Viet World Kitchen

Lost in Asian Food Translations

The New York Times published a funny but spot-on article on how the Chinese are rethinking the ways they translate and present their dishes in English. For example, "ants climbing trees" -- for those in the know-- is a great noodle dish. But for those who are unfamiliar with Chinese classics, it sounds like a bizarre dish. Jennifer 8. Lee wrote "Chinese Food Translations: Sweet, Sour, and Downright Odd" to highlight how the Beijing Olympics is getting the Chinese to ponder such PR/communication/marketing issues.

I often spend time wondering what to call Vietnamese dishes in English. We have no standards in English, and sometimes a dish goes by several names in Vietnamese. Even something as simple as banh mi -- I struggled to figure out the appropriate name for in English that doesn't rob it of its essence but is intriguing/approachable enough to the uninitiated. So for Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, I called it "baguette sandwich" after seeing it as "hoagie sandwich," "submarine sandwich." I looked into what exactly are hoagies and submarine sandwiches in the American culinary repertoire and decided that banh mi didn't fit.

More obscure dishes like ya ba ba got the name of "mock turtle stew of pork and plaintains." In Vietnamese, it's literally "fake turtle."

Translating Asian food terms and dishes is hard because for those of us who've eaten these foods for years, we know them in their original names. Here are ones that got me really laughing recenlty:

• spongy buns = Chinese yeasted bao (stuffed bun)
• cakey balls in syrup = Indian gulab jamun, a classic desserts

Those are sooooo wrong. Have any to add?

What is Modern Asian Cuisine?

I ponder this on a regular basis. Doesn't something become modern the moment you prepare it because you can't exactly replicate the experience of the past? Also, modern approaches for me mean using cooking implements like food processors and maybe reducing the amount of fat, salt, or sugar in dishes. However, it doesn't mean letting go of or forgetting the past.

Simon Bao sent me his observations from watching recent episodes of Top Chef. As usual, Simon's acerbic wit makes for a terrific read. Take a look and let us all know your thoughts:

What is Modern Asian Cuisine?  Well...  I'm confident that there are a few chefs out there who do actually have a meaningful definition of that.  As there once were meaningful definitions of Fusion and Pan-Asian and Pacific-Rim.

But...  you KNOW what happens with these phrases. 

Let me give you a fast run-down on the most alarming Modern Asian Cuisine that the American public will have seen all year.  Read this when you have a few free moments, you'll really want to catch what happened.

Three chefs were on one team, and all three have backgrounds in "Asian Cuisine."  One, Dale Talde, is a sous chef at Buddakan.  Another, Spike Mendelsohn, was chef de cuisine at Mai House and claims to have studied Viet cuisine for 2 years.  (He's the guy who made the Apples & Fish Goi Cuon.)  Another, Lisa Fernandes, has worked in NYC at Asia de Cuba, Rain, and Public.

So for the Restaurant Wars challenge, those 3 decided to name their (one-night-only) restaurant Mai Buddha, and to feature their best takes on "Modern Asian Cuisine."

For appetizer, Dale Talde came up with Butterscotch Miso Scallops.  Some seared scallops sauced with something made from caramelized sugar, scotch whisky, butter, and buckets of blond miso paste.  With lots more miso paste right on the plate.  People thought it was disgusting, and was a major reason he was eliminated.  The scallops were plated with some pickled long beans.

Lisa's starter course was a Spicy Coconut Laksa with Grilled Prawns & Vermicelli.  It almost looks like a usual Laksa except...  she made the broth from the carcasses of smoked chickens.  Just sniffing the aroma of the soup was compared to sticking one's face over a camp fire.  I've asked around, whether there are any forms of Laksa that are ever made with a smoked chicken broth, or broth from any kind of smoked animal, so far no one has said they've heard of that.  The smokiness almost got Lisa eliminated.

There were bitter disputes over the entree, Braised Short Ribs with Pickled Red Cabbage & Apple Basil Thai Salad.  Spike took credit for it, Dale disputed that, Spike said well it was his recipe, Dale said he did all the work.  In any case, it was short ribs braised in a not very Asian liquid, served with almost none at all of the non-Asian pickled red cabbage, and a salad that turned out to be just julienned Granny Smith apples and chopped Thai basil.  That's it.

Lisa's dessert offering was Thai Mango Sticky Rice with Toasted Coconut, and it almost got her sent off in disgrace.  They didn't use Sticky Rice for it, Dale found something on a supermarket shelf and handed it to Lisa, telling her "Here, they use this for dessert."  No one knows what kind of rice it was, but it wasn't Sticky Rice.  The liquids used in cooking and plating the rice, garnished with toasted coconut, caused one diner to say it was like "Baby vomit with wood chips."

Dale Talde's dessert was a Filipino green avocado Halo Halo with Cantelope.  There were no great complaints about that, except that he'd put in avocados with extensive brown, spoiled areas on them.

So, that's what Modern Asian Cuisine is.  People surrendering to the temptation to always make the proteins the centerpiece and overwhelming majority of what's eaten.  General neglect of the vegetables, neglect of the salad plate or fresh herbs.  A missed opportunity to present diners with even just a little black rice or red rice as the bed for that braised beef.  No notion of plating the beef with a fast stir-fry of (pre-blanched) "Vegetable Medley" to at least represent the cuisines they're drawing from.

So, the Mai Buddha team lost, there were recriminations and accusations all over the place.

And I despair of what viewers are going to think of "Asian Cuisine."

:-)

Oh, and it may or may not be connected, but after his incredibly dismal performance on Top Chef, Spike Mendelsohn is no longer chef de cuisine at Mai House.  Rumors fly of harsh and ugly words on the sidewalk, high drama, anger and bitterness vented in public, between Nieporent and "Chef Spike."

Oddly enough, Lisa Fernandes of the smoky Laksa and baby vomit sticky rice is now chef de cuisine at Mai House.

Troi oi. [OMIGOD in Vietnamese]  :-)

Blurring Borders 33 Years Later

April 30 marked the 33rd anniversary of the fall of Saigon, which sent hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees abroad to create the kind of diaspora situation that this blog tries to capture.

I marked the anniversary by cooking a Viet meal and then watching the gut-wrenching Bolinao 52 documentary that aired on our local KTEH public TV station. My husband and I went through lots of tissues, wiping away tears and sniffles,  as we learned about the horrific journey that one woman endured to get to the U.S.  and her drive to find closure decades later. Let's just say the  "52" in the title refers to the number of people who survived.

The documentary underscored how fortunate my family was to be among the very fortunate to been airlifted from Vietnam in April 1975. We were and continue to be grateful.

These days, whenever I return to Vietnam, I think about what my life may have been like had we not been able to leave. For sure, it would have been difficult for many years but much better these days. Life is relatively stable and good in Vietnam, particularly in the cities, and there's so much communication between here and there. It's a transnational situation in which borders are blurred.

For example, last week, I was contacted by a reporter from Thanh Nien (which means "Youth"), a major national newspaper outlet in Vietnam. Van Anh wanted an story about my work, what I thought of the state of Vietnamese food in the United States and Vietnam, and about my cookbook,  Into the Vietnamese Kitchen.

The interview process was nice but what I was impressed about was her worldly professionalism, English writing skills, and resourceful pluck. Van Anh could have been a Vietnamese American for all I knew. She uses a gmail account. Maybe she's an American Vietnamese? There's a new one for ya!

The article was published yesterday in Thanh Nien's Kieu Bao (overseas) news section. You can read it online IF you read Vietnamese. Sorry.

In today's San Jose Mercury News, which despite being decimated by recent layoffs, still has terrific, timely  coverage of Vietnamese topics, there was a piece about how Silicon Valley Vietnamese Americans (called Viet Kieu) are making Saigon into a "Little San Jose" with their hi-tech start ups.  (The Merc has a way of blocking access after a few days so access this soon or do a search for John Boudreau's 5/18/08 piece.)

So much has changed in the past 33 years and given Vietnamese people's hyper entrepreneurial spirit, there's lots more to come.

Rice Fever - Shortages and Skyrocketing Prices

Next time you throw away leftover rice, think twice. Rice prices have gone up all over the world and billions of people are looking at hoarding it. In North Carolina last week, some locals and I spent a good deal of time about a news story on rice being sold in controlled quantities. 

Reuter's and the Financial Times reported that Walmart/Sam's Club and Costco were restricting bulk rice purchases because many customers were fearful of rising food prices world wide.  (It's been estimated that prices have gone up about 30%.) That news was reported in Australia and the U.K.

In Vietnam, inflation this year is 16% (it never went down after Tet, as is the usual). Just a few days ago, rice prices in Vietnam went up precipitously (nearly 100% in one instance), within hours as reported in this Thanh Nien news story that Simon Bao pointed me to. Cash is tight in Vietnam, and people are panicking, as reported yesterday in the Globe and Mail. Vietnam is one of the leading world exporters of rice and people are scared, while others, perhaps are speculating and taking advantage of fearful consumers in Vietnam and abroad.

What kind of rice are we talking? Jasmine, Basmati and long-grain -- the favorites for many of us oryza sativa eaters. Not the stuff for risotto.

Costco Chief Executive Officer James Sinegal speculated that there was overreaction due to media hype, but my husband and I were thinking of switching to buying a 50-pound bag instead of our usual 25-pound bag of jasmine rice next time we're at the Asian market.  The stuff doesn't go bad quickly . . .

I don't know if this is universally human or just an Asian proclivity to hoarding or an attribute of people who've been through hard times. My father vividly recalls the northern Vietnam famine in the late 1940s when there was not enough transportation to deliver rice from the south to the north. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, died within months.

Ours is a hungry planet and world population is not shrinking. Are any of you stocking up on rice?

Little Saigon Controversy Resolved!

It's over! Hurray! There's a compromise. I won't go into details because posters on this topic at VWK have done a marvelous job. Many thanks to:

• Zach for posting the details in the solving the controversy thread.
• MT for posting a link to the San Jose Mercury News article on the agreement that ended this mess on the Ly Tong hunger striker posting.
• Everyone who participated, whether you read and lurked, or if you jumped into the fray with comments.

We had lots of contentious, but productive debate on the original thread. I'm sure you didn't think you'd get your opinions out on a food blog and I didn't think the blog would evolve in this way. However, I'm glad it has and did. We learned lots about ourselves as individuals and as a community.

Go and cook and share good food with family and friends and mull over this historic chapter in Vietnamese American history. For me at the end of the day it boils down to this: We don't look, cook, and think the same! That's a good thing.

Solving San Jose's Little Saigon Controversy

Well, we've got a raging conversation going on about the City of San Jose's Little Saigon (now called shorthand LS) naming issue. The comment thread is full of great stuff, numbers, gossip, and lots of well-thought out discourse. Okay, there's a little screaming but it's more like a coffee klatch/cocktail party.

It's an impasse, with hunger striker Ly Tong giving up water, and lots of numbers being tossed around.
The City of San Jose is coming up a wee short on leadership in this matter or maybe it's gotten itself between a rock and a hard place. In any event, I'm posing this question to those of you who are invested in what the 1-mile strip of Story Road should be called:

How should the City of San Jose resolve this impasse?

Let's put our brains together and pose feasible solutions!

Fashionable Fast Food in Vietnam

We discussed the rise in popularity of fast food joints in urban centers of Vietnam (read Saigon and Hanoi) and there doesn't seem to be much stopping people from digging the stuff. Just like in the U.S. kids nag their parents to take them for fast food. It's fashionable, tasty and fun.

The government would love for kids to just say "no" (remember Nancy Reagan's anti-drug campaign in the 1980s?) but that's easier said than done.

Read more from the 2/27/08 story in the Vietnam New Service

More Striking Vietnamese People - NY Restaurant Workers

Binh, who often comments on this blog and is among the many of you who keep me honest, sent this article from the New York Times last week about a judgment for the deliverymen of Saigon Grill, a mini chain of highly-rated Vietnamese restaurants in Manhattan.  The deliverymen have been picketing for nearly a year to protest being underpaid, and then the restaurant fired a number of them last March, apparently because they were threatening a lawsuit. That's an illegal firing in the U.S. Most of the deliverymen are Chinese-born and they assert that they sometimes received only $120 for a 75-hour work week (that's $1.60 an hour). New York State's minimum wage is $4.85 an hour before tips. 

Unlike the situation in San Jose with the "Little Saigon" naming controversy that persists, there were no hunger strikes in New York!

Restaurants Must Rehire Deliverymen, Judge Rules (NYT, 2/21/08, login may be required)

"I Love Pho" exhibit in Australia

Cuong Le of the Casula Powerhouse Project (an arts performance space in Australia) has curated a wonderful traveling multimedia exhibit on pho noodle soup -- the national food of Vietnam. If you're in Footscray, Australia this month, you're in for a treat because I Love Pho will be there:

Footscray Community Arts Center                          
Gabriel Gallery
Friday 22 February – Thursday 10 April
                          Official Launch Sunday 2 March, 3pm
                          9.30am – 5pm (Closed Mondays)
FREE

"Little Saigon" -- Hunger Striker in San Jose

Viet World Kitchen is a food place but I sometimes digress to discuss political issues. Last month, we started a conversation about the "Little Saigon" naming controversy in San Jose, California. It all started when disgruntled Viet-Americans called Madison Nguyen a communist because they didn't like her support of "Saigon Business District" over their preferred "Little Saigon." People took sides, there were generational splits, talk of recalls, and more.

In a nutshell, much has gone awry and the latest developments include the following:

(3/13/08) City of San Jose comes up with a temporary solution and Ly Tong ends his hunger strike. He'd stopped drinking water a little while ago. For more, read the thread below and also the postings at Solving San Jose's Little Saigon Controversy.

(3/4/08) The San Jose Mercury News released some numbers (finally!) saying that last August 2007 the City of San Jose's Redevelopment Agency sent out 1,136 surveys to people living near the stretch of Story Road, asking them what it should be called. Of the surveys sent out, there were 117 responses. Of those responses, 44 surveys were for "Little Saigon." The mayor, who's now being criticized for mishandling this situation, says they should have paused to outreach to people.  The newspaper's editorial board calls for the city to end the "ridiculous" situation and name the area "Little Saigon" -- just so everyone can move on. It's a 1-mile strip of road.

(3/2/08) A protest of 7,500 Viet-Americans gathered in front of City Hall to support "Little Saigon."

In light of all the turmoil that this once small issue has created, Mayor Chuck Reed and Councilwoman Madison Nguyen are going to rescind (pull back) the name "Saigon Business District" on March 4. The City of San Jose will not have a costly city-wide vote on the name, and some kind of process will be devised for coming up with a name. This past week, commentary in the San Jose Mercury News has stated things like the situation has become "surreal" with the hunger strike, that the city has become a "laughing-stock" and that it needs to move on.

Perennial showman Ly Tong decided last Friday to eat his last bowl of noodles and go on a hunger strike until the city agrees to name the business-shopping district "Little Saigon" instead of "Saigon Business District," which was what was decided on by the city council. "I'll continue until I die," he says according to a 2/20/08 article in the San Jose Mercury News.

The City of San Jose is going to put the naming issue up to a city-wide vote (the name affects a couple of blocks in District 7, represented by Councilwoman Madison Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American woman to be elected to office)

The controversy has made national headlines in a 2/16/08 piece in the New York Times.

The wh0le thing has escalated into a mess that will unfortunately damage the San Jose Vietnamese American community for a long time, unless a diplomatic solution can be finessed. For 2008 Tet, San Francisco-based journalist and commentator Andrew Lam penned a terrific and insightful piece on the many unresolved issues in the Vietnamese American community. He carefully aired a little dirty laundry but got people thinking about the realities of Vietnam today, the tight relationship between overseas Vietnamese and the Motherland, and how people may come to grips with  their anger and sense of loss:

New Year, Old Unresolved Passion: Vietnam and its Diaspora (New American Media, 2/7/08)