what to do with a cat that is a glutton
Unbeknownst to everyone except my friend Galen, I accept been kicking effectually the idea for a documentary nigh Thai food abroad. It would explore the ways that Thai restaurants conform to the environments around them, be information technology in Europe, in the Americas, on a remote island, and in other parts of Asia. It wouldn't exist a finger-wagging practise in authenticity, I hasten to add — just a sincere exploration of how we all modify ourselves in society to appeal to people who are not u.s.a.. I imagined the Thai food equally a metaphor for me myself: an Asian transplant in a generally white town, tucking away the fish sauce and the shrimp paste into petty corners of herself to make her palatable to a different world. The Thai restaurants and I were one and the aforementioned.
And so imagine my consternation — but also admiration, OK? — when I learned that Lisa Ling had already done this very same thing, except broadened to several Asian cuisines. It's a expert idea! And like me, Lisa Ling has grown up having to conform and evolve, assimilating yet losing a part of herself in the procedure. Because don't get me wrong: however delicious these restaurants can end upward being, they lose parts of themselves in the process, sloughing off the bits that would make their own stomachs happy in social club to fit into preconceived notions of what those foods should be: takeaway, inexpensive, fast, unskilled, maybe even a little bit "dirty".
Then when those notions get mirrored back to us, nosotros inevitably absorb them, believing our ain food to be dirty and cheap (practice you know of a Thai person who has Non complained of paying besides much at a nice Thai restaurant or, cartel I say, Jay Fai?) In writing of this, I am thinking of the news story in which a random judge is supposed to decide whether a eating place is serving Mexican food or not (due to zoning restrictions, two Mexican restaurants cannot be side by side to each other in this city).
We all know a "Santa Fe" salad is not Mexican food; or practice we? Do we know that California rolls are non Japanese? Or that crab rangoon is not Thai? Therein lies the conundrum for "ethnic" restaurants everywhere. How do Mexican people feel, realizing that throwing beans and jalapenos on something makes it Mexican? And what are the accompanying "signifiers" for Thai food? (Peanuts and chilies, no doubt). If I, a l-year-sometime menopausal female parent of 2, take on the signifiers of a hot girl (long blond hair and large boobs), volition guys actually have discover of me? This case opens the door to a whole host of questions.
As the first Asian restaurants to have root in North America (and probably all over the Western world), the Chinese have dealt with these questions for at to the lowest degree a century. Yes, at that place are some enclaves in which Chinese communities are booming and their restaurants emerge relatively unscathed from the ravages of assimilation (consider Vancouver or Auckland). But virtually of the older ones, established for decades, take had to create a completely new genre of food in gild to appeal to their new customer base: think chop suey, chow mein, cold sesame noodles, and that bewitching deep-fried dish known as "General Tso's chicken".
Chinese-American cuisine has developed fans in its own correct, fifty-fifty in Bangkok, where a scattering of restaurants cater to Asians like me with colonized tongues and a hankering for sweet and sour fried meat. For some, information technology's the taste of their childhood; for me, having grown up in a family that loved to bulldoze for hours in search of "authentic" Cantonese cuisine, it's the taste of rebellion, eating the forbidden stuff that made up "bad" Chinese food.
So when my friend Janet mentions Tai Tung, the oldest Chinese restaurant in Seattle, I want to go immediately. It has everything I am looking for: a history, an immigrant story, a retro vibe, and of form skillful food.
Dissimilar many of the other Chinese eateries in Seattle's compact-but-vibrant Chinatown, Tai Tung is not the door into a meal in Asia. Instead, Tai Tung leans into its own unique sense of kitsch. Started by "Grandpa Quan" in 1935, the eatery's decor seems unchanged from its heyday in the mid-1900s, as does most of the staff. Janet, a longtime client, tells us in that location was a longtime client who posed as a host at the entrance to the restaurant, greeting everyone (but more often than not women) every bit they came through the door. We did not get to see him today.
The menu itself is a piece of nutrient history, showing what Seattle-ites expected of a Chinese eating house in the 1930s; for example, in that location are 2 big sections titled "Chop Suey" and "Chow Mein". At the terminal minute I, someone who has never had either dish, inexplicably wimp out, which is vexing in hindsight given that I was called "Grub Mein" throughout most of my babyhood. Instead, we order some potstickers (I cannot resist fried dumplings) and Janet'south recommendation, a delicious stir-fry with bitter melon, as well as some stir-fried pea shoots in season and stir-fried "Chinese-style" squid (meaning ginger and garlic, apparently the signifiers for Chinese food). As a nod to Chinese-American food, I society sweet-and-sour chicken.
Everything is as practiced equally we could wait from even the most highly regarded Chinese restaurants in town, similar Jade Garden. Well, except for the sweetness-and-sour chicken, funnily enough; information technology bears the one-note flavor of beloved and nil else. The squid, somehow, is the most tender I've had anywhere, even in Thailand. Someone become this chef some salted egg yolk or some Thai basil and chilies! The meal equally a whole is nowhere almost "bad" or even in the realm of the inauthentic; in spite of the kitschy environs, information technology's a surprisingly straightforward Chinese meal. For some reason, I am slightly deflated by the results, possibly because, were I to be reincarnated in restaurant course, my nutrient would be nowhere near as good.
When we left, the panthera leo dancers were out in full force for the new yr, roaming through the Chinatown streets and randomly throwing firecrackers on the sidewalks. I cried out that information technology was a lawsuit waiting to happen, merely Janet said no 1 would sue here in Chinatown. I heard another person say that but in Seattle could firecrackers ring out and alarm no i (except me and a nearby toddler sitting on his dad's shoulders). Every fourth dimension the sharp loud bangs flashed, I cowered in the corner with my hands over my ears, like a true Thai. Every bit much as I've had to adapt, it is in these instances where my DNA shines through.
I hope to go again, with adventurers who are willing to try out the chop suey and chow mein (if y'all're wondering, this is me asking y'all, Janet!). It's a story that has yet to exist finished. But I wait forward to darkening those doors again, and maybe even running into that customer who thinks he's a host. It's nice to try to travel back in time, once in a while.
Source: https://bangkokglutton.com/page/2/
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