Bob Thaxton
Seguin Gazette (Texas, USA)
A young and energetic restaurateur has taken the reins at Seguin Seafood & Steaks, 1332 E. Court St.
Dana Sok, a native of Cambodia who came to the United States in 2007, purchased the restaurant and opened it under her management and its new name on Jan. 16.
She came to Seguin with experience in the food service industry.
"I had a donut shop in Lindale next to Tyler. It's a really small town. It's smaller than Seguin," she said.
Dana had the donut shop for "over a year," and it apparently whetted her appetite for something more substantial.
"My cousin had a seafood restaurant in Hempstead close to Houston," Dana said.
She started looking for a location, and a friend of her mother's suggested Seguin. Dana liked what she saw here.
"Y'all have friendly people here." She also liked the size of the city, its proximity to a metropolitan area and the convenience of having "everything close."
"I love the weather here. It's better than Columbus, Ohio," Dana said.
When Dana at the age of 17 emigrated from Cambodia to the United States, she joined her mother, Lang Ouch, who previously had settled in Columbus, Ohio.
"We were poor in Cambodia, and her brother lived here. He sponsored her to come here."
Her mother has joined Dana in Seguin, and Lang does some of the cooking at the restaurant. She makes fried rice, pasta and cole slaw.
"We make our own ranch dressing and tartar sauce," Dana said.
Also sharing cooking chores at the restaurant is Dana's finance, Tony Vongchanh. Tony's ancestry is Laotian although he was born and grew up in Columbus, Ohio.
Asked to name a dish served at Seguin Seafood & Steaks that she's particularly proud of, Dana said, "Our gumbo."
"People love our shrimp and our steaks. They also love our catfish," she said.
The restaurant's cuisine was enthusiastically endorsed in a letter to the newspaper from Jack and Liz McClellan of Kingsbury: "I am from Louisiana and was raised on seafood; so I know seafood," Liz said. "This is the best I have had since I left Louisiana years ago. There is no other seafood place in our area that can equal her food - whether it be steamed, grilled, broiled or fried."
Dana said patronage at the restaurant has improved steadily since the opening Jan. 16.
"It's getting better and better week by week," she said.
Seguin Seafood & Steaks, 1332 E. Court, is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Sunday.
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