Stop into NO BAR from January 29 to February 29 to sample a bright, citrus-y pomelo + shrimp salad (Gỏi Bưởi) and a swoon-worthy floating mochi dessert (Chè Trôi Nước). Each plate ordered sends a portion of proceeds to Heart of Dinner, a non-profit addressing food insecurity, isolation, and loneliness among Asian American older adults living in under-resourced communities. We caught up with Chef Phoebe on the pass to hear more about her Lunar New Year traditions, dream pop-ups & more:
Tell us about your dishes on the menu.
The first dish is a pomelo salad. It's a little homage to my hometown, California, and celebrating the winter citrus season. It's really bright and refreshing, which I think is a nice counterpart to all the comforting bar food at No Bar.
The other dish is my take on two different desserts combined. One is chè trôi nước, which translates directly to sweet drifting dessert. It's a dessert that's traditionally eaten for Lunar New Year because it represents togetherness, so I combined that dish with a taro sweet soup, or chè khoai môn, which incorporates orange zest and little sago pearls.

How has Bé Bếp evolved since your last NO BAR pop up?
Back in 2018, I didn't have Bé Bếp, but I came to NO BAR to do a pop up as part of a festival called Happy Family Night Market that I used to organize. The food was a lot more of a reflection of Chinese American dishes. They were still fun and fit into a bar format, but I would say since then, I've deepened my exploration and understanding of Vietnamese cuisine in particular.
What are your favorite Lunar New Year memories?
I grew up in a really big family, and we would always gather together and memorize all of these well wishes that all of the younger kids would recite to their aunties and uncles in order to get all of these red envelopes. At the end of the night, we would count them up, and then we would gamble. We would play these games, like Bầu Cua Tôm Cá, which translates to “gourd, crab, shrimp, fish”, and a bunch of different card games. Different auspicious traditions also come to mind, like at midnight when we would run faucet water and boil a water kettle until it whistles at midnight, or we wouldn't shower the day of New Year's in order to not wash away all of the good luck.
Can you explain the process behind coming up with the name Bé Bếp?
Bé Bếp was born during the pandemic when I was out of work. I decided to start a meal delivery service out of my apartment in Greenpoint. It was a tiny little kitchen. I would bike over to Chinatown, fit whatever I could in my backpack, and bike back and cook a big pot of soup.And that's how Bé Bếp was born.
And now for some rapid fire: what is your favorite bar comfort food?
My favorite bar food? Definitely oysters on the hot shell and french fries.
What do you hope for from Year of the Snake in one word?
I liken it to a snake shedding its skin and starting fresh. One word that comes to mind is renewal.
Tell us about a Chef whose been inspiring you lately.
I recently have been reconnecting with my friend Pam Young, who's a chef that used to be based here in New York, but recently moved to Bali to work with Potato Head Resort to revamp their sustainability efforts and their food sourcing. She's been working closely with a lot of local farms in order to help them adapt to more ecological practices. I find it really inspiring and I'm about to go visit her in March.
Where is your dream location to do a pop-up?
My dream pop up would be a spa in nature. So either like the woods, or like a jungle, or somewhere in the mountains. Just imagining like some like steamy, hot pot, pop up, soupy, just like warm dessert in a spa, like post spa.