Posts by Tze Ming Mok
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I guess that's happened to various cuisines as they've migrated anywhere
Yes - some of it's great, and some of it's terrible, and it's a total crap shoot. Don't ever ask for a fruit salad in China, you might get tinned peaches with thousand island dressing, which is not a pleasant combination. But Vietnamese prawn omelette? Fantastic of course. On a purely technical level, so much of it comes down to a) genuine knowledge of what's good about either original cuisine, and b) the adventurousness of the palate that is the dish's main market. I think it's fair to make generalisations about the state of both 'fusion' and 'white-directed' Asian food in New Zealand, because much of the time it tends to miss out on the best of those factors. Any offense you might be taking Russell is, I assure you, cancelled out by my offense at having had to try eating some of this crap! And also, some of my worse experiences have been when a Malaysian place tries to make a Mainland dish or vice versa, rendering the result not 'interesting fusion' but totally inedible.
Like I said in the original post, I have had some good fusion food in this country - in Wellington ironically - but it's been a rare treat. I know it can work - but for example, I somehow doubt that foodcourt butter chicken (Indian food cooked by Indians for their idea of what white people want, and actually do seem to want) is going to challenge Mee Goreng (Chinese food invented by Indians for their idea of what Malays want) as a high point in culinary street-eating fusion. History may prove me wrong of course...
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Mt Eden's been moist since 2000.
Didn't the Roskill/Eden dry areas go in the same election year? Ah, yes, I think I was wrong, it was the 1999 election, Roskill wasn't an electorate in '96.
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Ooh, now we see the cultural generalisations ... when have I ever asked anyone to dilute a recipe? Keep this up and I'll have to start making fun of your kiwifruit nectars ...
There, there pet! Er, what's a kiwifruit nectar? You mean those gallons of green stuff you get at Silver Bell? Kiwifruit (including those smooth yellow 'Zespris') are native to China anyway, they can probably do whatever stupid shit they want with it....
Like I said, it's not really the white customers who directly ask people to dilute recipes or ruin menus *on the whole* (although I *can* cast some specific blame on certain dishes in certain restaurants being rendered totally inedible because of the Pakeha requests for them to be served with ever more oyster sauce dolloped on top, or other fundamentalist favourites of the actual ethnic community being represented disappearing due to complaints about the 'smell'). Ultimately, these are the choices of the chefs/restaurateurs themselves and reflect their compromises and expectations of what the market will respond to when it has 'ethnic' in mind (seemingly volume, coconut cream, deep fried things, mildness, and lots of salt and sugar notes). Such choices are disappointing and sell-out, but are probably also based on their realistic appraisal of what their business is dependent on if their clientele switches suddenly from their own ethnic community's closely guarded secret, to an inundation of people responding to the style/food pages of a Sunday newspaper.
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The food of the future here might just be a bit low-rent according to Cuisine magazine - the current issue has an editorial about the lack of sophisticated Asian restaurants.
You mean Monsoon Poon doesn't cut it as 'sophisticated'?
Perhaps the palate compromises that come with 'ethnic' restaurateuring is why seriously good quality 'Asian' food, whether traditional or 'fusion', in a fine dining environment is pretty bloody hard to come by here? Or is it the training available? Is the segregation of 'ethnic' and 'mainstream' chefing workforces? I honestly do not know.
Dojo in Wellington is a rare example of both fine-tuned classic dishes and successful contemporary Asian fusion in a classy joint, driven by a talented owner-operator chef. It's the slightly more purist breakaway from Chow, which is not so good. There may be others like it, but I haven't experienced any.
As for AK, I expect even the most sophisticated of the traditional big flash loud Chinese restaurants do not count as 'sophisticated' (I'm thinking 'China'); and I've never been impressed by the food at Ponsonby Rd Indian places at the height of their fame. (does Cuisine count that as 'Asian'?) The Japanese do it all pretty well of course.
At the end of the day though, if the best quality 'Asian' food in town is: at the one popular stall staffed by a Soup Nazi at a deserted [undisclosed location] foodcourt; in the converted pie-warmer at a [undisclosed location] sweet-shop; at a little hobbit-hole diner near the [undisclosed suburb] roundabout; or on a paper plate in the middle of a sports field, I'll take it - and hide the map so that all the white people don't turn up there en masse, encouraging the chefs to dilute or corrupt the recipes, as has happened to so many places in the past... It's not the white people's fault, let me make that clear... But you *know* that's how it goes.
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I don't know why Keith is displaying so much misplaced parochial pride in Infernal Affairs. After all, as the Oscar announcers pointed out, The Departed was "based on the Japanese film, Infernal Affairs." Oh yeah, and apparently, Penelope Cruz is Mexican. Thanks Ellen!
Communicating with Morse code? I think it was reasonable to leave that out of The Departed.
Heresy!
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Yes, it used to be, but Roskill hasn't been a dry area since the 1996 election. The local is 'The Thirsty Whale' at Three Kings Mall. The Pub of the Future.
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Yes, and Craig is probably right to be cynical, but parenthetical backtracks are better than nothing. Sad yes? Good thing I'm leaving the country... bad puns to follow, possibly.
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I'm not sure why you're so annoyed at the facetious response.
I'm not annoyed! Just monitoring progress after Craig's heartfelt appeal... Surely monitoring facetiousness is facetious in itself?
And hang on, isn't Craig the only Maori on the thread so far?
I think you're cutting her a lot of slack by "reading between the lines"
Actually, I don't think I'm cutting her slack - I think I'm accurately picking out her stab at minority coalition-building, be it in the clumsiest possible way that offends the largest number of people (er, her, not me, bad sentence sorry). I think my 'reading between the lines' is an accurate analysis based on other things she has written in addresses to 'my' side, which you may not have read. Ultimately, given that her actual 'policy' in this sense is obviously nonsensical and a dead duck, the surviving indications in her comments here are deeply relevant to my interests, those of 'actual brown' people I know, and how we might relate to each other or be represented politically within a system that marginalises us all. That's why I bother to read her statements closely, whereas you have given up by now.
p.s. I have already been informed by a close 'actual brown' advisor that not even Tariana can grant me 'honorary brown' status.
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And to test my reply to Craig, we'll see how many comments follow that are just jokes about 'brown' substances, compared with "serious political and public policy debate"...
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Also, yes, her comments sounded totally moronic. It's interesting though, that when I make a critical point about how immigration policy has been reoriented towards 'traditional source' migration by raising English language requirements specifically in order to decrease 'Asian' or 'nontraditional' immigration and its associated *political* risks, everyone here tends to get my point, and no-one dares quote non-comparative statistics. Sure, take your permanent residency figures for this year if you like, but get back to me with a comparative table since 1999, then we'll talk.
But sure, I'm losing my patience - this is yet another blurt that makes almost zero sense. Yet again, it's a total shame that the actual policy call has come off sounding completely ignorant of how the relevant policy (immigration and *settlement* in this case) is a) made, b) applied, and c) could actually be improved. However, is still important for 'my' camp to read between the lines and see she is attempting to 'clarify' her last comment about immigration, and making a specifically inclusive comment embracing all people of colour as potential allies (actually a good thing). I don't understand why this had to be said while at the same time nonsensically cutting out all people from other 'Western' countries (not all white, and even if they are...) as potential enemies.
For now, the white folk are offended once more, but I guess I'm off the hook as 'honorary brown'. My actual decapitalised brown comrades will be well amused.