San Jose has the largest share of Vietnamese restaurants in the country and exciting projects to come

I believe San Jose has the largest Vietnamese community of any city in the US. At the County-level, it is only second to Orange County down south. However, despite having a slightly smaller Vietnamese population than Orange County (180k vs. 120k in here), Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of Vietnamese restaurants in the US. 6% of all restaurants in Santa Clara County are Vietnamese, featuring some of my favorite foods like pho, banh mi, and other delicacies.

SJ Today has great guides for both the top Pho and Banh Mi shops in San Jose. There are also lots of other types of restaurants featuring spicy Bun Bo Hue and Nuoc Mia (sugarcane juice) that you can find throughout San Jose.

The strength of the Vietnamese community here is one of the reasons why there is a proposal on the table to build a 260,000 SQFT Vietnamese indoor market modeled after a Ho Chi Minh City landmark (image below) where Sears used to be in Eastridge. It would be called Hello Ben Thanh Indoor Market and would have a combination of retail stores, massive food courts with as many as 50 booths, an entertainment center, and banquet hall. The project would take over both floors of the old Sears building. Think of it as a Vietnamese version of Eataly that will be accessible from both inside and outside the mall.

There is no formal ETA, but the developer Intelli has already secured the space for $24.8 million.

Source: The Merc, NextShark