himself waiting tables, doing stand-up comedy and even selling food to the mafia.
He eventually found his way into a kitchen and, on the advice of his father, moved to Vietnam. There, Chinn fell in love with the subtle flavours of Vietnamese cuisine and now, 18 years on, he has two signature restaurants - one in Ho Chi Minh City, the other in Hanoi - presenting Vietnamese cuisine fused with global flavours.
Chinn recounts his adventures sampling Vietnamese cuisine plus the trials and tribulations of setting up his restaurants in his book Wild, Wild East: Recipes and Stories from Vietnam.
Encounters caught up with Chinn at Angsana Lang Co, near Da Nang, Vietnam, where he presented some of his signature dishes to 80 guests at the resort's Moomba restaurant. After dinner, he traded his chef's uniform for a guitar and entertained the audience with his band.
I certainly didn't come here for the money. I wanted to learn, so that if I failed, no one knew me. I've had my ups and downs and haven't been able to achieve all my goals. Vietnam has given me a lifestyle of diverse friends I would never have met anywhere else.
I am working on a new book now. Like the last one, it's made up of vignettes.