Amid a thick cloud of smoke, you’ll find Battambong BBQ — a Cambodian barbecue fusion pop-up — among the vendors at Smorgasburg.

Founder and pitmaster Chad Phuong, who is dubbed by his community as the “Cambodian Cowboy,” fled war-torn Cambodia as a child, escaping a genocide that took the lives of nearly 2 million people, including his father.

He arrived in Long Beach as a refugee when he was seven years old, where he still calls home. For a short time, his family lived in Texas, just outside of Amarillo. There, he worked at a meat packaging plant, where he learned different cuts of meat and how to smoke barbecue.

“On the weekends there’s really nothing to do out there in Amarillo…We mostly liked to smoke, barbecue and drink beer,” Phuong said. “I hung out at [my friend’s] farm and that’s when I learned to smoke things correctly and the American way, which is using salt and pepper, and slow cooking it in the smoker for a very long time, which I wasn’t accustomed to.” 

After losing his job during the Covid-19 pandemic, Phuong decided to use his barbecue talents to start a one-of-a-kind food concept that combines flavors from each place he’s called home.

“I started smoking barbecue, and I enhanced the experience by introducing people to Cambodian sausage, called twako,” Phuong said. “What stands out to everybody is the unique flavors I bring as a former refugee who grew up here in America, in southern California, and a little bit in Texas.”

Though twako is traditionally deep-fried, Phuong adds a Texas flair by smoking it instead. Rather than serving sides of creamed corn and mac and cheese, he offers coconut corn — made with creamy coconut milk — and garlic noodles. Though no barbecue joint would be complete without barbecue sauce, Phuong’s spin on the classic condiment is hoisin-based, and is made with vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil. 

For Phuong, running Battambong BBQ reminds him of family memories in Cambodia. His grandfather ran a small agricultural operation near the Mekong River, known as an area rich for rice cultivation. His grandfather not only grew his own food, but cooked it too. Phuong carries memories of his grandparents and Cambodia while barbecuing at Smorgasburg every Sunday.

“We grew up really poor as country folks. We lived off the land where we didn’t have any running water. We didn’t have a gas stove. We had to make our own fire,” Phuong said. “I had to go to the jungle to gather firewood from my grandparents to make breakfast, lunch and dinner and that made me a really good pitmaster because [I learned] to control the environment of the fire such as the smoke, the flames, the temperature and the humidity.”

For years, food and food fusion have been a source of comfort for Phuong. Forced to leave his homeland at a young age, fusion gives Phuong the opportunity to express memories of Cambodia while honoring his American homes of Long Beach and Texas.

“Food is my saving grace,” Phuong said. “As a refugee, like most people that come here, we’re very resilient, very resourceful. So I stuck with it and got better as a pitmaster.”

For more information on Battambong BBQ, visit here