The Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers’ popular Top 10 Takeover dining series returned this summer to honor chefs and restaurant owners who gave back to their communities during the pandemic.
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Following a string of sold-out summertime events, Top 10 Takeover wraps up with a final dinner Nov. 1 at Bangkok96 Street Food featuring chef Genevieve Vang.
Tickets go on sale to the general public at noon Friday. The restaurant is located inside the Detroit Shipping Co. at 474 Peterboro St. in Detroit.
Tickets are $68 and include tax, gratuity and a $3 donation to Forgotten Harvest. A drink pairing will be available for an additional cost on the day of the event. The event will have two seatings: 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Purchase tickets online at freep.com/top10. You can also enter to win two free tickets courtesy of our partner, the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers. Go to chevydetroit.com/top10 to enter. In addition, Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers is hosting a food drive at each event. A collection box will be on hand for nonperishable food donations.
Detroit Free Press subscribers can get a jump on tickets one day early, when a portion of tickets will go on sale for subscribers only at noon Thursday. Subscribers should look for an email that includes a link to purchase advance tickets. If you didn’t receive the email, contact [email protected].
This year’s Top 10 Takeover series honors the chefs and others named as Detroit Free Press/Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers 2021 Food Fighters. This effort took the place of the annual Restaurant of the Year, which went on hiatus during the pandemic. Instead of naming the Top 10 Best New Restaurants, the series honored people in the local dining scene who made a difference in their communities.
“These chefs and restaurateurs were selected based on how they leveraged their culinary skills and connections to help do good in and for their communities during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, whether it was donating food and time to feed thousands of our most vulnerable neighbors or using the power of their positions to light the way toward a more equitable business model,” wrote Mark Kurlyandchik, former Free Press restaurant critic.
A James Beard-nominated Best Chef of the Great Lakes in 2019, Vang also owns Bangkok96 on Telegraph in Dearborn. And she knows hunger all too well.
As a 9-year-old girl fleeing death in her native Laos during the height of the Vietnam War, Vang experienced incredible hardship, at times drinking water just to fill her stomach to ease the pain of scarcity.
“We were always hungry and there wasn’t any hope,” she recalls. “But you have to fight to survive and it teach you to have a job. It very hard. I came from nothing. I never forget where I came from.”
So when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Michigan and effectively shuttered her two Detroit-area Thai restaurants, Vang was the first to call her publicist to ask where she could donate the food wasting away in her coolers.
That call became the catalyst for Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen for Good.
“I have to give back to my community,” Vang says, noting that she has run a business in Dearborn for more than 32 years. “I have to invest my time and make sure they have anything they need and more. It’s very important as an entrepreneur to give back to your community because that’s how you grow your business.”
Here is the Nov. 1 Takeover menu:
Appetizer
- A trio of wraps: Vegetable spring roll, imitation crab Rangoon and walking vegetables dumpling, all served with a house-made sauce
- Vegetarian option: Vegetable spring roll with house-made sauce
Soup
- Kowpoon coconut red curry rice noodle soup with vegetables (gluten-free)
A choice of the following entrées
- Thai steak with mix vegetables and garlic soy butter
- Thai jungle steak with plant-based Impossible beef and vegetable with beer green curry (gluten-free)
Dessert
- House-made Thai purple yum coconut rice pie (gluten-free)
Contact Detroit Free Press food writer Sue Selasky and send food and restaurant news to: 313-222-6872 or [email protected]. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter.
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https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/dining/2021/10/14/tickets-sale-friday-bangkok-96-street-food-top-10-takeover/8440988002/
