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Inside Anh Phoong’s Conversation with Abridged
Recently, Anh Phoong, CEO and attorney at law for Phoong Law, sat down with Abridged Senior Food Editor Benjy Egel to talk about life, law, and her favorite Sacramento restaurants over plates of sizzling Korean barbecue. Their easy conversation, filmed for Abridged’s “Fame to Fork” series powered by PBS KVIE, feels less like an interview and more like two locals trading stories about how food, family, and community shape who they are.
Inside the Abridged conversation
Abridged is PBS KVIE’s nonprofit local news service, created to tell Sacramento area stories with the depth and care that shrinking newsrooms often cannot. On its YouTube channel, Abridged pairs short, sharply edited videos with in depth written pieces so viewers can watch a conversation, then dig deeper into the people and places featured.
For this episode, Benjy brings years of food writing experience to the table; he previously covered Sacramento’s dining renaissance and the Farm to Fork movement before joining Abridged as Senior Food Editor. That background shapes the way he talks with Anh: he is just as interested in what certain dishes mean to her as he is in how they taste, gently prompting her to connect memories of immigration, family, and building a law firm to the meals they share on camera.
Meeting Anh beyond the billboards
Most people across California and Nevada know Anh from her “Something wrong? Call Anh Phoong” billboards, commercials, and social media presence. In this conversation, viewers meet a different side of her: a daughter of Chinese immigrants who grew up in Antelope, worked her way through American River College and Sacramento State, and then built a personal injury and abuse practice that now serves clients throughout California as well as in Nevada cities like Las Vegas and Reno.
As she talks with Benjy, Anh opens up about how her family’s experience starting over in a new country influences the way she looks at every client’s story. She explains that when someone calls Phoong Law after an auto accident, slip and fall, dog bite, or sexual assault, she sees more than a case file; she sees a family suddenly facing medical bills, lost work, and the fear that life may never feel normal again.
Oz Korean BBQ: Where the stories start
The episode centers on Oz Korean BBQ in Sacramento, which Anh calls her go to spot. As they grill meat over the tabletop burners and share banchan, she laughs with Benjy about office birthday parties that ran late and remembers the first time she brought her team there to celebrate a big win for a client.
Between bites, she explains why she gravitates to restaurants like Oz: the all you can eat format and shared plates remind her of big family dinners where everyone passes dishes and no one leaves hungry. That same “everyone at the table” feeling is what she tries to bring into Phoong Law’s work on auto, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, and pedestrian accidents, traumatic brain injuries, and other serious cases, making sure clients never feel pushed aside or kept in the dark about their own case.
A tour of favorite Sacramento spots
Benjy and the Abridged team expand the story in their companion article, where Anh walks through more of her favorite local restaurants. She lights up describing YD Tofu House, praising the bubbling soups, generous banchan, and especially the short ribs that taste like pure comfort after a long day in court.
She also talks about grabbing a quick sandwich at Duc Huong Sandwiches, which she happily calls home to Sacramento’s best banh mi, especially the grilled pork No. 1. In the article, Anh connects these small, often immigrant owned spots to the kinds of families and workers Phoong Law represents when someone is hurt in an accident or attacked in or around a business, including rideshare sexual assault and child abuse cases.
What matters most to Ms. Phoong
Throughout the conversation, what stands out is how often Anh returns to the idea of responsibility. She tells Benjy that just as restaurant owners feel responsible for feeding and welcoming their guests, she feels responsible for standing up when negligence or abuse shatters a family’s sense of safety, whether that is a catastrophic car crash, a slip and fall, or sexual assault and abuse that should never have been allowed to happen.
She also talks about the emotional weight of this work, especially in cases involving children and women who have survived violence. Sharing a table with Benjy gives her space to acknowledge that weight honestly while also showing viewers the joy and resilience that keep her going: staff dinners that turn into karaoke, late night strategy sessions that end with takeout, and the satisfaction of calling a client to say a settlement or verdict will finally help them move forward.
Why you will want to watch
Reading about the episode only scratches the surface of their chemistry. On video, you can see the way Benjy’s friendly, curious questions draw out stories that rarely appear in legal bios, from Anh’s childhood food memories to the first time she saw her own face on a billboard. You also get to sit at the table with them, watching the grill flare, hearing the clink of plates, and feeling like part of the conversation instead of just an observer.
If you are curious about the person behind the “Something wrong? Call Anh Phoong” slogan, or you simply want great ideas for your next Sacramento meal, it is worth watching the full Abridged video and then reading the Abridged article that maps out all of Anh’s favorite local restaurants. Together, they offer a rare, behind the scenes look at how a California and Nevada injury and abuse lawyer stays rooted in the communities she fights for every day.
You can read Benjy Egel’s full Abridged article on Anh Phoong’s favorite Sacramento restaurants here: https://www.abridged.org/news/anh-phoong-favorite-restaurants-sacramento/
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