San José dessert shop Dzui’s is selling bánh pía, flaky pastries traditionally eaten at the Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival, and the shop’s owner Dzui Thai traces the recipe to his family’s 40-plus-year Teochew legacy. Thai’s aunt and uncle run Tân Hưng, a famous bánh pía brand in Vietnam, and with their blessing he stamps his San José pastries with the Tân Hưng name while making them independently by the same seven-step process. Thai grew up in Sóc Trăng, where Teochew families were more likely to eat bánh pía for the Moon Festival than conventional mooncakes, and he recalls helping at his aunt’s factory each fall as they produced thousands of pastries before the festival. Both sides of Thai’s family are Teochew and his paternal grandparents did not speak Vietnamese; Thai is fluent in Mandarin. The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month and is traditionally associated with the full moon and mooncakes, a context that explains the seasonal surge in bánh pía production described in the KQED profile.
