San Jose Vietnamese Restaurant AK Kitchen Is a One-Man Show | Eater SF

"Tucked in a sleepy corner of San Jose’s Eastside foothills, I discovered AK Kitchen, a tiny, one-person restaurant run by Lam Ngo that serves an eclectic mix of Vietnamese street food alongside Japanese, Korean, and Indian dishes and in-house South Asian–inspired ice creams. Ngo moved from Vietnam, worked twenty years in diverse kitchens (starting as a dishwasher at a pho restaurant and rising to sous chef), and opened AK Kitchen in 2020 with his sister’s investment; after pandemic losses he now operates alone seven days a week—cooking, serving, and delivering party trays (he even caters as far as Berkeley and San Francisco), with his mom helping a few days a week. Everything is made fresh: he never precooks, blends egg with condensed milk for nearly 20 minutes to make a thick, sweet custard for the Vietnamese egg coffee, and spins homemade ice cream flavors like roasted almond Thai tea, salted pistachio matcha green tea, mango passion fruit, and a potent fresh-durian version. The menu is wide-ranging—butter chicken with garlic naan, pad Thai, teriyaki spam musubi, Vietnamese beef cubes (served with a choice of noodles, rice, or macaroni), occasional snail specials, sautéed baby clams topped with peanuts and fried shallots on a rice cracker, Vietnamese pizza made with crispy rice paper topped with sausage, meat floss, tiny crispy shrimp and fried egg, a furikake Chex Mix made with Tuong An Margarine, lobster noodles in a coconut-based sauce topped with a lobster tail, and a "Vietnamese-style cheese pizza" with grilled pork or spicy grilled chicken finished with mayo or sriracha—dishes he fell in love with and reimagined for his customers." - Octavio Peña