Hen Troung Leaving Barn After 13 Years
As Grab n’ Go is dying down at the end of the day, Hen Troung is wrapping up his final remarks to Catlin Speak. He’s been the leader of food service in the Barn for 13 years: a whole generation of CGS lifers have known Hen’s legacy of banh mi sandwiches, a streamlined Grab n’ Go, and a dedication to locally sourced vegetables in the Barn.
Getting the job at Catlin Gabel was never within the plan, but Hen agreed to an interview at Catlin “just for practice” in 2006. At the time, Hen had recently moved back to Portland and resigned from his job at Oregon State University (OSU) as food service General Manager. He was in the process of opening a restaurant with his brother.
Hen with a edible flower arrangement he made for lower school demonstration.
At some point in the interview process 13 years ago, Hen started to imagine himself at CGS. The peaceful green campus in the summer appealed to him as did hearing his own values reflected in the school’s mission. Hen was hired and began his work that fall.
“We have to have Asian food,” Hen said about his menu ideas in the first year. From his experience at OSU, he also knew that Mexican food, Italian food, and sandwiches were popular among teenagers. These categories of food, all staples at the Barn now, were a new avenue when Hen introduced them.
Hen also revolutionized the Barn layout within his time at CGS to make a greater variety of food more accessible in the Grab n’ Go as well as a salad bar and soup offerings. Prior to this point, as Hen gathered in his first year, there had been mostly pre-made food like PB&J’s and corn dogs at the Barn.
Hen said, “My mission is to provide the freshest, most wholesome food” so that when students arrive on campus in the morning “they don’t have to think about where they are going to eat.” Hen’s array of entrees range from Vietnamese noodle soups to Moroccan curries.
Hen has been accumulating this vast repertoire of dishes his whole life from the time he started working at his family’s popular Vietnamese and Mandarin restaurant on Mississippi and Killingsworth in North Portland when he was fifteen. Since then, and until he graduated from high school, Hen worked every day after school and soccer practice as well as Saturday and Sunday. The restaurant was open every day of the year, and seeing his parents and family work hard every day drove him to help out.
After twelve years of the family running the restaurant seven days a week without days off, his father decided to close the restaurant for the first time. He picked a Tuesday. The family didn’t know what to do with themselves.
Even on Christmas, Chinese New Year, and Thanksgiving, Hen worked the whole day preparing and roasted ducks, a specialty of the restaurant. To this day, Hen attributes his work ethic to his parents. Watching them work from the beginning of the work day to the very end filled him with the desire to help and take the load off them.
“Some people have many passions; I only have three,” Hen said regarding the recycling, Meatless Monday, and locally sourced small farm vegetable initiatives. His passions? “Culinary arts, nature conservancy, and helping people.”
Hen uses them as a compass for which direction to take the food service program and how he should live his personal life. With the help of Patrick Walsh, Hen recycles bags of plastic gloves and smaller plastic bags he and his staff use. This initiative matters because “as an industry, we create a lot of waste,” Hen explained. Meatless Mondays has cuts down on the demand for meat, helping the environment through factors including land use and water use. Hen’s goal is to “leave the Earth the same as [he] found it.”
Hen has never lost his passion for food and having a meal together. The wholesome and sustainable sourced food that Hen works toward every day “goes hand in hand with having time to eat it.” When asked what final thoughts or wishes he had for the food service program at CGS, Hen emphasized having good food always accessible in the Barn so members of CGS can rely on it.
However, the food itself is best enjoyed sitting down, he said. Lunch should be a time to “reset” and to “have fun with your friends too.” Hen did comment that students who compliment the food as they come to the front of the line energize him. A simple “Wow, this looks great!” pushes Hen to keep working hard to improve the food offerings at the Barn.
Hen said he has something in the works after he leaves CGS and that he would catch up with CatlinSpeak in a year to see where he is. For now, he seems excited to spend time in the fruit orchard and with the chickens on his property, planning for his next endeavor. After 13 years on the job, like the Tuesday his family restaurant was closed, Hen will soon be confronted with free time and new possibilities.