Huyen Trang Lai and her relatives, all Vietnamese immigrants who moved to Bolivia to work on a gold mine, opened Vinapho in 2012. In 2014 they returned to Vietnam and decided to sell the restaurant and Chef Andres Araoz, who had previously worked with a Vietnamese chef from Hanoi in Germany, decided to take over Vinapho. Most restaurants in La Paz serving Asian food focus on Japanese cuisine and many of those serve sushi only. And even though Vinapho was conceived as a Vietnamese restaurant, we decided to expand our menu and added Thai dishes as well as other Pan-asian meals in order to broaden the Asian cuisine experience in the city. It has been an adventure to find local ingredients to prepare our food. At first we tried cultivating the herbs eaten with pho and failed, but we have found local substitutes that have similar tastes. Although our food may not taste exactly as in Thailand or Vietnam, we prepare our sauces, broths, curries, etc, as traditionally as possible.