Life wasn’t easy for Dennis Wong after the fall of Saigon. He abandoned his family’s noodle business, fled Vietnam, was robbed by pirates and lived in a Malaysian refugee camp for two years before making it to San Francisco.
Then he met his future wife, Annie Wong of Hong Kong. Together, they opened a restaurant together on Clement Street: Le Soleil, which would go on to be a treasured Vietnamese staple for over 30 years. Now, the restaurant has expanded with a second San Francisco location in Stonestown Galleria.
This newest rendition of Le Soleil also has two more creative forces: the Wong’s daughters, Bianca and Kandyce. They grew up working in the original restaurant, and after years of exploring their own passions, they’ve returned to put a modern spin on the family business.This is the latest example in San Francisco of a second generation stepping in to preserve their family’s legacy through food. Last year, New Song Hong Kong in Chinatown reopened following four years of closure, thanks to the efforts of the owners’ adult children. In 2022, the son of the Bodega Bistro family revived his parents’ long-running Vietnamese restaurant as Bodega SF — with pandan cocktails and caviar.
Bianca and her father teamed up on a new menu for Stonestown that features a mix of classic and contemporary dishes, such as the Blue Shrimp Aguachile, a Mexican-inspired raw shrimp with Thai chile sauce. Her time working at other San Francisco restaurants — the now-closed Farallon, which specialized in seafood, and Abacá, which has gained national attention for its contemporary Filipino cuisine — gave her a different perspective, she said…