Chinese Food
Next Entries »WP: Culinary xenophobia? A Taste of Racism in the Chinese Food Scare?
Sunday, July 15th, 2007Jeff Yang discusses the China food scare in today’s Washington Post Outlook section — in a piece titled “A Taste of Racism in the Chinese Food Scare.” Culinary xenophobia is a fascinating topic, and long tied into the Chinese presence in America from its earliest days. (see my General Tso’s Kitty post from before). Jeff […]
Fortune Cookie Fiction: Does someone secretly listen to our dinner conversations and write custom fortunes?
Saturday, July 14th, 2007A number of people have sent me links to fortune cookie-related art (short story, drawings, even a short film!). The cultural fascination with fortune cookies, particularly with fortune cookie scribes, is So I will start rolling them out over time. Here is a story from Carl Lang (who Facebook messaged me) about a guy whose […]
Cocooning myself to meditate on The Greatest Chinese restaurant in the world (outside Greater China)
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007I’m back, shaking off jetlag, from with one last chapter to write: The hunt for the greatest Chinese restaurant in the world outside Greater China (which is subtly different from “best Chinese restaurant in the world outside Greater China,” because one can be the greatest restaurant without being the best. (The chapter explains) This crazy search […]
Australia is (literally) a penniless society and other notes from the Chinese restaurant frontier
Thursday, July 5th, 2007The Australians eliminated their penny in 1991 — without too much of a fuss, so all cash transactions are rounded to the nearest five cents. Some Australians feel that Americans shouldn’t give up the penny without a fight (and indeed Americans for Common Cents seems to be holding the torch there). Other thoughts. Southern hemisphere, […]
An explosion of Chinese restaurants in Nairobi
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007Ted Fackler has an piece on AllAfrica.com about how the number of Chinese restaurants in Nairobi has gone from 1 to 40 in the last decade due to the rapidly expanding Chinese entrepreneurial presence in Kenya. Official estimates put the number of Chinese in Kenya at between  3,000 and 5,000, though some put the number as […]
Buy a Chinese Restaurant in Texas on Ebay for $63,000!
Sunday, July 1st, 2007 The Green Oaks Chinese Buffet in Arlington, Texas has put itself on sale on Ebay for $63,000 (until July 26, 2007), which is sort of an unusual move. Most Chinese restaurants are sold either by word of mouth or through advertising through the Chinese print media. Ebay is not the most obvious place to do a Chinese […]
Hi Daddy! (wave)
Thursday, June 28th, 2007I was very confused by a sudden small spike in traffic this morning as this blog, in its normal course of events (i.e. no external high-volume links), has a few dozen readers a day at best (mostly friends, and a few refers on my Wakiya post from Japan). But there wasn’t a likewise traffic spike […]
General Tso’s Kitten? Only if He Misbehaves
Thursday, June 28th, 2007My friend Jennifer sent me a picture of her cat named General Tso! I’m sure the Qing Dynasty Chinese warrior would be amused to learn that he has pets named after him overseas more than a century after his death (yes he actually existed, watch this blog for more details. I’ve even met his family, […]
Suppose General Tso had trademarked General Tso’s Chicken?
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007Peter Wells writes about intellectual property skirmishes among chefs today The New York Times, specifically focusing on a lawsuit between Rebecca Charles of Pearl Oyster Bar and Ed McFarland, her former sous chef and owner of Ed’s Lobster Bar in Soho. But excellent and powerful food ideas, it seems to me, seem to be hard […]
Do dogs add “in bed” after their fortunes too?
Monday, June 25th, 2007Michael Schaffer, who is writing a book on pet culture called One National Under Dog, sent me an e-mail message with the subject line “Our books meet” and a url. I clicked and laughed when I saw it. This company, K9takeout, now sells fortune cookies for dogs. The types of fortunes they offer include “Confucius […]
Jamaican Chinese food? Jamaican Chinese reggae?
Thursday, June 21st, 2007Tomorrow I’m heading to Kingston, Jamaica with my friend Eric Lee (who I know from Chinese camp from the time we both still wore braces) to do research on the Chinese Jamaicans, and Jamaican-Chinese food and the importance of Chinese Jamaicans in the reggae music industry. The Chinese started arriving in Jamaica in the 1850s-1860s […]
Wakiya Watch: Yuji’s Google count rising
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007Many of the “Japanese” restaurants in this country have Chinese chefs (those Asian guys behind the sushi counter? Chances are they have never been to Japan). Florence Fabricant profiles the hot new Chinese restaurant with a Japanese chef: Wayika, which will be opening up in Gramercy Park Hotel next month Yuji Wakiya, who is a […]
Will America’s best Chinese restaurant be headed by a Japanese chef?
Sunday, June 17th, 2007Today we will being our countdown to a non-specific date…Chinese food aficionados are waiting with baited breath for the mid-July opening of Wakiya in New York City after Alan Yau (of Hakkasan fame) was unable to get a visa for his chef for Park Chinois and thus canceled the project. Yuji Wakiya, who is Japan-Japanese, […]
NYT: Why immigration reform affects your Chinese takeout
Sunday, June 17th, 2007Tim and Nina Zagat of (yes as in those Zagats) have an interesting op-ed piece in The New York Times about why Chinese cuisine in the United States is stagnant — and they blame it (partially) on the difficulty with getting visas for Chinese chefs. This is something that I have thought long and hard […]
My book cover: Orange is the New Orange
Thursday, June 14th, 2007So here it is: my orange orange cover. It’s what I call Gates-of-Central-Park orange, which is admittedly eye-catching and “in” right now. A lot of people have complained about the “cognitive dissonance” of “fortune cookie” on a soy sauce packet (which isn’t cognitive dissonance at all per psychology definitions, but rather “incongruity”). There are no […]
Whatever happened to The Long March of General Tso?
Thursday, June 14th, 2007If you are here, you will notice that my book on Chinese food is no longer called The Long March of General Tso, as reported previously. Many people are sad about this, I among them. This brilliant title was conceived by my colleague Michael Luo. But the logic by my editor was this: If you […]
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