Thirty three-year-old Le Ha Huyen, also known as Helen Le, who is staying in Da Nang, has a strong passion for teaching foreigners how to cook traditional Vietnamese dishes.

Ms Huyen preparing for a video about a Vietnamese dish (Photo: Thu Ha)

In 2011, Ms Huyen established ‘Helen’s Recipes (Vietnamese Food)’ at https://www.youtube.com/user/HelenRecipes, one of YouTube’s biggest channels that feature Vietnamese cuisine. 

To date, a total of over 371,000 people has subscribed to follow this popular channel, the majority of whom are foreigners.

In particular, more than 300 videos in total about Vietnamese recipes in English are now available on ‘Helen’s Recipes’. 

Most notably, videos featuring the full recipes of such delicious Vietnamese dishes as ‘thit heo quay’ (crispy roast pork), ‘goi cuon’ (fresh spring rolls) and ‘pho bo’ (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) have hit over 2 million views each.

The talented woman happily said that a great deal of positive feedback from viewers worldwide is indeed the biggest motivation to keep her continuing her active engagement in advertising the cuisine culture of Da Nang, and that of Viet Nam as a whole, to foreigners.

In particular, during her stay in Germany for a Master’ course in economics at the University of Hamburg several years ago, Ms Huyen wrote her first cookbook, entitled ‘Vietnamese Food with Helen’s Recipes’, dedicated to foreigners who want to cook Vietnamese food. 

Printed in the US, the book was then translated into Vietnamese, and released by book producer Phuong Nam Corp (PNC). 

It is common to realise that all recipes presented in this popular cookbook are easy-to-follow and foolproof, and ingredients are easy to find, even in the Western countries.

The book features a total of 62 most popular Vietnamese dishes hand-picked by Ms Huyen.  There are step-by-step instructions with photo demos for cooking steps, and it is very easy for readers to access video demos with QR code and short link for every recipe.  Also, apart from the indication of the dishes’ origin, all the recipes show off exact ingredients and measurements in both US and Metric systems. 

Last, but not least, readers also might feel excited as they are introduced to many dishes from Central Viet Nam that they won’t find in other Vietnamese cookbooks currently on sale worldwide.

Following the great success of ‘Vietnamese Food with Helen’s Recipes’ mentioned above, Ms Huyen has already completed 2 other similar cookbooks, namely ‘Simply Pho’ in English and ‘Xi Xa Xi Xup’ in Vietnamese.  With easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions and mouthwatering photos, these 2 books have received high praised from readers at home and aboard.

Further information about Ms Huyen’s interesting cookbooks is available at https://danangcuisine.com/cookbook/.

Ms Huyen besides her ‘ Simply Pho’ cookbook (Photo: Thu Ha)

Since 2010, Ms Huyen and her younger sister has successfully operated their own website on Vietnamese food at https://danangcuisine.com/ which is considered to be an ultimate guide to unveil the beauty of the Da Nang cuisine culture and that of Viet Nam as a whole.  Huyen shares her own recipes of Vietnamese food on this website whilst her younger sister is in charge of the reviews of places to eat.

In July this year, Ms Huyen along with Mr Trevor James, who is a Youtuber, food addict, and Sichuan chef in training, joined efforts to develop the ‘Da Nang Food Tour with The Food Ranger (1-dollar Food Challenge)’ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Okiib8v3U which has to date attracted over 150,000 views in total.

In 2013, Ms Huyen participated in a cooking contest called 'Seoul Fusion Hansik' held in Korea and made her into the top 5 chefs list.  She was filmed by the channel Today Korea thanks to her unique recipe that combined Vietnamese spring rolls with Korean beef salad.

In April 2017, the strong-willed woman was amongst the top 4 Influence Asia Award 2017 in the cuisine category.

Ms Huyen is planning to write a book on Vietnamese vegetarian food dedicated to foreigners in order to help them gain a deeper insight into Vietnamese cuisine.