Waiting in line sucks. It’s boring, your feet start to hurt after only a couple of minutes, and you begin to question every life choice that brought you to stand in a queue with 30 other people.
But while waiting in line for a scallion pancake from Rising Tiger at the Longmont Farmers Market on Saturdays, all of those annoyances disappear. In the glow and anticipation of that chewy, heavenly pancake — which is served wrapped around char siu (Chinese barbecue pork), local greens, egg foo yung, roasted garlic aioli and provolone cheese — you’ll forget about your dead phone, aching toes and the fact that you had to wake up before 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday to order the dish it before it sold out.
In this line, realization sets in that waiting is not only bearable, but a privilege.
After just two years of serving up dishes and becoming a local favorite at the Longmont Farmers Market, the mobile Asian American caterer Rising Tiger and its owner, Devin “Tiger” Keopraphay, are about to be in the national spotlight. The food stand will be featured on Season 18 of Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race,” introducing Longmont’s favorite breakfast obsession to the rest of the country.
Rising Tiger is Colorado’s lone representative on this season of the show. “The Great Food Truck Race” is a cross-country food-truck showdown hosted by chef Tyler Florence, where nine teams from New Jersey, Tennessee, Michigan, Georgia, Oregan, New York — and Longmont, Colorado. The teams scoot from city to city slinging specialties, surviving curveball challenges, battling for a $50,000 prize and the kind of exposure most trucks dream about.
The whole circus is a long way from the sleepy routine of a Boulder County Farmers Market, so much so that when Food Network told Keopraphay that Rising Tiger was picked to compete on national television, he almost didn’t believe it.
“I thought I was getting scammed and that someone was messing with me,” Keopraphay said. “But then we found out it was real, and it’s exciting. It’s really shocking, honestly. Out of all the people, it’s this tiny team from Longmont. It really puts things in perspective that we were chosen for this. If you keep your head down, and just keep working, you keep moving forward.”
Devin “Tiger” Keopraphay cooks his popular scallion pancakes at the from his Rising Tiger culinary company at the Longmont Farmers Market on Saturday. The Rising Tiger food truck will appear on the news season of the Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race.” The show premieres on Sunday. (Cliff Grassmick/Staff Photographer)
Rising Tiger serves food that could hold its own in any city. The dishes are sophisticated, inventive and so popular that Keopraphay could have set up shop in a larger market like Denver and still soared. Instead, he chose Longmont.
“To be honest with you, I think that there’s not enough love for smaller towns,” Keopraphay said. “We often overlook these places that are craving good food, good connection, good community, because everyone else is chasing that dollar. I’m going to be completely honest with you, and maybe this sounds serious, but I don’t give a (expletive) about money, not one (expletive) bit.”
Keopraphay grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in a beach town that would fizzle out after Labor Day. As an adult visiting Colorado, he was drawn to the lure that in this state, there’s something to do every season of the year.
“There’s no ‘off’ season,” he said. “There’s hiking and biking, then winter comes and it’s ski season. Part of why I liked Colorado so much was for the year-round lifestyle.”
He got his start washing woks in his family’s Chinese restaurant in Washington D.C. Then he trained in culinary school, learned the art of sushi from working at the world-renowned chef Masaharu Morimoto’s flagship restaurant, Morimoto’s in Philadelphia, and then cooked his way through a string of East Coast kitchens before landing in Colorado.
Rising Tiger’s menu is what Keopraphay calls “Asian-ish.” It’s equal parts Lao comfort, Chinese barbecue and American diner cravings — always changing with the season and whatever mood hits.
“Rising Tiger takes classic and more bold Asian flavors and merges them head-on with that greasy, nostalgic American diner food,” he said. “To me, that’s the perfect representation of third culture.”
Devin “Tiger” Keopraphay serves up his popular dishes from his Rising Tiger culinary company during the the Longmont Farmers Market on Saturday. Rising Tiger has become so popular at the Saturday market that if guests don’t get in line early enough for his popular scallion pancakes, they’ll sell out. (Cliff Grassmick/Staff Photographer)
Third culture describes those who grew up in a country different from where their parents came from, picking up pieces from both worlds and mixing them into something new. For Keopraphay, that manifests in the form of a chicken katsu sandwich with hot chili maple and pimento cheese or Hatch chile sausage banh mi.
Day to day, the Rising Tiger crew is tight. Keopraphay usually works with one other person, but for “The Great Food Truck Race” appearance, he’s bringing along Colorado food influencer Ashley Morris (@ashleyluvstoeat) and Orion Muniz, a Boulder County kitchen veteran.
“Ashley has been a big fan for a long time and helped create some videos for us,” Keopraphay said. “We knew she’d be great at marketing and selling food, which is what the show would need. Orion has a huge personality and we’ve actually run a couple restaurants together in Boulder County. He’s got high energy and a lot of experience.”
While national recognition is nice, Keopraphay says he’s more interested in representing the community that rarely sees itself reflected on TV.
“For me, the pressure was about all the brown kids who felt less,” he said. “I always refer to myself as a dark-skinned Asian, you know you’re not the fastest, smartest, or best, but you’re doing the work. That was the pressure — to tell those kids with similar stories, those who have identity crises, or feel confused, that we’re here, we’re not less than and our voice matters as much as anyone else’s.”
At the end of the day, Keopraphay wants people to eat together, talk to each other and maybe step outside of their comfort zones for breakfast.
“The whole idea, and the reason I’m cooking, is to connect the community,” he said, “and extend our breakfast, lunch and dinner tables to have bigger conversations about how we are as people.”
Season 18 of “The Great Food Truck Race” premieres at 7 p.m. Sunday on the Food Network. Catch Keopraphay and the Rising Tiger crew competing for national bragging rights, and maybe get inspired to set your alarm early for the next Longmont Farmers Market.
Devin Keopraphay, pictured on Saturday cooking up scallion pancakes at the Longmont Farmers Market, has a Rising Tiger food truck that will compete on the new season of Food Network’s “The Great Food Truck Race.” (Cliff Grassmick/Staff Photographer)