Fresh-kill shops have certain appeal

On a typical weekday afternoon, piles of chicken carcasses sit on a stainless-steel table a few feet from the window that separates employees of the Midway City poultry shop from the customers in the shop’s front entrance.
A middle-aged woman grabs the birds, one by one, and rinses them in cold water. She carefully removes their nails, stuffs the heads into the body cavities and sets them on the other side of the counter, where another employee will bag the birds and place them on ice.

Throughout the day, customers file into the nondescript white building and leave with a bag containing a bird of their choice — a brown or white chicken, male or female — depending on the recipe they’re preparing to make that evening.

Dakao Poultry, which sits along Bolsa Avenue — the main drag for the area known as Little Saigon — is one of three shops in Orange County classified as fresh-kill locations. At a fresh-kill poultry shop, birds are kept on-site until they are ready to be killed, cleaned and sold to customers.

While fresh-kill shops are few in number, fresh poultry remains in high demand for Vietnamese Americans, who consider the shops an important aspect of their native culture. Orange County is home to the largest community of Vietnamese in the U.S.

A two-block stretch of Bolsa in Midway City is home to two fresh-kill poultry shops. A third is in Garden Grove. For years, a poultry shop in Fountain Valley killed chickens on the premises in violation of the city’s municipal code. When city officials found out about the on-site killings in 2004, they prohibited the owners from continuing the practice.

Because Midway City is unincorporated, it remains one of the few areas in Orange County where animal slaughter is accepted.

Dakao and other area poultry shops are mostly frequented by older Vietnamese Americans who pass along the tradition to their adult children, said Dan Quach of Garden Grove, who was shopping recently at Dakao for meat to make Goya, a traditional Vietnamese dish that is similar to chicken salad.

“My parents have been going there forever,” said Quach. “It’s very well known in the Vietnamese community.”

He often shops at Dakao when he’s in need of items like chicken bones that can’t be found in chain supermarkets. Unlike the larger stores with mass-produced chicken, the small poultry shops sell the head, legs, claws and other parts of the chicken that are used in traditional Vietnamese cuisine.

“For Western cultures, those odd cuts aren’t used in dishes,” Quach said.

Hung Ngo, the owner of Dakao Poultry, came to the United States from Vietnam in 1981. He opened his business in Midway City 10 years ago to serve what he believes is an important role for his community. Shops like Dakao are common in Vietnam and other countries in Asia, and Ngo wants to reconstruct this essence of home for his customers, he said.

“I want to bring fresh food to my community,” he said.

Ngo’s primary customers are Vietnamese, Chinese and those of Latin American descent. He’s aware that many Orange County residents would recoil at the idea of seeing a dead animal with a face and feet.

“I guess they just like what they’re used to,” Ngo said. “I’m not sure exactly why they don’t like it. I know it’s a sensitive topic.”

He’s also aware that markets like his, and even large chicken suppliers, have drawn controversy. Nonprofit organizations like United Poultry Concerns, based in Virginia, and People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have criticized the treatment of the animals and called for those who frequent stores like Dakao to adopt a plant-based diet.

“Part of our mission statement is that animals are not to eat,” said Lindsay Rajt, associate director of campaigns for PETA. “The bottom line for us is whether you are slaughtering an animal in a massive industrial building or slaughtering in your backyard, you are still killing an animal who experiences the same emotions … and the same ability to feel pain that we do.”

The fresh quality of the meat keeps customers coming back to Dakao — even if they don’t use all parts of the chickens in their meals. Because the chickens are sold within a few days of being killed, the product is much fresher than that found in a supermarket and isn’t pumped with the artificial hormones sometimes used in larger poultry businesses, Quach said.

“You look at the chickens and see they’re not artificially huge,” he said. “The meat is more flavorful, though you don’t get a large yield.”

Quach’s parents were born in Vietnam and emigrated to San Diego shortly after the Vietnam War. After a few years, they, like many other Vietnamese natives, moved north to Orange County, settling in the area now known as Little Saigon, so named because of its large Vietnamese population.

Midway City is less than one square mile. More than half of its 9,259 residents were born outside the United States, and about 71% were born in an Asian country, according to census data.

Midway City’s other fresh-kill shop, Baladi Halal Poultry, with its bright yellow exterior walls and large plastic rooster perched atop its building, is just a short walk up Bolsa from Dakao.

A large inside window separates the main store from rows of chickens in cages. Outside, passersby can hear the chickens squawking.

Unlike Dakao, Baladi also sells rabbits, quail, pigeons, turkey and ducks as well as chicken.

At Baladi, a chicken sells for about $2.39 per pound. At Dakao, it costs $1.75 per pound. Customers say the cost is comparable to, if not better than, most of the large grocery chains.

Officials with Orange County Environmental Health — the agency that oversees fresh-kill stores — said they couldn’t compare, in terms of cleanliness, the large processing facilities with mom-and-pop shops like those found in Midway City.

The local stores are randomly inspected by the county three times each year. The inspectors look for a variety of issues, but ensuring that the shop is clean and sanitary is at the top of their list, said Kevin Do, an inspector with the county.

“Since we’re dealing with live chickens, there needs to be a separation of the live chicken and the clean and processed chicken,” he said.

The state also requires that the chickens be tested for diseases like avian flu.

Food safety is something Ngo takes very seriously. The chickens he sells are the cornerstone of his livelihood.

While Ngo acknowledges that his business doesn’t appeal to the traditional Orange County shopper, customers say his shop fills a void for those who can’t find what they need at large grocery stores.

“The chicken is a much better quality than you find in grocery stores,” he said. “It’s fresh.”