East meets West

Growing up, I loved my mother and grandmother's chicken noodle interpretation of soup with noodles packed elbow and the same home chicken soup, which they used to do them in a rural Chinese soups. By combining several western flavor with Chinese food is not alien to my family, because they are from Hong Kong, home to the cafe, which serves Hong Kong-style Western cuisine, or songs, western cuisine, culinary phenomenon is often referred to as "see Yao Sai tzan" in Cantonese dialect or "soy sauce Western Food" in English.

Here, in the Woodbridge, the Hong Kong-style cafe tradition very much alive and East meets West. Venture into places like cafes and Baccali Grill Sunday, bistros, cafes and gardens along the valley of the boulevard, and you could take them for any old west cafe or coffee house. The waiters dish of fillet, Caesar salad, clam chowder, snails, spaghetti bolognese, and omelets - each no more than $ 14 per plate. But in Hong Kong-style cafe menu is not complete without the traditional Cantonese fare, so you can order something from the likes chicken and salted fish fried rice or noodles Wonton with roasted salmon.

Garden Cafe at 228 W. Valley Blvd Such cafes originated in British colonial Hong Kong, according to the Associated Press, write the songs, western cuisine, and has continued to grow, as many residents of Hong Kong have found this cafe to be more accessible and convenient than their original Western counterparts. "You could call it an early fusion food in Hong Kong," Lau Kin-wai, food columnist in Hong Kong Economic Journal, told AP. "The Chinese are trying to process what they saw as exotic dishes at the time. They use their own tastes and culture of western dishes, they were subjected."

I believe in the literal sense of the word, soy sauce Western dishes can be considered as "fusion cuisine", but I do not think this is the most accurate label. For me, it is true fusion cuisine conjures up images of wasabi mashed potatoes, ginger, soy marinated fish and avocado tacos, sliders, and Mongolian beef. Rather, it is a creative enterprise, where the tastes of different cultures are transformed into new dishes, while the soy sauce Western cuisine includes emulation, or borrowing from Western culture, food and adapting it to the Chinese palate.

However, while the soy sauce Western Food can be the lack of creativity, it plays an important role in facilitating the culinary cultural divide. I can relate to the existence of reasons, soy sauce Western food whole, the dynamics are not so different from that of my family with respect to the Chinese and Western food. Here East meets West.It was definitely difficult for my family to branch out and try other dishes, so I grew up on a diet consisting exclusively of Chinese cuisine. When we went out to eat, we almost always ate in Chinese restaurants, not just because they love food, but also because of their modest thought Chinese food is perceived to be better than the cost of western cuisine.

Every once in a while, though, someone wanted to go out of your comfort zone, and there is a Western meal. But when we did, we hardly ever eat in western restaurants. Instead, we ate home-cooked my family, the Chinese-Western hybrid versions of these products. In addition to the spaghetti noodles, my grandmother would make her interpretation of the hot dogs and pizza, relying on the same test used for Chinese mantou rolls to hot dogs and pizza rolls, ketchup, pizza sauce and sliced ??hot dogs in for. " pepperoni "has been a family favorite dish, which can be mixed with cream of corn, wok, fried chicken and spooned over the rice - it's heartfelt, but visually unappealing dish that is often served in the Hong Kong-style cafe.

Pasta with Spam and eggs in the Garden Cafe My family is trying to cooking and eating Western foods were just one of the ways in which they tried to assimilate to American culture. Here as East meets West. The fact that assimilation can be a scary ordeal, no matter if it was a local Chinese living in the British colonial Hong Kong, or immigrant to the United States, and both have to deal with strangers in a way that they feel most comfortable with. For some of them are products of other cultures in the restaurant serves a population of its kind and makes the whole process of installation in less stressful, but it is counterproductive to what can be. For others, there are various foods that have a hint of Chinese cuisine such as steak AU Poivre with pepper sauce, contain traces of soy sauce and white pepper, more manageable than is the real deal in the French bistro. What makes it even easier, there is the possibility of unfamiliar dishes, along with Chinese friends, as the chow fun and broth. All this is possible in Hong Kong-style cafe, a reflection of how my family is slowly eating its way into the new culture.

As an adult, I would say that I have embraced the concept of the melting pot. I enjoyed the food from a wide range of countries, and to love their introduction in my half Chinese, half-Puerto Rican kid - the kid, who, incidentally, can not get enough of the corn and cream of chicken with rice that I cook. For me, there are soy sauce Western dishes are not about any development on the environment, but rather worried about the comforting part of my family's past. I'll throw those cans creamed corn in a wok and keep order spaghetti with spam in any one of Hong Kong-style Alhambra in the cafe.