Attorneys and staff at Phillips Murrah enjoy Vietnamese-style baguette sandwiches from Paris Banh Mi during Ba Luong’s presentation.
In recognition and celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Phillips Murrah was honored to host Ba Luong from Oklahoma City’s iconic and beloved international supermarket, Super Cao Nguyen. On Monday, Ba spoke to a large conference room full of Phillips Murrah attorneys and staff about his family’s history and the origins of OKC’s Asian District and its oldest, largest international grocery store.
During the midday presentation, Phillips Murrah enjoyed a catered lunch of Vietnamese-style baguette sandwiches from Paris Banh Mi and a variety of Lay’s potato chips in international flavors such as fried crab and roasted garlic oyster, which Ba brought from his supermarket.
“I have always preached diversity in food to opening people’s view of the world,” he said.
Ba kicked off the presentation by showing a clip from 2017 of Andrew Zimmern’s Travel Channel show, Bizarre Foods, which featured a tour through Super Cao Nguyen and Ba’s mother-in-law making home-cooked banh cuon.
During the remainder of his presentation, Ba recalled how his family came to Oklahoma City after the fall of Saigon, which occurred 50 years ago as of April 30 and marked the end of the Vietnam War. When he was only one and a half, Ba and his family fled communist Vietnam in a small, crowded fishing boat and ended up in a Malaysian refugee camp. Upon being sponsored by a Washington D.C.-based Baptist church, the Luong family arrived in the U.S. on July 4, 1978.
“As Americans celebrated their independence, we were celebrating, too,” Ba remembered.
Aware of a post-war federal Indochinese Resettlement Program at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, the Luongs soon moved there and his parents opened a small market in nearby Fort Smith to serve the Vietnamese community. Ba explained that their market was stocked with items purchased from a larger market in Oklahoma City called Cao Nguyen. When the original owners decided to move west in 1979, they sold the market to the Luongs, who then relocated to OKC.
The store was located in a small section of a strip mall located at NW 25th St. and Military Ave in what was known during the late 70s as “Little Saigon” and is now called the Asian District. The Luong family gradually expanded the market as nearby businesses closed, allowing them to take over additional space. The Luongs continued to expand Cao Nguyen over the years, until they realized they had finally outgrown their space. So, in 2003, they decided to build a new, super-sized version of the market from the ground up – thus Super Cao Nguyen was born. The 48,000-square-foot supermarket, featuring fare from over 50 countries, has since become a foundation of the Asian District and a destination for everyone from our immigrant population seeking ingredients from their homelands, to the culinarily curious, to OKC’s most revered chefs.
“I was introduced to Ba by Chay Kramer from MidFirst Bank,” said Phillips Murrah Director Mark Lovelace, “and was amazed by the story of his family, their store and the creation of the Asian District. Their collective positive impact on the diversity and growth of Oklahoma City has been tremendous. We are so grateful to Ba for generously stopping by the firm and sharing his experiences with us.”
From left: Phillips Murrah Director Mark Lovelace, who arranged the luncheon, poses for a photo with Ba Luong from Super Cao Nguyen and Chay Kramer from MidFirst Bank.
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