One Zimbabwean’s food journey
By Lucy Kirkman
I chatted with the lovely Megan Dunlop – owner, founder, and head chef of PHOMO. This Vietnamese pop-up kitchen and catering service is one of Harare’s best new culinary phenomena. She told me a how she got started:
I went to Cape Town to study education after finishing school. After my first semester, my course went through some major syllabus changes, which left me back in Harare feeling a bit lost. At that time I was lucky to be able to work for Janine Williams, at CORE Cold Pressed Juice. I had always loved cooking, so I was able to really get stuck into the vision at CORE – creating fresh, healthy, delicious food and drink. I wanted to learn more, however, and while deliberating whether or not to apply to Silwood Culinary School in Cape Town, I looked up Vietnamese cooking courses online. I found one, almost accidentally, that seemed just perfect.
I love Asian food, especially South-East Asian food, for its fresh flavours and healthy ingredients. As well as that, most of their vegetarian options are totally plant based. In February last year, I headed to Vietnam for this cooking course, and to learn the culture. The chefs there taught me 75 different Vietnamese dishes, and the culture behind each dish. It was an amazing experience, but one thing I couldn’t get used to was Vietnamese breakfast – they eat the same kind of food for breakfast as they do for lunch or supper!
After a transformative two months, I came back to Harare, and started catering. I created the name “PHOMO” for my business, because pho is one of the most iconic Vietnamese dishes – a beautiful, flavoursome broth with rice noodles, meat, and fresh herbs.Combining that with Zim culture (FOMO – fear of missing out), PHOMO was created.
I started with a word-of-mouth client base, but soon started catering for events. Last year Icatered for about 350 people at the Design Indaba, and at the Queen of Hearts Wine Festival and Food Festival, about 700 people for each. Now I am lucky enough to be included in many of the Queen of Hearts events, like their Valentine’s Day “Take Me to the East.” As well as catering for these big events, PHOMO now does takeaways for lunch and dinner.
I love Vietnamese cuisine because of the flavours. You can take the same ingredients, but cooking it in the different traditional methods makes each dish taste unique. Noodle salads are such fun to make, and are such a hit in the summer. But my favourite dish to make has to be pho!
Contact Megan on 0785 189 138 for takeaway menus or orders, or catering information.