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Viet Tran is another rampant flavor-combiner. His vehicle is soy milk, which he makes every morning by hand, from organic soy beans. "I think there is an art of it," he explains. "What turned me on to soy milk was the creation of it. It's more of an art than soup. You cook soy milk for three hours, you feel open, you feel calm. I want to show people how to make soy milk. It's very meditative, very Zen. Soaking it, blending it, extracting the milk and then cooking it."

Tran, a former computer programmer, traveled across North Vietnam for five years and studied noodle-making and soy milk-making in little villages. In addition to his tiny Viet Soy Cafe in Silver Lake, he now has Viet Noodle Bar in Atwater Village, perhaps the only place on the planet where you can get a bowl of defiantly traditional Hanoi-style chicken pho in a sharply modern setting. You can also get soy milk in all kinds of configurations -- with black sesame, with yerba mate, with coffee. He's adding a soy-milk tasting bar, with such flavors as organic garlic ("very sweet," he says) and turmeric.

C. Thi Nguyen, Special to the Times 9/24/08