Culinary Tourism Response

While writing my first draft of the restaurant review for Zooroona, I forgot that how sensitive the word “authenticity” is. I get annoyed by the non-Asians who generalize all Asian foods and put diverse Asian dishes in one group. I realized how it is easy to unintentionally look down on “authentic foods” in particular cultures and societies. Foods can be very subjective, but it is common these days to generalize ethnic and cultural foods, putting them into stereotypical categorization due to commercializing of them. Long’s Culinary Tourism explains the definitions, conceptual framework, thoughts for otherness, and negotiation of culinary tourism in a very logical way with strong supporting examples. Long’s illustration of incorporation one cultural food to another one because of marketing as cultural foods become commercialized is fascinating. Long talks about Maruchan Ramen that I have eaten before. Maruchan Ramen was one of the most weirdest ramen noodles I have ever had because I was so used to Korean instant noodle’s flavor. That noodle was like spaghetti flavor with unpleasant texture of noodle.

I think that not only in U.S., but in anywhere generalization of one culture is likely to happen. In Korea, Koreans tend to generalize American food. Most of them assume that American foods are all about burgers, fries, and coke, but these are not only American foods. When I went to the McDonald in Korea, I had Shanghai Spicy Burger which is the Korean version of American burger. That burger was spicy to fit in the expectation of Koreans who often eat spicy foods.

The food industry and restaurants are likely to do that to attract customers to eat their transformed cultural food. Long says that “It[Culinary tourism] is about groups using food to ‘sell’ their histories and to construct marketable and publicly attractive identities, and it is about individuals satisfying curiosity” (20). This shows that there is possibility of restaurants to get rid of some factors of cultural foods that are unattractive to American customers which is called unpalatable. So on, “Tasting an Imagined Thailand” by Molz also states about omitting other aspects of certain cultural food: “While most Thai menus include typical dishes, such as Tom Yum soup and Pad Thai noodles, other equally authentic dishes and preparation techniques may be omitted with the customers’ preferences in mind” (57). However, these American customers shouldn’t be criticized by not accepting extremely “authentic” cultural dishes because they are used to their own cultural food.

Yet, it makes me unhappy whenever I see the wrong representation of Korean cultural food in the Korean restaurants in U.S. because it’s Americanized but it’s sold with the label saying “authentic Korean food”. At least these Korean restaurants should stop advocating to Americans that their foods are the best representation of real Korean food. There is no black and white distinction of authentic foods; however, I think that if so called “authentic cultural restaurants” portray one culture in a distorted way to make American customers to be comfortable of what eat, it is wrong to sell these foods. MacCannell claims in Molz’s “Tasting an Imagined Thailand” that “MacCannell says that the true back region isn’t available to tourists, but that the travel industry, understanding the modern tourist’s desire for authenticity, has created a middle ground: staged authenticity” (55). It is so frustrating for me to see some Korean restaurants have the Chinese dragon paintings and sculptors of Buddha which are not exact Korean culture to give a sense of stereotypical “Asian-ness” to American consumers who stereotype Asian culture.

It depends on the purposes of restaurants’ owners to operate their cultural restaurants: either serving Americanized cultural foods to make profits from American customers who don’t really know about its culture or sincerely working on representing cultural foods while including accurate image of its culture. There is no complete authenticity, but I hope producers of cultural food restaurants regard cultural foods more seriously, and I also hope American consumers of these restaurants are more open-minded about taste of other cultural foods different from American food.

CYOA: Eco-friendly Restaurants

Slow food and organic food restaurants have emerged and have been a popular trend for quite a while, and we have discussed about slow food and mindful eating in the class. Eco-friendly restaurants can be another venue to have more sustainable eating style and food culture! Eco-friendly restaurants are not only the restaurants that use organic and local-grown ingredients but also their interior, motto, and operations of the restaurants are sustainable. Although different kinds of eco-friendly restaurants exist, they all gear toward maintaining environmental sustainability while providing great quality food.

Most eco-friendly restaurants try to keep sustainability through:
-Recyclable and biodegradable interior
-Ingredients and supplies are delivered in reusable
-Use of returnable containers to eliminate waste
-Ingredients are locally produced
-Provide their food waste for composting
-Use only the freshest ethically sourced fish, meats and produce available
-Solar and wind energy for their use of electricity

Restaurant/food industry is one of the most wasteful industry. Since restaurants are likely to throw out the food waste that customers make contrasting to people who cook food at home and save leftover in their refrigerator for later, restaurants create tremendous amount of food wastes. Therefore, the eco-friendly restaurants providing food waste for composting can mitigate the wasteful pattern of the restaurant industry.

The most interesting eco-friendly restaurants that I found are greenhouse shipping container restaurant that started in Sydney, Australia, Bamboo Sushi in Portland, Oregon, and wind&solar powered Burger King in Germany.

Read the article about wind&solar powered Burger King in Germany:

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/06/16/new-burger-king-restaurant-powered-by-wind-solar-energy

An article about Greenhouse shipping container restaurant: 

http://inhabitat.com/greenhouse-by-joost-is-a-waste-free-shipping-container-restaurant-on-sydney-harbor/

An article about Bamboo Sushi: 
http://magazine.good.is/articles/bamboo-sushi-is-the-most-sustainable-sushi-restaurant-in-america

Ted Video- Arthur Potts Dawson: A vision for sustainable restaurants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ89At9Xxws

See you in Tuesday class! I'm excited to talk about these eco-friendly restaurants!

Zooroona restaurant+lounge: Just sipping Iraqui tea with cardamom can bring you to the Middle East

There are many so-called “authentic cultural or ethnic restaurants” might display distorted representation of the culture through serving overly Americanized food, but I had desire to look for authentic cultural food, so I decided to go to Zooroona, serving the traditional Middle Eastern dishes from Lebanon, the Mediterranean, Syria, Iran, and Turkey. Zooroona is located on West Main Street in the Tiffany’s mini-mall, and it is about fifteen minutes walking distance from Kalamazoo College.

As I walked into the Zooroona, I felt like I was in the Arabic forest as the sound of the artificial indoor waterfall pleasantly rang my ears, and interior was delicately decorated with the Middle Eastern symbols. A counter was inscribed in zigzag Arabic patterns, soft curtains hanging on the ceiling, and colorful dimming gentle Arabic lamps were the only lights here. This mysterious but delicate ambiance made the place cozy and made me feel comfortable. Alive ceiling plants add liveliness to the cave-like interior. In the left side of the restaurant, there was a Sunday buffet and in the right side there were a small bar and tea station. The Middle Eastern hookahs in every corner of the restaurant grabbed my attention, and on every side of the wall there were portraits of Arabic women with mystic smiles. In the middle, there was an elongated floor sitting down seats with sitting cushions which showed Middle Eastern eating style. I didn’t need to wait for a long time to get a table. Settling myself into swirling patterns of sofas, I had to rely my vision from the dim light from the dancing light of a candle in table lamp.

After eating other dishes in each appetizers, main course, soup, salad, and dessert sections, I loved Shish Tawook the most. Shish Tawook is cubes of marinated chicken kebab. Not overcooked. Not wildly salty. I was amazed by this kebab glistened with moisture of adequately cooked chicken. Zooroona’s various collections of hummus and sauces were delightful to look and taste. The rich juice of chewy and tender white chicken kebab that was grilled on skewers and marinated with thick tomato sauce was extremely flavorful. It was also served with grilled onions and a tomato, nans, long grain fried rice with few basils top of it, and red pepper. I loved that almost every Middle Eastern dishes were heavily flavored, awakening my taste bud. They are always soaked with tomato sauce, lemon juice, or any sauce. There must be secrets of marinating sauce each distinct dish. I could only guess this chicken kebab was marinated with tomato sauce. Maybe yogurt, vinegar, chocolate, and something really random sauce might be used. No one would easily guess it.

Getting excited for moving into dessert section, there was Baklava, a bite-size pastry, was a special highlight for entire meal and satisfied my expectation for finding an amazing dessert. As soon as I bit the golden layers of paper-thin and flaky crusts, chopped nuts and honey juice inside of the layers were sweet. Fragile cover, surrounding the nuts, pistachios, and honey, vulnerably broke and melt into my mouth in few seconds. The sweetness was more than enough but quite addicting. I couldn’t stop bringing few mores on my plate and ate constantly although I was full already from eating all the main dishes. If you love overly sweet treat with lovely nuts and pistachios, this is the must-eat menu!

Zooroona’s open hours are very flexible. They open seven days a week at around noon until 9pm, but for the weekends until 11pm. The menu for both lunch and dinner has various choices. Since there was a description under the names of each dish, it was easier for me to imagine what kind of dish will be like. The beauty of Zooroona is the party platters. Ordering combination of party platters let guests of Zooroona to taste various Middle Eastern dishes, a combination of trays serving beef, lamb, or chicken Kabobs, rice, hummus, and other spices, also it is cheaper to order in this. The foods weren’t that pricy, and the serving sizes were humongous big.

For alcohols, they had cocktails, specialty arak (Levantine alcoholic), and red and white wines served by glass and bottle. But, the fresh-made smoothies and teas by the pot were expensive since large-sized brewed teas were $6.95 which for college students, it’s almost the cost of the meal in Jimmy John’s or Chinese fast food places. Although the teas were extremely expensive, it was the climax of dining experience in Zooroona was when I had a sip of Iraqui tea with cardamom. I could see Zooroona’s emphasis on serving fresh food and drinks to eaters when the owner of this restaurant, who also worked as a waiter, quickly ran into tea station and brewed the tea right away. Upon my request, he brought out two different kinds of leaves’ containers and showed them to me. He explained the differences between tastes of two leaves and how these two blend together to make ultimate bliss. A teaspoon next to the pot was the smallest teaspoon I had ever seen. I poured the hot caramel colored black tea in a transparent glass teacup and drank without hesitation. It was seriously bitter, and if you are a sugar fan, you won’t be able to handle this bitterness. I put a cube of sugar and swirled it and tealeaves that already sank. The strong taste of tea was equivalent to espresso, and this taste was mainly from green cardamom, a pistachio-looking and intensively aromatic spice.

Mr. Mandwee, an owner of Zooroona, replied my question of what is his mission for this restaurant. He said that he hopes as many people, who live in Kalamazoo or Michigan as possible, can experience variety of cultural foods. He says that Zooroona in Arabic means “Come visit us”, and he wants people from anywhere are welcome and enjoy the authentic Middle Eastern teas and dishes. He proudly boasted that Zooroona serves one of the authentic cultural dishes in Kalamazoo because he and his family members are from Iraqi, immigrants in Kalamazoo. He said since they are from Iraqi they know how to make real Middle Eastern food!

The music wasn’t too loud, and there wasn’t that much noise. The music was mostly the dreamy Middle Eastern soft house songs building up laid-back mood, but sometimes there were some overly dynamic songs that made me feel little bit dizzy. The bustling movements of waiters and waitresses prevented me from asking for water. I had to ask not only for water but also for the knife. Since it was buffet day, workers were busy with filling up each food section. The work division was kind of a mess as there wasn’t an assigned person to take care of individual table.

After dining out in Zooroona, I felt like I traveled around the Middle East. I realized that great ambiance and decorations can’t be underestimated! Just remember that if you come on Sunday brunch buffet, you can taste variety of the Middle Eastern food just for fifteen bucks; however, you might face the bad service! But, it was perfect moments when I tried each delicate and sweet and richly flavored dish with unique sauces while looking what was around me. The Iraqui tea with cardamom, Baklava, and Shish Tawook took me to the world that I’ve never been. 

Zooroona's entrance

 

 Iraqui tea with cardamom

Sauces/Hummus

Rice with tomato sauce, Nans, salad, boiled eggs, and Shish Tawook dipped with hummus

Shish Tawook for a regular menu (not buffet version)

rice pudding

 

Baklava

The assumptions and expectations for dining out in Zooroona!

I expect Zooroona to serve the authentic Middle Eastern cuisine that has the variety of menu choices, and if that can be true, then this restaurant definitely represents a “vivid entryway into another culture” for me (Long 1). I’ve never really experienced Middle Eastern culture or food since most of my lifetimes I have lived in Korea where there are not many Middle Eastern people live. Although Indian restaurants are quite common in Seoul, Middle Eastern restaurants are hard to find in there. Also, my knowledge and experience for tasting Middle Eastern food are limited, and I don’t really know much about its culture.

From my personal experiences in the past, only representative food I have known for the Middle Eastern food is Kebab. I saw kebab for the first time in my life on the street actually, not even in the restaurant. I smelled roasting Kebab from 15 feet away from an entry of Myeong-dong station as soon as I got out of there. Of course I didn’t know where is that smell from, but while walking down the busy Myeong-Dong Street, I found a Korean lady making kebab which was probably Korean-version of kebab. Next to the well-done grilled kebab on a skewer, there were ketchup and mustard. My brother who went to Turkey with my dad told me that these sauces weren’t supposed to go along with that kebab if this kebab is the authentic one. It was only five dollar, so I bought it and had a bite. It wasn’t that great since there were many parts were burned, but since it was cheap, I didn’t complain. I dipped the kebab into ketchup, and it tasted like yakitori which is a common street food in Korea and is originated from Japan. The kebab I had was made of chicken, and yakitori is a grilled and skewered chicken too. The juicy shreds of chicken were thick but tender.

I expect more than this juicy and tender but burned chicken kebab when I get to taste dishes in Zooroona. For the dining experience in Zooroona, I assume that I will taste more authentic Middle Eastern dishes since I heard that Zooroona’s owner is from the Middle East. My only worry for this experience is what if I get horrible service and long wait time. I hate waiting in the restaurant while smelling delicious dishes that I can’t eat right now. Also, if I’m hungry, that’s worst. I’m sure that as Zooroona isn’t cheap restaurant, the service will be nice, but I never know! I’m worried about service because I don’t really know much about the Middle Eastern food, I hope the waiters and waitresses can kindly and patiently guide me about the Middle Eastern dishes while bearing my ignorance of what are true Middle Eastern foods.

My hope for this experience is that I will be able to taste high-quality kebab and authentic Middle Eastern desserts. When I go to restaurants serving cultural foods, I always focus on desserts since I consider eating desserts finishes up the journey of tasting whole meal time.

My restaurant review for Zooroona will be related to Tokyo Redux chapter in A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain. Tokyo Redux is about Bourdain experiencing natto that he describes as “an unbelievably foul, rank, slimy, glutenous, and stringy goop of fermented soybeans. It’s the Vegemite of Japan, dearly loved by everyone there, for reasons no outsider can understand” (152). I might be an outsider like Bourdain that I don’t understand some parts of the Middle Eastern food. My assumption of Zooroona is that they probably serve authentic and traditional Middle Eastern dishes, and I’m going to face with culturally rich dishes that I might hate to taste. But, I might love to taste these dishes. 

Restaurant Reviews response

While reading through the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the LA Weekly, I enjoyed Pete Wells’ restaurant reviews the most. Bending Tradition, and Bowing to It by Wells talks about the Cagen and Ristorante Morini restaurants in New York City that seeks to creatively transform each traditional Japanese and Italian dishes into a modern style and taste. The vivid descriptions of the dishes and their ingredients were fascinating. It was interesting to read his use of metaphors to portray foods rather than using boring and cliché descriptions. “The gunpowder was inside: an extra-hot, nostril-punishing slug of wasabi implanted alongside strands of sweet squash, waiting to go off when I bit into it” (Wells). This metaphor lets me think of a spicy stubby little handroll. I could totally taste the wild, hot, and savory flavors and smell of wasabi and strands of sweet squash, and this description draws the readers’ attention more.

His descriptions about each restaurant are delicate in a way that he explains not only prices, drink and wine, and recommended menu of these restaurants but also explains the atmosphere, service, and sound level. There are more details than just explaining tastes or qualities of dishes, and some food eaters want more descriptions of the restaurants than of the foods served. For example, Wells describes the Ristorante Morini as “small, lively lounge downstairs with a long, sedate, white-tablecloth dining room above.”  This helps readers to imagine the restaurants as if they were in there. Place, service, and atmosphere are important to enjoy dishes more. I think that as a customer, it is better not to go to the restaurant where the dishes are good but the service is horrible because the atmosphere and service affect my appetite and mood. However, Wells need to explain definitions of some foreign words in his review. He throws the words of foreign dishes and ingredients that Americans usually wouldn’t know. Wells says that “A plate of small appetizers  offered ham deep-fried katsu style with a splotch of Worcestershire on its panko crust, along with a single mouthful of the Nobu classic”, and I didn’t know the meanings of katsu style, Nobu classic, and panko crust! I was lost as an unprofessional food eater.

I loved Wells’ other restaurant review, As Not Seen on TV. He wrote an honest and blatant review about Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square. Contrasting to his review of praising Cagen and Ristorante Morini in Bending Tradition, and Bowing to It, this review reveals chaotic and messy atmosphere, over-exaggerated and flowery descriptions of dishes on the menu, overpriced, and unpleasant tastes of blue drinks and Cajun Chicken Alfredo in Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar. I’ve never read the ranting review of the restaurant consisted with anger and disappointment. Wells gave a low rate for this restaurant, and I appreciate his honesty. Although through TV show and advertisements, this place was described as a great place to eat. Many times, untruthful media influence consumers to make bad choice, but he reports the reality of the poor atmosphere, service, and dishes in this restaurant to guide consumers to make better choice.

Wells effectively uses series of questions: “What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?”, and also “ Did you discern any buttermilk or brine in the white meat, or did you think it tasted like chewy air?”. These make readers to engage into a thoughtful process of questioning what they eat in the restaurants. Sometimes consumers eat in the restaurants without sharp judgment because they believe the media portraying amazing things about the restaurants which might be not amazing. I think that consumers should have power of distinguishing between bad and good restaurants, and Wells helps them through his intense and honest writing. To have that power, consumers need to carefully discern the bad environment, tastes of the dishes, and service and report to others for the further improvement of the quality of the restaurants and for letting consumers to know not to go to those poor quality restaurants. 

Response to Bourdain’s essay "Don’t eat before reading this"

Anthony Bourdain’s essay Don’t eat before reading this shocked me greatly because it honestly reports ugliness of the U.S. restaurant industry. Bourdain, a prominent chef of his French restaurant also reports life of cooks with his frank, witty and amusing tone. Since I’m not a huge food ethics person, vegetarian, or an epicure, I naturally had trust and fantasy of restaurant foods and didn’t doubt about the process of cooking these behind restaurants’ kitchen door and ingredients of them. When I was young, my parents forced me to eat every dish that was given to me including restaurant food, so I became a total omnivore who is oblivious to discern the dishes that use poor-quality ingredients.

His essay starts with: “Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay … Your first 207 Wellfleet oysters may transport you to a state of rapture, but your 208^th may send you to bed with the sweats, chills, and vomits” (83). This shows that food has two sides – ingredient of food and its negative and positive impacts from eating. You might guess that your dish is delicious and amazing from looking at its good appearance; however, this dish can lead you to having illness by its hidden and poor-quality ingredients that are used. And he goes on reporting the scary reality of restaurants dealing with ingredients horribly.

“When a kitchen is in full swing, proper refrigeration is almost nonexistent, what with the many openings of the refrigerator door as the cooks rummage frantically during the rush, mingling your tuna with the chicken, the lamb, or the beef” (84). It was frightening to think about tuna sandwich that I had in numerous restaurants in U.S. Tuna mingling with other poultries made me not want to eat it in a restaurant ever again. I realized I was an innocent or maybe stupid customer thoughtlessly consuming food I paid. “People who order their meat well-done perform a valuable service for those of us in the business who are cost-conscious: they pay for the privilege of eating our garbage” (85). This part struck me too by thinking of innocent customers like me ordering well-done steak with expectation of good food but actually ending up eating nerves and connective tissues of beef that substitutes the real meat part. These revelations made me think of unavoidable choice of restaurant cooks to let these things happen because they need to get decent paychecks. Restaurants are influenced largely from profits they make so cooks have to use almost all the parts of ingredients and can’t waste them. I believe that cooking is art, and it is sad to see how cooks have to use ingredients improperly and rush to make dishes to sell. Cooks are driven by money too like commercial artists who have to draw massive amounts of painting without putting his or her best efforts to pay off his bills. If restaurant business goes down, then there is not much chance for a cook to create new dishes earnestly and carefully. Simply they can’t afford to do it.

Furthermore, I like Bourdain’s description about beauty of a restaurant’s kitchen community. It is fascinating that the restaurant kitchen accepts people from different backgrounds, education, and pasts yet each cook equally starts from being a dishwasher to be a chef. Restaurant cooks give up the regular lifestyle as they have to be in the kitchen on the weekends. They also have to get stress under busy, pressured, strict and confusing environment (if the restaurant is famous) while surviving through chef’s harsh demands. I think that they follow this career because they are so passionate about cooking so they bear these hardships.

This piece is different from “A Cook’s Tour” in a way that Bourdain describes his own territory, his New York City’s restaurant, rather than describing food in different restaurants in different countries. It is interesting that he blatantly reveals dirty secrets of restaurant’s kitchen although he is a chef, and many cooks don’t want to expose their malicious cooking process. Now I know behind scenes of kitchen that no one taught me!

The food heaven-final draft

Biting splendidly succulent Teochew-style dim sums covered with fragile white rice flour was like chewing a bubble gum without its sweet flavor. I joyfully tasted the soft dumpling wrapper and the crunchy peanuts crashed together with rich-flavored pork and fresh lotus roots. The hot and mildly spicy juice of dim sum popped into my mouth and slipped down my throat and warmed my stomach. This steamy little ball-shape finger food brought a new sensation developed from overcoming obsession, confusion, and unexpected discovery.

During summer break in 11^th grade, my little brother, my parents, and I traveled to my favorite city, Hong Kong. This was how I fantasized about the city: the food heaven. Hong Kong action noir movies. Skyscrapers. Fifteen thousand restaurants. Business center of Asia. Coexistence of Chinese traditional culture and British colonialism. Tiny land crammed with people. Shopaholics’ shrine! Each country magically has its own smell at street corners, markets, buildings, restaurants, and hotels. Just everywhere. When we arrived, the strong scent of Hong Kong ran into my face, and this smell was like the comforting taste of warm and moist yellow custard.

Though my family was too tired from the late night flight, I insisted we waste no time and find the dim sum restaurant called “Serenade” in the Tsim Sha Tsui. I found this place by reading for one of the five Hong Kong guidebooks for few days. The book says: “The top ten choices for the best restaurants in Hong Kong: HK FOODS THAT YOU MUST EAT BEFORE YOU DIE”. The first and only dim sums that I had eaten was from the food court in Korea that I couldn’t find any trace of authenticity of each cultural food. These dim sums were too sticky so that they stuck on my fingers. I tasted the watery and slimy skin of dim sums that were like rotten oyster, and inside of them had dry and dull-tasted grounded beef. After this horrible eating experience, I wouldn’t want to taste them ever again. However, I changed my mind to give it another shot after seeing the pictures of carefully crafted brightly colored goldfish and hedgehog-shaped dim sums. My family was frustrated with my selfish enthusiasm and told me that they would rather go to bed because it was already 9 p.m. Since my family knew that my strong-headed desire usually needed to be accomplished or I would complain to them during the entire trip, they couldn’t go against my unreasonable and stubborn insistence. The men in my family didn’t really have much power, so they restlessly accepted my over-achieving obsession although my mom scolded me little bit. I drove my family to tour right away as soon as they put away their luggage.

            Hong Kong is indeed a city that never sleeps, so I believed that for us to get a sense of what Hong Kong is like. Therefore, I needed to be awake and try every new thing. I felt a heavy duty to lead my family in having a wonderful time while hitting all the tourist and famous places in the five Hong Kong guidebooks. Going through the street vendors who sold eggette, gai daan jai, an egg custard waffle cooked over an open flame, my mind was occupied with tasting the perfect steamed dim sum in Serenade. We overcame the hot night air of June, sweat of pedestrians, and the eggette’s smell of sweet egg batter and marched down the crowded avenue. It was the most crowded street I have ever seen– with flashy red neon signs written in Chinese that brightened the night, the buzz of foreign languages, the endless noises, a combination of old grey and new buildings, and oriental-style and western buildings all juxtaposed together. Almost no gap between buildings in this crazy city jungle made me dizzy. The street was filled with drunken young people entering the bars for the second round of their wild night, smoke floating into the polluted Hong Kong air cigarettes from office workers, and street vendors trying to get tourists’ attention to make them buy fake Prada bags and Omega wrist watches. My family and I walked for one hour, but we still could not find Serenade. I asked many natives for directions, but most of them could not speak English, so they avoided me.

My mom asked me with an exhausted voice, “Hey, kid, do you want to just go that restaurant?” She pointed to a restaurant that looked extremely old, and had some disgusting fungi attached on the front door. I wanted to resist, but I was so happy that there was actually a place to sit and eat, and I felt sorry for my family who was sacrificed their comforts for my greed. We were the only customers in the place, and there was only the sound of ticking of brown striking clock standing next to the tapestry of two giant tigers which scared me by their bulk eyes. The burning smell of cheap Chinese incense permeated in the whole restaurant. I worried about whether the food would be good and if there was dim sum. However, we found dim sum on the menu! Since the menu was written only in Cantonese with pictures of the foods, I pointed out Teochew-style dim sum dumplings. Each member of my family ordered different kinds of food for experimentation of unfamiliar food culture.

After random wandering for 10 minutes, by chance, we arrived to the Kowloon Park. I pulled out the precious and long-awaited take-out food boxes, once I sat down on the grass. These foods were not exactly what I had in mind, since I couldn’t order them by name, so I didn’t have high expectations for their taste. However, as soon as I opened the boxes, my mouth watered because the colors of the foods contrasted like coral reefs: brown dried pork strips over fresh bread, Pork floss and Teochew-style dim sum dumplings filled with sliced garlics, peanuts, red peppers, white and soft tofu, pork, and translucent green lotus root and chives. My family and I dug in chopsticks and spoons. While eating, we could see the lights of buildings reflected in the bay and waved back and forth. The ferry came and left from different harbors allowing tourists to take pictures of the night skyline of Hong Kong.

I ate the foods as slowly as I could to appreciate the bright city night view and a hot summer breeze off the bay. The foods awakened my taste buds. I had my bite for Bojaeban, a bowl of steamed rice served with toppings of eels without fish bones. The mix of cilantros with lime and soybean oil gave exotic tastes, and the skin of the eel was extremely soft like cotton candy and savory because of its magical sauce. Chili crab - red chili juice flowing over chubby white crab meat embedded in dry chilies – almost made me cry. This ultra-spicy crab hurt my eyes by just looking at it. It was extremely spicy but addicting, so I kept eating it. I drank a coconut juice smoothie, and coconut juice, fresh fruit, rice ball (or called bubbles), and mango jelly soothed my burning tongue. It was also refreshing to drink fruity juice and suck up and chew and glutinous balls.

Eating with the Teochew-style dim sums, wonton noodle, shrimp dumplings wrapped with delicate flour and soft noodle dipped into a heavily flavored chicken broth helped to wash away my obsession for flawless trip and paid off long walk that I unexpectedly learnt true shades of Hong Kong although it was harder and more challenging than touring with a tour guide.