American TikToker amazes viewers with Vietnamese home cooking skills

Several of her videos, featuring challenging dishes to cook at home like bun moc (Vietnamese pork ball vermicelli soup), bun cha (rice noodles with grilled pork and meatballs), and cha ca La Vong (La Vong grilled fish), have garnered over a million views and received a flood of praise from Vietnamese netizens.

In a bun moc video that has been viewed 1.8 million times, the cook expertly blanches pork ribs, discards the first boil for a clear broth, skims the foam, soaks wood ear mushrooms and rice vermicelli, uses rock sugar and fish sauce for seasoning, and mixes raw pork paste to form meatballs.

When it is time to eat, she even adds satay chili paste brought from Vietnam, along with pickled garlic and chili.

“That bowl of bun moc looks even better than what you get at a restaurant,” one viewer commented.

“She’s the real Vietnamese here, I must be the foreigner,” another joked, while someone else praised that “she put a lot of care into the broth, totally nailed the Vietnamese taste.”

Indeed, Vietnamese viewers have repeatedly “approved” of her dishes that require serious culinary know-how, such as ca ri ga (Vietnamese chicken curry), banh cuon (steamed rice rolls), bo kho (beef stew), thit kho mam ruoc (braised pork in fermented acetes paste and lemongrass), and bun rieu (crab noodle soup).

“The hardest has been banh cuon since I don’t have a steam lid at home to get the right thickness,” Diamond Logan, the woman behind the viral videos, told Tuoi Tre News in an email interview.

'When your boyfriend is Vietnamese but you do the cooking'

Diamond Logan, 24, is an African American and currently lives in Chicago with her 25-year-old Vietnamese boyfriend, Nguyen Viet Truong Giang.

Her TikTok channel, which has nearly 59,000 followers, often opens with the tagline: “When your boyfriend is Vietnamese but you do the cooking.”

Speaking with Tuoi Tre News, Logan said she initially started the Vietnamese cooking channel to sell bim bim (Vietnamese snacks).

Logan previously lived in Vietnam, while her boyfriend was born and raised in Hanoi.

After leaving the country, Logan found herself craving bim bim and wanted to sell it to others who also missed the familiar flavors.

To get the word out, she decided to tap into social media, and what better way than by showcasing the dishes she and her boyfriend loved to eat during their time in Vietnam?

And just like that, her cooking channel was born.

Since she already cooked Vietnamese meals for her boyfriend regularly, all she had to do was film, edit, and upload them.

Even though the snack business had to take a step back at the moment, Logan continued the channel out of her love and respect for Vietnamese cuisine.

“I hope that by doing what I’m doing, I can share the culture with others like how Giang and his family shared it with me,” she said.

Won over by thit kho

Logan said she fell in love with Vietnamese food and its flavors.

“I really fell for Giang when we first started dating because he made me his parent’s thit kho (braised pork),” Logan recalled.

At first, Logan learned Vietnamese cooking online and asked Giang to taste-test her food to make sure she got the flavors right.

After a couple of visits to Vietnam, where she cooked with Giang’s family, Logan quickly mastered many dishes.

“I actually enjoy the time it takes to cook Vietnamese food and how complex the ingredients are,” Logan said. “It’s also great to see Giang light up about a dish he missed or that we’d both been craving."

“Giang loves my cooking and often compares it to the restaurants we try, saying ‘Yours is better’ or ‘Not as good as your cooking’ whenever we go out to eat," she added.

“Logan and I share the same taste in food,” Giang shared.

“I love how creative she is and that she always strives to learn and perfect her craft. We have come a long way and I’m proud of us.”

According to Logan, Chicago actually has a large Vietnamese community in the city, so sourcing ingredients is not too difficult.

The couple is also willing to travel for the right ingredients.

“Otherwise, when we're in Vietnam, Giang's parents always pack us the right ingredients to bring with us when we leave,” Logan revealed.

What neither of them expected, though, was how much love they would receive from others.

“I'm glad I'm able to show off Vietnamese culture in a way that can help others be proud of their culture,” Logan said.

“Food is a big part of love for Vietnamese people, and I don't want to fail to do it justice by making ‘inspired’ foods or not following the steps properly.”