GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Come July, West Michigan residents can bring the flavors of popular local eateries into their homes, as the Xiong family debuts their line of Asian-inspired sauces at 16 Meijer stores across Greater Grand Rapids.
The Xiongs, who own multiple restaurants across West Michigan, including Toastn' Tea, Bangkok Taste Cuisine, Bliss and Vinegar, and KK Pepper Thai, have created a variety of sauces based on their culinary offerings.
Through their family-owned business, XCO Foods, customers will soon find sauces such as Korean Aioli, Sweet and Sour Sauce, and Plum Sauce available on store shelves. You can also purchase the sauces directly from the family through their website.
Food has always been a central part of the Xiong family's lives.
Ashley Xiong remarked, “Food is like a love language to us, it has always just brought us all together.”
The family's journey began when Ashley and Mai See Xiong’s parents immigrated from Laos to Michigan in 1988.
Mai See Xiong recalled, "We didn't always have a lot, but my parents always made sure that we always had food on our table."
The Xiong family, consisting of five sons and three daughters, have made significant contributions to the local culinary scene. Mai See opened Toastn' Tea about two years ago.
Their dishes incorporate inspiration from their Hmong heritage and other Asian cuisines.
“Not a lot of people know who the Hmong people are, to be able to share our food and know that our type of food has been really inspired by the neighboring countries of Laos,” Ashley shared.
"Laos inspired, Thai inspired, Chinese inspired and so with our culture, we've really been able to take ideas, use different types of foods, right? And make our own dish out of it."
Mai See spent time traveling throughout Asia, visiting countries like Korea, Thailand, and Japan, drawing inspiration from the diverse food cultures to bring unique flavors to their U.S. restaurants.
"We actually use all three here, our sweet and sour sauce. We use that for a couple of different things here. We use this for our sweet and sour or we use this for our cheese rangoons here, and then we use it as a dipping sauce," said Mai See.
"And then we also incorporate this into one of our other dishes, our sesame chicken. We do add a little bit more things in there to make it that sesame chicken, but that one is Thai inspired. We also use our Korean Aioli on a lot of our other things, our Korean corn dogs, and then also our kim baps."
The family's new venture into retail seeks to make these special flavors accessible beyond local restaurant visits.
Ashley expressed, “Being able to provide these sauces to our local community currently, with our restaurants, we wanted to be able to provide that to people virtually all over the world.”
Mai See added, "Now that we have these sauces out, we're really excited, just because you're not local or you can't come to a restaurant doesn’t mean you can't taste our flavors."
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