(The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)

Mayra Alvarado: Mai, to be honest with you, I don't think I've really been to Orange County. I'm from Highland Park. But I have a lot of friends from Orange County, and I feel I know the place - I just haven't physically been there.

Mai Bach: I think a lot of people's first impression is the show The O.C.. So whenever I mention Orange County, it's like, "You're from The O.C.!" I try not to refer to that because the show is definitely not a representation of how I grew up.

I grew up more in the city of Orange. We're sandwiched in between Los Angeles - which everyone knows about - and then San Diego - which is another big Southern California city. We're right in the middle, so not a lot of people are really familiar with Orange County.

It's a great place to grow up. It's very safe. If you've ever heard of the city of Irvine, it's one of the safest cities in the U.S. A lot of immigrant and refugee families flock there because they're hoping to give their children and their family a better life. So when they hear about the safest cities, you're going to go straight for Orange County.

Mayra Alvarado: A lot of people when they ask me, "Where are you from in L.A.?" they think of Hollywood and the beaches. I'm close enough to the beaches - I'm 20-30 minutes away. Highland Park is that far from the beach. It is a very diverse society and a very diverse community where you can find a lot of different types of food, which I'm very interested in talking to you about.

Orange County has the biggest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam, largely due to the Vietnam War and the influx of refugees that came from Vietnam. I'm also a first-generation American, so I very much relate to the experience. How did your family get to Orange County?

Mai Bach: My mom fled Vietnam after the war. She is from the middle region of Vietnam called Da Nang (Đà Nẵng). My family was on the side of the South, and that's who my dad fought for. After the fall, many people were trying to decide whether they're going to stay or leave. So my mom made the decision to take my four-year-old sister. She was pregnant at the time with my brother, eight or nine months pregnant, and take the journey on. So she was a boat person, as you've seen those images that depicted that time. She made the journey over to the U.S. Unfortunately, she did go into labor while she was crossing.

You know, it's funny because I've asked my sister about this. I've wanted to know more. I'm the youngest of four, so I don't get to hear a lot of the stories. I think there's still a lot of trauma, and they're not ready to talk about it yet.

I've asked my sister when I was older. "Do you remember the journey over?" She'll just point blank tell me “No.” She has no memories of it. I can see how deeply it affected her because she really doesn't remember anything around that time. And my mom to this day will not go to a beach. She won't go to open water.

Mayra Alvarado: Really?

Mai Bach: Yeah, and she hates flying as well. I can see it kind of ripple through my family. My brother was born in international waters. So for a long time he used to joke, “I'm a citizen of nowhere. No rights. No one would protect me.” He ended up taking his citizenship test with my mom in his 20's. He helped my mom study. She was learning English for it, and then they became citizens together. It was a pretty cute family memory for us.

Mayra Alvarado: That's really an incredible journey and also a very traumatic story. My dad's from Guatemala, and he came to the U.S. during the Civil War. Likewise, for many years, he would never talk about it. He would never want me to go to Guatemala, because it was just really a difficult experience to talk about. But I feel that that's the United States, right?

A lot of different communities and immigrant groups, even till today, that are coming to the U.S. because of the hopes of giving their children a better life, and also having the opportunity to grow up in a community where they can thrive. So that is amazing. And the fact that we're here in Taiwan now and being able to have this conversation is a testament to that.

Mai Bach: My mom, when she heard I was coming to Taiwan to live for a year and teach English, she's like, "You know what I had to do to get away from that side of the world?" I said, “Yes, but Mom I got to. Something is pulling me back. I gotta go.” It's been a long time now, but she would joke in the beginning, “I can't believe you're staying there!”

She has the memories of when she was growing up, right? So even visiting Vietnam, it's so different from 30 years ago. She still has very strong reactions and memories to that. I hope she goes back to visit Vietnam this coming year and spend more time visiting her side of the family, and reconnecting to it, and hopefully creating new memories around her home country.

Mayra Alvarado: My introduction to Asia was actually in Vietnam. One of my good friends, her family also had fled, and so it was their first time coming back to Vietnam and meeting her other side of the family. It was really incredible to be able to discover Vietnam. We went to Da Nang with her family through this experience of re-seeing another part of her history and her family's past that she really didn't know much about.

Mai Bach: It’s interesting to live in this kind of interconnected space, right?

Mayra Alvarado: Was the community you grew up in Orange County primarily Vietnamese, or was it a mixed community?

Mai Bach: You know... immigrants, refugees don't always get to live in the nicest areas of any part of any country. So the area where the Vietnamese refugees settled, it wasn't always the safest, or cleanest, or had the best schools. So my mom fought really hard to move my siblings and I to a more suburban area of Orange County. So we were really lucky. The Vietnamese community is predominantly in an area called Garden Grove, Fountain Valley.

She moved us to the city of Orange, closer to Tustin Ranch area, just close enough to better schools and what she felt in her mind was safer. She was a single mom of four. So she couldn't be with all of us all the time; she had to work. It gave her some peace of mind to know that at least the neighborhood we were living in, I could just walk to school. It was safe.

Mayra Alvarado: One of the things about moving in the U.S. is that you might move away from the center - the downtown area that tends to be hustling and bustling - but also as you noted, dangerous. But you have all of these flavors and restaurants like your community right there. But when you move away, it's difficult to access some of the food that would normally make you feel and remind you of home.

Was that the case in this new community? Did you have Vietnamese stores or food that you felt you were home, even though you had moved to a different area?

Mai Bach: Luckily, Orange County is not quite as sprawling as L.A. or L.A. County. If you've ever looked at L.A. or L.A. County on a map, it's huge. So when you're talking about Los Angeles, you're like, “That's an hour away from me,” right?

Mayra Alvarado: Yes, exactly!

Mai Bach: Orange County is much smaller. My house was probably a 15-20 minute drive from the center of the Vietnamese community, which is called Little Saigon.

It's the epicenter of food. The predominant language there is Vietnamese. It's maybe changing now, but growing up if you went there, you were probably using Vietnamese first. Grocery stores were all geared towards that, like 99 Ranch Market. Actually, where I grew up is closer to the Mexican community. So we always had taquerias. It's just such an exchange of cultures.

Mayra Alvarado: Your mom was a single mom. It seems like we have a lot of things in common. My mom was a single mom of three kids. Did she cook all the time? What role did home cooked meals play?

Mai Bach: My mom definitely would cook on the weekends. Whenever she had time, she would do huge batch cooking, and then we would have it through the week. If we did run out of food, my sister would pick up the slack. There was a lot happening in the house in terms of food.

My mom is very religious. She's Buddhist, and so she would help out at the temple a lot. She became kind of the head chef of the kitchen, so she was there every weekend. Then she would bring the leftovers home. So I always loved Buddhist vegetarian food.

Mayra Alvarado: Tell me a little bit more about that. You moved to Taiwan and explored Asia from 2008 to 2011. Around that time you also decided to become vegetarian, is that right?

Mai Bach: So I always dabbled with being vegetarian as a kid. I tried my best to become vegetarian. I just always had a really strong connection with animals. From a young age, I could never eat any kind of seafood. It actually would make me nauseous and vomit. My mom is from an ocean community in Vietnam and she was baffled. "You are the only one in the family who has this reaction. We're literally boat people. We grew up near the ocean.” The seafood aversion was very weird. My sister like only eats seafood.

So for me, this was the natural progression as an adult. But everything really clicked for me when I read a book called, "Eating Animals."

Mayra Alvarado: Tell me more about that.

Mai Bach: It's by Jonathan Safran Foer, and he's normally a fiction writer. At the time he just had his first child, and he started having these questions: What do I feed my child? What's the best way to do this? And so he went on a three-year investigation into PETA and different organizations, doing interviews and figuring out what is going on with our food system. He shares all of that in this book called, "Eating Animals".

I really liked it because he doesn't actually give you a solution. He gives you perspectives from vegan dairy farmers, vegan cattle farmers. He goes the whole spectrum to get a really clear picture of not just the animals, but the people who are also in our food system, the workers. What is it like to work in a slaughterhouse? What kind of damage does that do to you to take that home every day?

Mayra Alvarado: So were you reading this book while you were on your journey in Asia?

Mai Bach: It was our second year in Taiwan. We were just preparing to go on a six-month backpacking trip. So I read this book right before we left, and it changed my whole mind. I made the decision to go cold turkey because I couldn't look at meat without crying.

But the problem with that is, you can't just completely change something you've been doing your whole life, without some kind of knowledge about what you're doing. So I had taken basically all the animal products out of my diet, but I hadn't really thought about what I needed to do instead of that.

We were poor backpackers for six months, trying to figure out how we were going to stretch our money as far as possible. I ended up eating a lot of noodles, a lot of refined carbs, not too many veggies, and barely any protein. So you can imagine, after six months of that, it starts taking a toll on your body.

Mayra Alvarado: Once you make that switch, it is also finding food that is plant-based, but that is also nutritious. And taking a global perspective, recognizing that each of these different communities, they do have very much plant-based foods that's able to provide that same amount of protein that meat would otherwise provide.

So tell me how you made this transition. And then you started your restaurant.

Mai Bach: So I made the switch to vegetarian, and then very quickly I went the end of the spectrum - I went raw plant-based vegan. It led me to this movement of raw food, whole food, plant-based cooking. I learned a lot dipping my toes into that diet. But it was difficult. I craved really hot food sometimes. You know, the foods that I grew up with. It was very hard for me to not have that connection. So I moved away from the very extreme diet, and I incorporated some of those things into my diet.

The thing that I stick with is this idea of green smoothies, which we do have one in front of us. The philosophy is super simple behind it.

Mayra Alvarado: It smells so fresh.

Mai Bach: It's really leafy raw greens, fresh vegetables, and fresh fruits. You blend them in a really high powered blender to break the cell walls of the fruits and vegetables, releasing the nutrients into the smoothie. It also makes a really smooth smoothie.

Mayra Alvarado: This is chia seeds?

Mai Bach: Yeah, so that's our Body Boost.

Mayra Alvarado: It's very refreshing. Very fragrant. It's almost a little bit tingling as well.

Mai Bach: That's the turmeric. So that has ginger, turmeric, kiwi, pineapple, apple, and chia seeds. We use a lot of adaptogens. So pulling from Ayurveda and Chinese medicine philosophies to give you that little extra.

Mayra Alvarado: Boost.

Mai Bach: So that one has Tulsi or holy basil -- an extract that's made by an herbalist in Taichung.

Mayra Alvarado: Did you come up with these recipes on your own?

Mai Bach: A lot of research in the beginning—obviously, I was a beginner. I did a lot of reading online and experimenting at home. I took that knowledge and applied it to the produce available here in Taiwan. I've probably tested every green available here. There are some really amazing produce here on the island.

Mayra Alvarado: We also have two different plates here. So this one it's whole grain rice and, is it quinoa?

Mai Bach: Yes, so we use a locally-grown organic brown rice and tricolor quinoa, which unfortunately is not local.

Mayra Alvarado: You also have some mushrooms here.

Mai Bach: Those ones are sautéed.

Mayra Alvarado: I see a sauce over the quinoa and rice. It looks delicious. Can I give it a try?

Mai Bach: That's our Mediterranean bowl.

Mayra Alvarado: It's amazing.

Mai Bach: The sauce you're eating is Muhammara. It's like a Syrian dip that's made with roasted red bell peppers, walnuts, and homemade whole-wheat bread crumbs. You add a little bit of pomegranate molasses to get a little bit of sweetness. We did it with roasted zucchini, cucumber, a little bit of lemon if you want to freshen it up. It's filling, but it's light.

Mayra Alvarado: It's delicious. So tell me about your other dish. I see a green paste. Is that guacamole? Is that pea paste?

Mai Bach: It's a fakeout! It is trying to be!

Mayra Alvarado: Tell me more about it!

Mai Bach: This is our buffalo tofu bowl. So the green sauce is what I call eda-mole.

Mayra Alvarado: So I wasn't too far off.

Mai Bach: That’s definitely what I was going for. So avocados are not available all year round in Taiwan, and only recently has really fatty-varieties been available. So a lot of people rely on imported avocados. And avocados are water-intensive crops, so there's a lot of discussions around how environmentally-friendly they are. I wanted to try to move away from it, but still give you the sensation of guacamole. Because obviously, I grew up in Southern California, and -

Mayra Alvarado: Guacamoles, avocados are everywhere, right?

Mai Bach: Avocados are falling into the street! So I decided to make something like an edamame mash that's full of protein, and use that as a base. It's green, it's similar, and it really just gives you the flavors that you would normally get in guacamole.

Mayra Alvarado: And the base is rice..?

Mai Bach: Brown rice, and quinoa.

Mayra Alvarado: And is this tofu?

Mai Bach: That's our firm tofu that we've battered in chickpea flour. And we use a local hot sauce from Empress Hot Sauce.

Mayra Alvaro: Oh, yes, of course, love Empress.

Mai Bach: We use a special buffalo blend they've developed. I love that they're using local produce. So we try to stay as close to the local community as possible.

Mayra Alvarado: What other big challenges have you faced? Has the community in Taiwan been very receptive to vegan food?

Mai Bach: Taiwan has one of the densest vegetarian populations. So there is a very strong history and culture of Buddhist vegetarianism. I love the vegetarian buffets here.

It’s usually all Buddhist establishments, which means they don't use any onion and garlic. The definition can change depending on who you talk to. The use of milk and eggs is more personal. It doesn't really fall under the label. So that's why I always say it's Buddhist vegetarian. It's not strictly vegan all the time. The part they're strict about is the allium family, meaning garlic, onion, leeks, shallots. Anything from that allium family is off limits.

Mayra Alvarado: Can you tell me a more of your restaurant, Ooh Cha Cha? It's the first B Corp certified vegan restaurant in Taiwan.

Mai Bach: B Corporation is a certification that started in the U.S. The most famous case study for B Corp certification is Patagonia. They're one of the leaders and early adopters of this certification.

The certification looks at five different aspects of your business. It's not just about the environmental impact, it's about governance as well; how you interact with your customers, your supply chain, and your workers. I love that it's a holistic certification that really makes you look at every part of your company. Are you trying to do what is best?

Its motto is “Business for good.” So It's not a legal standing. But with any certification, there's issues and problems. I looked at it more as, I could really audit what we were doing and look at some good practices that are standard across these businesses. Can we implement them? Are we thinking about these things? So that's why I pursued the certification. We started the process in 2019 and it took about nine months.

Mayra Alvarado: Wow.

Mai Bach: Which is actually very short.

Mayra Alvarado: That's, well, kudos to you.

Mai Bach: Thanks! By the time we were ready to hand in everything, the pandemic had started. So it was a lot more paperwork. The due diligence is really intense, but it's a great way to audit your company. And learn about different practices and what other people are doing, and what they would consider a baseline of what is good.

Mayra Alvarado: I'm glad you pursued it. You can tell by the products you're putting forward here - your philosophy about food, how you look at your community. It just shows that you have sustainability completely in mind in terms of both how you work with your customers, and how you work with your coworkers. So that's incredible.

We've chatted quite a bit about Orange County, but as I said, I've never been. If I do, once I go back to the US, I'm definitely going to go. But where should I go in Orange County? Tell me about your favorite places in Orange County.

Mai Bach: You know, it's funny, I've actually spent almost my whole adult life in Taiwan now.

Mayra Alvarado: Wow.

Mai Bach: And I became vegan here. So when I go home, I only get few chances to test out some of the new restaurants. Because often I'm eating with my family.

There's a really famous restaurant in Fountain Valley, close to Little Saigon. It's called Au Lac and it's a Vietnamese plant-based restaurant. It kind of kicked off the movement in that area. It started I believe in 1997, so that's kind of the gold standard for Vietnamese vegan. I love eating there, I still go back.

Obviously, in L.A., there's so much great Mexican vegan now. It's so good. And there's a huge vegan festival that happens every year in L.A. So you'll see new kinds of trucks and stands and food concepts that are starting to emerge.

Another one that I love is a burger restaurant in Garden Grove called Nice Burger. It's like a fast food chain but their burgers are so good. They really do it right.

Mayra Alvarado: Well, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to going back and trying all these places. And just thank you for joining us today. For me, food is really a way to connect with the past, present and future.

I think you've really symbolized as you brought in recipe, your mom's spirituality into the food, into how you're connecting now with the community here in Taiwan and inspiring that community to also go down this path.

Going back to the U.S. in the future, I think you'll definitely be a part of this broader network.

Mai Bach: Thanks so much. I really had a great time. It's definitely something I didn't realize would become my passion, but I love this topic. And it's so close to my heart. I think that's why food is so important because it's close to everyone's heart.

This episode is produced by Emily Y. Wu. Teresa Yen is our production coordinator and editor. Our editing assistant is Gerald Williams. Engineering supervisor is Dino Lin. Graphics by Logan Dosher. Thanks to Chloe Ramond and Mikey Redding for assisting.