Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

A population boom is adding diversity to the city's Asian American presence.

When Vanessa Nguyen was trying to learn her mother’s recipes for her own restaurant, she discovered that “a bit of this” and “a handful of that” were her mother’s favorite units of measurement.

“I had to find a way to streamline the process,” Nguyen says.

That amalgamation of new and old produced the delicious dishes that Nguyen now serves at Bosa 1, which is quickly becoming what many say is the best Vietnamese restaurant in Las Vegas’ increasingly diverse Chinatown.

A few years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find a place like Bosa 1 in Las Vegas. “Having roast duck or live fish was a novelty,” says Duncan Lee, a Las Vegas resident of 19 years, since pre-Chinatown days. “Now we have five or six markets serving all the ethnic groups: Korean, Thai, Filipino.” 

Located in a strip mall that is an offshoot of Chinatown’s original hub, Bosa 1 resides alongside an Ethiopian grocery, a Chinese seafood restaurant, a Korean karaoke bar and a Filipino restaurant. It’s all part of the Asian population boom that occurred after James Chen laid the groundwork with Chinatown Plaza in 1995, believing that if he built it, they would come.

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