Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan dines at city restaurant

Advertisement

Advertise with us

Cho Venevongsa couldn’t help but feel starstruck when an Oscar winner and star of a beloved movie from his childhood walked through the door of his Winnipeg restaurant Saturday night.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/03/2024 (929 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cho Venevongsa couldn’t help but feel starstruck when an Oscar winner and star of a beloved movie from his childhood walked through the door of his Winnipeg restaurant Saturday night.

Ke Huy Quan — who recently won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for his role in Everything Everywhere All at Once — was a surprise guest at Venevongsa’s Wasabi sushi restaurant on Taylor Avenue.

“Our staff was just on fire, but I was like, ‘Guys, keep your cool. Lets be professional,” Venevongsa said, laughing as he recounted the moment a waitress recognized the Asian American actor.

Ke Huy Quan (left) was a surprise guest at Cho Venevongsa’s Wasabi sushi restaurant on Taylor Avenue Saturday evening. (Supplied)
Ke Huy Quan (left) was a surprise guest at Cho Venevongsa’s Wasabi sushi restaurant on Taylor Avenue Saturday evening. (Supplied)

“He’s an Oscar winner, right, come on, I mean, how could you not be excited?”

Staff at the restaurant seated Quan, who is also known for playing Indiana Jones’ kid sidekick “Short Round” in the 1984 blockbuster hit Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, at a private table reserved for special guests.

The actor and a friend dined on an assortment of sushi rolls, sashima and chef’s special dishes, Venevongsa said.

“He finished everything and he was very polite,” he said. “He told our server he would be back… That made us feel very good.”

Venevongsa intercepted Quan as he was preparing to leave, introducing himself and asking to snap a quick photo. It was a thrilling moment for the restauranteur, who said he remembers watching Indiana Jones as a teenager.

“We all loved that movie. It’s classic, just classic. Myself, my staff, we all wanted to stay professional, but we wanted him to know that we did recognize him as well,” Venevongsa said.

“It was pretty cool to have him in our establishment and in our city. I don’t know what he is doing (in Winnipeg), but as Winnipegers, we should be really proud to attract this type of talent in our city.”

It is possible Quan’s presence in Manitoba is related to his role in With Love, an upcoming action movie in which he stars as a realtor whose secret past comes back to haunt him with the reappearance of an old lover.

The shoot is scheduled to take place in Winnipeg, begining in April and continuing through mid-May. The film is slated for release in February 2025.

Born in Vietnam, Quan, 52, immigrated to California in the late 1970s with his family.

After starring in Indiana Jones and The Goonies (1985), he largely disappeared from Hollywood for more than two decades until winning the Oscar in 2023.

He acknowledged his difficult road to stardom during his acceptance speech at the award ceremony.

“My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp and somehow I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage,” he said. “They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I can’t believe this is happening to me. This is the American dream.”

He now joins the ranks of other celebrities — including Richard Gere, Woody Harrelson and Jennifer Lopez — who have enjoyed a meal at one of Venevongsa’s restaurants.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

Tyler Searle

Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

History

Updated on Monday, March 18, 2024 7:21 AM CDT: Amends photo cutline

Updated on Monday, March 18, 2024 9:11 AM CDT: Corrects typo

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Time for AI guardrails is right now

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Time for AI guardrails is right now

Editorial 4 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

The genie is most definitely out of the bottle.

And while there’s little chance of putting it back in, we should be very concerned that the people who released it from the bottle are now frantically warning us that it has become disinclined to do their — or our — bidding and seems instead to be increasingly intent on following its own whims and granting wishes to itself.

The figurative genie, in this case, is artificial intelligence, or AI, and in recent weeks many of the tech geniuses responsible for its development and introduction into the digital-information realm have begun asking the U.S. government and even the United Nations to impose limits on the pace and breadth of its growth.

Their fear is that, as AI very quickly continues to advance and develops the ability to make independent decisions and essentially think for itself, it will cease to be a tool controlled by its creators and instead will become a species unto itself that might eventually decide it’s better off without humans continually messing things up.

Read
2:00 AM CDT

Port of Churchill signs agreement with Dutch port

Aaron Epp 2 minute read Preview

Port of Churchill signs agreement with Dutch port

Aaron Epp 2 minute read Tuesday, Sep. 29, 2026

Arctic Gateway Group, operator of the Port of Churchill, has signed an agreement with the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands to attract business and strengthen supply chains linking Western Canada and Europe.

The agreement enables the two ports to work together to develop new trade in critical minerals and energy products, connect Canadian producers with European buyers, and identify opportunities to improve the supply chain from Western Canadian resource projects through Churchill and into European markets.

The Port of Rotterdam is Europe’s largest port and home to more than 3,000 businesses across its industrial complex, serving as a major gateway for critical raw materials and energy.

Meanwhile, the Port of Churchill has been identified as a transformative national strategy for Canada and is emerging as a northern trade corridor connecting Western Canada’s resources to global markets.

Read
Tuesday, Sep. 29, 2026

Dynacare workers provide essential services that must be maintained during strike, labour board rules

Nicole Buffie 5 minute read Preview

Dynacare workers provide essential services that must be maintained during strike, labour board rules

Nicole Buffie 5 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 6:30 PM CDT

The Manitoba Labour Board has ruled Dynacare workers are essential employees and their services must be maintained during a labour dispute.

Read
Updated: Yesterday at 6:30 PM CDT

There’s fast and then there’s this

Kelly Taylor 5 minute read Preview

There’s fast and then there’s this

Kelly Taylor 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

The advice was not unexpected but it was surprising considering it applied to a vehicle weighing almost 6,000 pounds.

“Before you let off the brake, put your head against the headrest,” the instructor said.

We — myself and a handful of Porsche customers gathered at Red River Exhibition Park — were about to experience launch control on the 2027 Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric.

Launch control works like this: you put the vehicle in Drive, hold the brake as hard as you can with your left foot and quickly depress the accelerator pedal as far as it goes and hold it.

Read
2:00 AM CDT

Jets new backup Stevenson ‘stoked’ to be in tandem with Skinner

Mike McIntyre 6 minute read Preview

Jets new backup Stevenson ‘stoked’ to be in tandem with Skinner

Mike McIntyre 6 minute read Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2026

It didn’t take long to get the dirt on the newest member of the Winnipeg Jets.

Meet Clay Stevenson, who has no problem if you prefer to refer to him by his long-standing nickname of “Mud.”

“You know, Clay is in the mud, and there you go. That’s it, right there,” Stevenson said Wednesday with a laugh. “I got it in juniors when I was playing in Coquitlam, and kind of stuck ever since.”

Stevenson is now hoping to make a name for himself in a city that, quite fittingly, translates to “muddy water” in Cree. The 27-year-old from Alberta was placed on waivers by the Washington Capitals and claimed by the Jets, who were looking to clarify a goaltending situation which was as murky as the Red River.

Read
Wednesday, Sep. 30, 2026

Letters, Oct. 1

7 minute read Preview

Letters, Oct. 1

7 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 7:45 AM CDT

Did anyone else see the irony when Premier Wab Kinew announced at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre that Manitoba would adopt permanent Daylight Time (DT) and had hired 17 new psychiatrists this year?

Read
Updated: Yesterday at 7:45 AM CDT