WING LEI for the Holidays

A man cannot be too serious about what he eats. – Confucius

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to pause, collect ourselves, relax a bit, and reflect upon…Chinese food!

Yes, Chinese food. The world’s oldest and greatest cuisine.

For as big a Francophile as we are, there is no gastronomia that competes with China’s for venerability and deliciousness.

To put things in perspective, China cooks were selling food to strangers, and codifying their cuisine, 500 years before Romans started feeding Christians to the lions. It is fairly undeniable among food historians and anthropologists that Chinese culture is the most keenly food-oriented in the world. And it’s no coincidence that the phrase “Have you eaten?” is the most common of daily greetings in the Chinese language.

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Bits, Bites, Bitings and Beginnings

ELV — the man, the myth, the Asian food maven — has been a bit under the weather recently. Actually, what he’s really been under is a number of dentist’s, dental hygienist’s, periodontist’s, and oral surgeon’s hands, as he’s struggled mightily to correct some malfunctioning molars in the back of his mouth.

And by “struggled mightily” we mean he’s been so full of novocaine, Xanax, diazepam, general anesthetics and Tramadol over the past ten days he barely knows his own name…much less what he’s chewing on.

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Incredible Cantonese (if you can get it) at HK STAR

I’ve been to HK Star Cantonese Restaurant four times since it opened in the mid-part of the last decade. The first time, back when my law office was around the corner, I strolled in solo, noticed I was the only gweilo in the joint, and had to argue with my well-meaningĀ  waitron about what I wanted to eat. (I think he said “you no like” at least ten times before he accepted my order. What arrived — egg drop soup, sweet and sour pork, tepid shrimp — was definitely not what I wanted to eat…or what I thought I ordered.)

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