La Vang didn't set out to open the only Hmong eatery in the Pacific Northwest.

Born in a refugee camp in Thailand, raised in Milwaukee, Vang moved to the Portland area in 2015 after marrying a local, Steve Herr.

"My husband is from Oregon," Vang said. "And the first thing he told me when I moved here was, 'You know, there's no Hmong store here, so if you want Hmong food, you need to make it yourself.'"

She thought about opening a store on Herr’s nearby farm, a place where she could sell fresh eggs alongside specialties from the Hmong people, Vang’s hill tribe centered in Northern Laos (the "H" is silent). But Vang was intrigued by Portland’s unique food cart culture. And so, last year, Vang left her job as a nonprofit development director and opened @La’s, a bright red food cart that sits at the edge of an Aloha parking lot better known until now for its dueling taco trucks.

When she opened, the leader of the local Hmong community association told her she was the only restaurant or cart serving Hmong food in the Pacific Northwest. Visitors from Seattle have told her the same thing. And now, @La's is also one of our best new carts of 2018.

Vang's father was trained by the CIA to fight against the communists in Laos. At the end of the Vietnam war, Vang's mother, already pregnant with Vang, was airlifted out of that country. After giving birth in Thailand, mother and child traveled to Dallas, then eventually to Milwaukee, home to one of the largest Hmong populations in the United States -- and stores and restaurants catering to their community -- where they were reunited with family.

At @La's, Vang's most traditional dish might be her Hmong sausage, made for the cart by nearby butcher Ponderosa Provisioners using Vang's recipe, packed with juicy ground pork, ginger and lemongrass. Each sausage is grilled, leaving a little ash on your fingers as you dip it, along with a wedge of superb sticky rice, into a green chile and herb sauce reminiscent of a fiery Hmong-style chimichurri. Vang has big plans for these sausages, considering them not only their own brand, but the starting point for a Hmong food movement.

Yet Vang is hardly bound by tradition. At home, she sometimes tosses those sausages into brat buns with potato salad or turns them into a pasta sauce for her and her husband's kids. They eat it up. At the cart, instead of the sweet braised pork and egg dish sometimes called "sweet meat," Vang braises ribs in sweet sauce until they drip off the bone. They can come whole with jasmine rice or packed with pickled veggies, cilantro and herbs in a crusty banh mi-style sandwich nearly as wet as a Chicago-style Italian beef. Her Phat Wings are the result of a multi-step process: deboned each night by Herr; then stuffed with glass noodles, carrots, black trumpet mushrooms and a mix of ground turkey and pork; baked; and finally flash fried. Even if you've had Hmong food before -- or food from greater Laos, which shares some flavors and dishes -- Vang's good technique and fun twists offer plenty of surprises.

If getting to Aloha is a stretch, look for Vang at the annual Hmong food festival Nov. 10-11 at Roosevelt High School in North Portland (moved last year from the Washington County Fairgrounds in Hillsboro.) She won't promise that she'll make her traditional sweet meat with pig's trotters and ears as well as that super-tender belly, but she will be bringing poached chicken and rice -- the Hmong version of the popular Hainanese dish -- made from a Southeast Asian breed of chickens Vang and Herr raise on their farm.

Order this: Hmong sausages with sticky rice ($8.50) and "The David" ($6), a banh mi variation made with sweet-braised rib meat.

Details: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday-Wednesday; 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Thursday-Friday; 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday; 18631 S.W. Tualatin Valley Hwy; 971-330-5989; lavangfoods.com

-- Michael Russell