Cultural aftershocks

[chickenfeet]

It's really rather odd. One might think that after three weeks eating, basically, rice and noodles one would crave western food on one's return. In fact the opposite has been true for me. Apart from dinner and breakfast in California on the way home, I have not eaten western food since I got back and don't really have any desire to. I wonder how long this will last? For the record, yesterday's breakfast was rice with shrimp paste and dinner was khao soi.

On a related note, why are noodle soups in the west so dull? China and SE Asia have a gazillion brilliant one dish meal noodle soups ranging from the Pho of Vietnam to the Lhaksa of Malaysia and all points in between. I could happily eat some variant of noodle soup everyday.

Comments

[steverogerson.livejournal.com]

I could east eastern food all the time. I have been to the Far East a few times now (Taiwan, Philippines (three times) and Singapore (twice)) and I don't miss western food at all when I'm there and probably eat more eastern style food than western food when I'm back in England.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

There was an anecdote in a food column the other day about people constantly returning to what appeared to be a quite indifferent Chinese takeaway in an English provincial town: the secret ingredient turned out to be opium paste.

[helianthas.livejournal.com]

5 years after I went to Indonesia, and I still eat almost everything with a spoon instead of a fork!

[klig.livejournal.com]

Melbourne's asian restaurants tend to be pretty good (although no-one can do a Thai red curry quite right), but I'm told by a friend who's spent some time in China that the reason many Chinese dishes (especially Szechuan)are a bit lacking is because all the necessary spices can't get through quarantine. I don't know if that's true of Canada.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I think we can get just about any food ingredient here. If there is a lack of quality in Asian restaurants here it's a combination of local conservatism and an unwillingness to pay as much for good Asian food as for good western food. There is one top notch Cantonese restaurant that it is said to have perhaps the best dim sum in North America. As far as Thai food goes I can cook better and more authentic Thai food than any restaurant in this city could or would dare to put on its menu. Is the Isthmus of Kra stillaround? That was my favourite Thai place in Melbourne.

[klig.livejournal.com]

As far as I know it is, just off Little Bourke St, right?

I guess as well Melbourne has a very well-developed foodie culture and a lot of Asian immigrants, so eating out is cheap and varied.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

It was just off St. Kilda Road AFAIR