Learn the history, art and stories behind some of Asia's most famous foods with talks and tastes from more than a dozen local Asian restaurants throughout the month.
With talks and tastes every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday in June, prepare your taste buds for a tour of Asian culinary delights. Talk topics include the history and art of dumplings, dim sum, Lanzhou-style noodle pulling, khao man gai, and more. Learn more about Cuisines of Asia at Lan Su »
Members of Lan Su receive special discounts at each Cuisines of Asia restaurants during the month of June. (Please present your membership card at the restaurant to receive offer; discounts and restrictions vary by restaurant, please check with individual restaurants for details.)
Saucebox, an Under the Moonlight participating restaurant, will provide Lan Su members a special discount of 15% for all of 2016 beginning in June to coincide with Cuisines of Asia. Members must show their Lan Su membership card to receive discount.
All demonstrations are free with membership or admission; no registration is required.
The Dump Truck will talk about the history of dumplings in China and explain how the idea of meat inside of a wheat pocket has traveled around the world. They will share the story of their own of food cart which serves only dumplings, and how they came up with their own array of amazing fillings and flavors. Chef Julia will give a demonstration of making and folding dumplings so that you can take this knowledge home to share with friends and family over a bamboo steamer.
Julia and Reid were living and working in Beijing when they met in 2007 and they were huge dumpling fans. Julia had developed a special connection to Mr Ma, who owned a dumpling restaurant near her apartment. Julia grew so close with Mr Ma that he showed her the secrets of making perfect dumplings. After moving to Portland in 2009, Julia missed dumplings so much she would make them for friends. Julia spent a year crafting unique dumpling and sauce creations. By the end of that first year, Reid and Julia decided to open a food cart to bring their dumplings to local Portlanders. The Dump Truck’s creations have been featured on Travel Channel’s “Food Paradise” and Cooking Channel's “Unique Eats” & “Eat Street."
Join Khao San's Bud Saysouriyosack to learn more about the street food in Bangkok and how they brought their vision of Thai street food to Portland. As evening falls in Bangkok, the streets transform into pop-up dining rooms as families congregate over plastic tables and chairs alongside carts and grills pungent with fresh herbs, sizzling meat, steaming spicy noodles and bubbling curries. Street food is tasty, ready-to-eat food or drink sold on the street, in a market, fair, park or other public place and endless in variety! It is sold by a hawker or vendor from a portable stall or food truck and often reflects traditional local cultures.
Straits Kitchen is known for its Laksa Lemak or Nyonya Laksa. The term lemak means a rich texture - this curry broth uses thick coconut milk to give it that consistency. Laksa is a dish found all over Malaysia as well as in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. Each region has its own version that is unique to the area and local culture but one thing they all have in common is a hearty broth served over noodles.The food at Straits Kitchen is primarily influenced by the Baba-Nyonya cooking found along the western coast of Malaysia, especially in the port cities of Malacca and Penang. The Baba-Nyonya (also known as Straits Chinese) culture started centuries ago when native Chinese came to this area and married local Malay women, starting a new heritage full of flavor and color. Their food is a blend of Malay and Chinese traditions.
Angie Ong grew up in Malaysia, where food is amazing and everywhere. Her grandmother and mother turned every meal into something special. Her best childhood memories all revolve around food and family. In 2004, she went to culinary school to make food into a career and have worked in various restaurants and hotels since then, learning new flavors, textures and techniques along the way. The food she cooks today is very special to her as it is a combination of her family’s cultural heritage and recipes.
In very ancient times, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners used specific foods to balance the body’s yin and yang and to treat disease. They discovered that most foods have either cooling or warming characteristics. When you eat cooling foods, they are adding cooling effects to your body and eating warm foods will add warming effects to your body. Therefore, warming and cooling foods can be used to balance the body which may be deficient in yin or yang. For thousands of years tea has been an integral part of Chinese diets and cultures, long renowned for their calming and healing properties. Chinese herbal teas are unsurpassed in ways to relieve stress and have the unique ability to correct stress related imbalances and complications that are so prevalent today.
Join BeeBee Tan-Beck, who is Malaysian-born Chinese and has lived in the United States for over 30 years, for this insightful talk. While studying in Hollins University, BeeBee started her own catering business for various faculty members during the summer of 1975. From there she has gone on to teach friends and family how to make the Chinese/Malaysian foods that she grew up with. In graduate school she taught an evening extension class on South-East Asian cooking focusing on Chinese, Malay and Indian cooking.
Dragonwell Bistro's owner, Jack Chu, grew up in the restaurant business in Portland, and remembers spending most of his youth working at his parents' two restaurants after school and on weekends. Determined to find his own path, he decided to pursue work outside of the restaurant business. After finishing his MBA, he worked as a business consultant for 20 years in and around China. During his travels all over China and its many regions, he was fortunate enough to taste the best of the most authentic Chinese dishes and cuisines and is proud to bring these dishes to Portland.
Dragonwell Bistro offers cuisines from various regions around China, many dishes are influenced by southern Chinese cuisine. Jack's wife, Annie, is from the southern city of Hangzhou, also known as China's "Heaven on Earth." This region's cuisine is so famous that the Emperor Kin Lung himself dressed as a regular citizen to go there and taste the region's many delicacies.
Join Nong, of Nong's Khao Man Gai, as she talks about how this delicious dish became her signature and a staple of the Portland food scene! Khao Man Gai, also known as Hainanese Chicken Rice, is one of the most popular dish in Thailand. The original Khao Man Gai is from Hainan province in southern China. The chicken is prepared in accordance with traditional Hainanese methods, which involve poaching the entire chicken at sub-boiling temperatures. The remaining broth from the poached chicken, along with some ginger and garlic, is used to cook the rice for the dish, producing a flavorful rice.
Dim sum is linked with the older tradition from yum cha (tea tasting), which has its roots in travelers on the ancient Silk Road needing a place to rest. Thus teahouses were established along the roadside. Rural farmers, exhausted after working hard in the fields, would go to teahouses for a relaxing afternoon of tea. At first, it was considered inappropriate to combine tea with food, because people believed it would lead to excessive weight gain. People later discovered that tea can aid in digestion, so teahouse owners began adding various snacks. The unique culinary art of dim sum originated with the Cantonese in southern China, who over the centuries transformed yum cha from a relaxing respite to a loud and happy dining experience. Many restaurants start serving dim sum as early as five in the morning. It is a tradition for the elderly to gather to eat dim sum after morning exercises. While dim sum (literally meaning: touch the heart) was originally not a main meal, only a snack, and therefore only meant to touch the heart, it is now a staple of Cantonese dining culture.
Join Henry Liu, owner of the restaurant Kung POW!, as we explore the Northern and Southern Style Fried Rice! What is the difference between a Northern and Southern Style Friend Rice? Fried rice is a Chinese dish of steamed rice that has been stir-fried in a wok and, usually, mixed with other ingredients, such as eggs, vegetables, and meat, and as such, often served as a complete dish. Chinese fried rice is quite an ancient dish that has been introduced as a way to utilize leftover food stuffs. It is said to be a dish that was originated in Sui dynasty in 589- 618 AD. South china is famous for making Chinese fried rice, as rice is the main grain in that part of the country.
Henry Liu grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and started his career as a line cook at acclaimed restaurants in Berkeley, California. He quickly rose through the chef ranks. During his time in California, Henry began experimenting, and created his own unique and modern versions of the classic Chinese dishes from his childhood that he dreamed would become staples someday in his own restaurant. That dream came to life in 2010 when he opened the award-winning Shandong restaurant in the Hollywood district of Northeast Portland, a tribute to the flavors of his mother's home-province, Shandong. After the success of Shandong, Henry has begun experimenting again. These new innovative creations can be found at his newest restaurant Kung POW! in Northwest Portland, a tribute to the exotic and spicy flavors from all regions of China.
If you’ve ever been in south China during the winter, you’ve probably seen cured meat hanging from the eaves and windows and drying in the sun like bundles of flowers. Cured meat is a southern specialty, used in everything from congee to hot dishes, and loved especially in the country side. It all goes back to the 12th month of the lunar calendar, which was traditionally reserved for making sacrifices to the gods. In the past, this meant slaughtering a veritable of farm animals—pigs, chicken, sheep, ducks, fish and so on. Handily enough, it was the people, not the gods, who got to enjoy the spoils with extravagant Spring Festival feasts. But even after days of gorging, most families couldn’t polish off the mountain of meat, which meant they needed to find a way to preserve it for the coming months. Lawei (cured meat) is a tradition that would take root in the south, where short, humid winters meant limited access to natural refrigeration. The cured meat, which most commonly included pork, chicken, fish and sausage, was a hit; historical records show that more than 2,000 years ago, Confucius charged every student some cured meat as a tuition fee. Learn more about EC Kitchen.
Frank’s Noodle House will be demonstrating the art of traditional Lanzhou-Style noodle pulling and sharing personal stories of Frank’s family ties from Lanzhou China. With Lanzhou style noodles, the dough is worked aggressively and is pulled in quick tugs with no twisting or waving. Pullers slam the noodles against their prep tables to ensure even stretching and thickness.
Serving the most succulent, delicious and fresh Asian food, Frank’s Noodle House will leave you wanting more! They are located in Portland, OR and boast a delicious menu that will suit any appetite. Frank’s Noodle House offers appetizers, lunch and dinner menus and deserts all made fresh to order. Their Asian menu is made up of the wonderful foods that they grew up loving, with the style and presentation you should expect from a fine eatery.
Dumplings are a famous traditional Chinese food. They are half-moon shaped, soft, stuffed pasta—like ravioli. Dumplings are named according to their various fillings and cooking methods (fried, heated in boiling water, or steamed). In southern China, where people don't grow or eat wheat as a rule, the dumpling skins are typically made of rice. Dumplings are a traditional Spring Festival food in northern China. Many families eat dumplings at midnight on Chinese New Year's Eve because looks the dumplings look golden ingots used during the Ming Dynasty for money, so serving them is believed to bring prosperity. Some cooks will even hide a clean coin for the lucky to find!
Thu Ha began cooking alongside her mom at the age of 7. For over 25 years, she has developed her eclectic palate for ethnic cuisines through working and honing her skills with many talented chefs in the restaurant industry. She delights in making people happy with her effervescence persona. Thu Ha enjoys teaching, inspiring, and challenging home chefs. She hopes to work through her golden years by eating healthier cuisines and exercising regularly with the holistic approach to mind and body health. While her schedule keeps her busy, Thu Ha still finds time to attend her children’s music concerts with her family and exploring the wild local edible forest that the great Northwest is known for.
Although Indonesian coffee beans have long been ubiquitous in western brews, the preparation and flavor combinations of South East Asia have been overlooked by modern coffee shops. During their travels in South East Asia, Joshua & Nacko, owners of Kopi East Asian Coffee House were able to experience these preparations and flavors at the source. On the island of Flores during an early morning hike to the top of the Gunung Kalimutu crater is where they first tasted Kopi Jahe, the spice filled ginger coffee found throughout the eastern islands of Indonesia.
During their last trip to Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand in 2014; Joshua & Nacko found their senses bombarded with tastes and smells. It occurred to them that these senses can be used to transport people. These were the seeds that were to become Kopi East Asian Coffee House. By focusing on the aromatics commonly found throughout the cuisines of South East Asia, Kopi serves traditional coffee combinations like cardamom, ginger, cloves, and the all-important, sweetened condensed milk. They have further built upon that palette with kaffir lime leaf, lemongrass, sweetened condensed coconut milk and the rich palm sugar of Indonesia, Gula Jawa. With Kopi Coffee House, Joshua & Nacko are deepening their relationship with Indonesian, Malaysian, Vietnamese and Thai people and their cultures—a wonderful and rewarding journey that they are happy to say they are just beginning.
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239 Northwest Everett Street, Portland, Oregon 97209
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Lan Su Chinese Garden
38 NW Davis St #260, Portland, OR 97209
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