Saigon-Sol: What Happens When We Bring the Best of Ourselves to the Table

Some nights you walk away from a room and just think — yeah, that's exactly what this city is capable of.

The Saigon-Sol dinner at Bibisol was one of those nights.

How It Started

I grew up behind the counter at my family's restaurant. From the time I was old enough to carry a plate, I watched food do something that nothing else quite could — it brought people together who might never have sat down in the same room otherwise. It lowered the walls. It started conversations. It turned strangers into neighbors.

So when Marcela Salas of Bibisol offered to host a fundraising dinner for this campaign, I knew immediately what I wanted it to feel like. Not a stuffy political event. Not a transactional evening. Something real. Something that tasted like Sioux Falls.

I called my brother Tony.

The Collaboration

Chef Marcela and Chef Tony Danh of Pho Quynh don't cook from the same tradition. Marcela brings the bold, layered complexity of Mexican cuisine — the kind of cooking that takes patience and pride in equal measure. Tony brings the aromatic depth and precision of Vietnamese technique, built on decades of family recipes and a kitchen that never really closed.

Together, they built a menu you won't find anywhere else. Vietnamese flavors and Latin soul, woven together into something that honored both traditions without shortchanging either.

That's harder to pull off than it sounds. It requires trust. It requires a willingness to let someone else's story sit alongside your own. And it requires believing that the thing you make together will be better than anything you'd make alone.

Watching them cook that night felt like a proof of concept for everything I believe about this city.

The Room

What struck me most wasn't the food — though it was extraordinary.

It was the room.

Neighbors who hadn't met before, sharing a table. People from different parts of Sioux Falls, different backgrounds, different reasons for being there — all leaning in over the same plates, asking each other where they were from, what they did, what they thought about the city they all called home.

That's a Vibrant Community. Not an abstract policy goal. A real, living thing that happens when you create the conditions for it and then get out of the way.

What It Means for the Campaign

This dinner reminded me why I'm running.

Not for the vote count. Not for the title. For the version of Sioux Falls where a night like this isn't a special occasion — it's just Tuesday. Where our small businesses have the support they need to take creative risks. Where our chefs, our artists, our entrepreneurs feel like the city is in their corner.

A Vibrant Community means making it easier to do what Marcela and Tony did — collaborate, create, and share it with the people around them. It means a permitting process that doesn't punish ambition. It means storefront activation that keeps our downtown alive. It means investing in the arts and culture that give a city its soul.

Equal Opportunity means making sure the next chef, the next small business owner, the next family with a dream and a recipe has the same shot. Regardless of where they started.

That's the Sioux Falls I'm building toward.

Thank You

To everyone who came out on February 9 — thank you. Your support means more than I can put into words.

To Marcela, for your generosity and your genius. To Tony, for saying yes without hesitation. To the entire Bibisol team, for making the room feel like home.

And to this city — for continuing to show me, over and over again, that when we bring the best of ourselves to the table, something remarkable happens.

It's always been our city. Now is our moment.

Let's rise together. ☀️

— Vince Danh Candidate, Sioux Falls City Council At-Large | June 2nd 2026

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