My dad, Hoat, opened a Chinese restaurant in North Austin in 1990 with nothing to his name, a borrowed lease, and a refugee story that started in a stilt house over the Mekong River.
The first issue is different-it’s my family’s story, and the reason Behind the Bowls exists at all.
Twin Lion Chinese Restaurant opened on March 11, 1990. Three immigrant brothers, 105 seats, a busy strip in North Austin. On the surface, it looked like any other Chinese joint. But the story really started in 1966, in a rural Cambodian village, when the only question my dad’s family could afford to ask was: How do we eat tomorrow?
“It was rare, but sometimes my mom would put pork in our food…what a treat. The only time we felt like a family was when we ate together.”
Origin: A House on Stilts Over the Mekong
Picture a wooden house on stilts off the Mekong. No running water. No electricity. No clinic down the road. Livelihoods were measured by harvest seasons, not fiscal quarters. Nothing was given; everything you owned came from your hands and your back.
From left to right: two of my aunts, my dad, and his best friend at a border refugee camp between Thailand and Cambodia.
That’s what my dad was born into. He was one of ten siblings. A big family wasn’t sentimental—it was labor. Kids meant more hands in rice paddies and more logging output. Schools existed, but in rural Cambodia they rarely led you out of hard labor. So he split his time: a little on a wooden floor at school, a lot farming, fishing, and logging so everyone could eat.
Like a lot of restaurant stories, this one starts with a parent at the stove. My grandma was the family cook—the nonna of a Chinese-Cambodian household. She cooked so they could work, but the table did more than fill them for the fields. For a fleeting moment, it made them a family instead of a workforce. Twin Lion would eventually become a bit of a memorial to my grandma, and I definitely inherited her passion for feeding people.
Inflection: War, Loss, and Leaving Home
By the mid-1970s, politics turned deadly. The Khmer Rouge—a brutal communist regime responsible for the genocide of 1.5–2 million ethnic minorities and political opponents—was rising in Cambodia. My grandpa made a choice that would change the trajectory of their lives: he used what little cash and family connections they had to move everyone to Tay Ninh, Vietnam to escape unrest.
Map of the Killing Fields in Cambodia, where mass killings were committed by the Khmer Rouge.
They arrived in Vietnam dirt poor. My dad stole rice to feed the family. One of his brothers was pulled into the Vietnam War. His mom’s health never recovered after a difficult pregnancy. She died when he was nine. A year or so later, his dad stepped over a leftover landmine while clearing trees to farm. Shrapnel tore through his body.
Around age eleven, my dad was an orphan, one of several siblings on their own. The oldest of the bunch that moved to Vietnam with my dad was no older than twenty.
Conflict and tragedy followed his family. The eldest brother was murdered by the Khmer Rouge back in Cambodia. An older sister mysteriously vanished—being well educated was dangerous with the Khmer Rouge in power. Two siblings smuggled goods into Cambodia to survive. The family bounced back to a rural town outside Phnom Penh and eventually made their way to Phnom Penh, patching tires, selling coconuts, and bicycle parts—whatever could put food on the table.
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Crossing Borders: Camps, Classrooms, and a Missed Deadline
In 1984, my dad and four siblings risked everything again, slipping through dense jungle at night toward a Thai refugee camp on the Thailand-Cambodia border. They hid on trucks, bribed their way past checkpoints, and landed in a camp ringed by conflict and insurgent activity.
My dad’s refugee ID card from the camp, before he resettled in the U.S.
From there, they were flown to Galang, Indonesia, where they spent six months being processed and learning basic English.
On August 20, 1985, my dad landed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He spoke Khmer, Teochew, Vietnamese—but hardly a lick of English. He finished high school in three years with a 3.5 GPA and set his sights on college.
In 1989, he followed an older brother to Austin, Texas, to work at a Chinese restaurant called Golden China. He intended to study engineering at UT Austin, but missed the enrollment cutoff by a week.
My uncle (left) and dad settled in the United States with 30 years in the restaurant industry ahead of them.
Twin Lion in Austin
From 1989–1990, he worked at Golden China, planning to reapply to UT. By 1990, his two other brothers—who had been working while my dad was in high school—scraped together $150,000 for a buildout. My dad had no money to invest, but lucky for him (or maybe not so lucky?) he spoke English, and his name made it onto the lease.
Twin Lion Chinese Restaurant opened March 11, 1990. Three brothers with no clue how to run a business decided to open a restaurant. I doubt they knew this at the time, but they had just signed a deal with the high-labor, low-margin devil: the restaurant industry.
In four years, my dad bought a house and paid it off in three. Over the next three decades, Twin Lion would put roofs over five immigrant families, send nine kids to college, and pay for seven-plus homes in full. Regulars watched us grow up—from babies in restaurant high chairs to college kids and then to getting married.
The original dining room at Twin Lion—105 seats that somehow carried five immigrant families and nine kids through college.
That success came at a cost: missed vacations, celebrations, and family time. In thirty years, his longest vacation was five days.
When the Story Came Back to Save Us
We didn’t just sell food. We shared stories (albeit, probably in broken English). That story turned guests into regulars, and regulars into something closer to family.
When COVID hit and revenue dropped by 80%, hundreds of those people—people who knew our story—kept us afloat.
We sold the restaurant at the end of 2023. With the passing of my uncle, the restaurant’s co-owner, and decades of restaurant life tearing my dad’s body apart, it was time for him to close this chapter of his life.
Wrap-Up: Look Up from Your Plate
Here’s what my dad wants to leave you with: the next time someone drops off your drink, bakes your croissant, or spends their afternoon on mise en place for your dinner reservation, look up and get to know who’s behind the scenes at your favorite joint.
There’s a story behind every bite and sip you’re taking at your local favorite. Twin Lion’s just happened to start in a house on stilts over the Mekong where, for thirty years, guests helped my dad and his siblings live out their American Dream.
From being trafficked, orphaned at eleven, stealing, smuggling, and crossing international jungle borders, my dad chose to center his life on food. For him, a full restaurant meant our entire family—cousins and siblings—would be able to live the life he never had the chance to live.
Who would’ve known woks and MSG would put her grandkids through college in America. My grandma would be proud of my dad.
Dad, thank you for everything…this one’s for you.
My family in the back-of-house relishing the last moments in our restaurant before we sold it.
The illustrious Orange Chicken that we served.
Cheers and always remember…phone eats first,
Tong
Behind This Bowl: Pork Belly with Salted Soybean Glass Noodles
COMING SOON: Every Behind the Bowls story ends with a dish or drink you can bring into your own kitchen—either a menu item, a home adaptation, or something tied to the story.
From our story, I’ll be sharing an homage to my grandma: Pork Belly with Salted Soybean Glass Noodles. Be on the look out for recipes linked in each story!
