For Chef Uong, a dreaded childhood chore becomes reflective preparation of an ideal, breakthrough dish into Cambodian cuisine.
From peeling mountains of potatoes to the tedium of picking the leaves from a seemingly endless bundle of parsley, few women escape the drudgery of food prep as a child. Instead of running amok, playing games with our friends on a sunny afternoon, we were stuck in the kitchen snapping mounds of green beans or shelling cooked crawfish for étouffée. For Sophina Uong, chef and co-owner of “tropical roadhouse” restaurant Mister Mao, it was sitting on the floor in front of a “tiny” mortar and pestle and pounding salted fish.
The fermented fish paste, called prahok, is a signature ingredient used in Cambodian cuisine. It’s made from small, freshwater fish which are salted, ground into a paste and then fermented for several weeks. Prahok, or the “stinky ass fermented fish” as Uong puts it, is often compared to some of Europe’s more pungent cheeses. Like the odiferous Epoisses or Taleggio, prahok may stink to high heaven, but the funky, umami flavor is well-worth the stench.
When she was still a toddler, Uong’s family fled the conflicts in Cambodia and immigrated from capital city Phnom Penh to Long Beach, California – a city that currently boasts the largest Cambodian community outside of Southeast Asia.
As the young daughter of an Asian household, meal preparation was one of Uong’s primary chores, which included making prahok ktiss, a minced pork dip served with fresh vegetables. “I had to sit on the floor as a kid and pound the prahok with lemongrass, garlic, galangal, fresh turmeric, chilies, and peanuts. You have to sit on your side, like a lady or whatever,” laughs Uong. “It’s considered rude for women to sit cross-legged, so that [position] was the worst. You’re just pounding and pounding and it was really uncomfortable.”
Although Uong still maintains that making the dip was a childhood dread, she has come to embrace it, dubbing the preparation “meditative,” as long as it’s made in small batches. It seems pursuing a culinary career forced Uong to see prahok ktiss in a different light.
Sophina learned her way around the kitchen through necessity. With a father who was always on the job and an absent mother, it was up to her to put food on the table for herself and her brother. Though she could follow a recipe, her passion for cooking didn’t ignite until she experienced homemade meals at a boyfriend’s house and the joy they took in the process, from helping to set the table to sharing family recipes.
The self-trained, Cambodian-American chef has come a long way, cooking at lauded San Francisco Bay Area restaurants such as Restaurant Lulu, Citizen Cake, Waterbar, and Calavera Mexican Kitchen & Bar. Uong also competed in Food Network’s Chopped in 2016 and was named “Grill Master Napa Champion,” a win that likely motivated Andrew Zimmern to hire her to help launch the Lucky Cricket, a Chinese-American restaurant in Minneapolis. Through no fault of her own, the Lucky Cricket “tanked,” and Sophina and her husband William “Wildcat” Greenwell found their way South.
The couple made friends while attending Lafayette’s Runaway Boucherie – a chef-to-chef event that brought together cooks, butchers, growers, pitmasters and food lovers to celebrate and preserve the historical Cajun practice of butchering and cooking (typically a whole hog) for the community.
“I guess you could say we moved down here because we needed some sun.” They were staying with friends and she was working as a bartender at Rockrose, a now-defunct Greek restaurant at the International House Hotel, when COVID hit. “We were like, sure, let’s live in New Orleans, like Gen X hipsters,” laughs Uong.
Sophina truly began sharing her culinary talents in New Orleans through a series of pop-up held at places such as Mid-City’s Coffee Science, Zony Mash Beer Project in the Lower Garden District and Congregation Coffee in Algiers Point. It wasn’t long before Chef Uong and her husband were able to open Mister Mao in the summer of 2021.
Located on the corner of Tchoupitoulas and Jena streets, Mister Mao serves cuisine which is polar opposite to the menu offered at Dick & Jenny’s, the Creole seafood restaurant that lived on that same corner for nearly two decades. Chef Uong’s menu is as diverse as it is spicy, offering dishes with influences from all over the world; from Puerto Rican-style “guisado” or stews featuring smoked and braised beef cheek to Kashmiri fried chicken and wood-fired scallops with tahini and harissa.
Sophina’s once-hated childhood chore prahok ktiss goes on and off the menu at Mister Mao (currently on), but she also loves to bring it on the road when guest-cheffing at other restaurants. “I think it’s a great introduction to Cambodian food – slightly funky, sweet, coconutty, salty and spicy.”
“Usually this dip looks kind of broken – which is the best way with the oils showing – but for the western palate we serve this at the restaurant with crudite and shrimp chips, and we temper the funkiness of the fish.”
*Mister Mao is open Thursday through Tuesday for dinner, serves brunch on Saturday and Sunday, and is closed on Wednesdays.
**Article originally published in the January 2026 issue of Where Y’at Magazine
***Lead image courtesy of photographer Cory Fontenot
