Before dinner on 30th April, I went for a wander in the streets of Chinatown near the restaurant while waiting for my friends. Friday evenings are busy times for restaurants, and that evening was no exception with quite long queues in front of several places, including a Shanghaiese dumpling eatery, a restaurant serving local specialties from Suzhou, Hangzhou and surrounds (which are all near Shanghai) as well as a restaurant serving dumplings and cuisine from the provinces near the seaboard south of the Yangtze River (which also covers Shanghai). Most of those in the queues, very interestingly, were Westerners, and that had me wondering what all the rave about Shanghaiese cuisine was. When I asked my friends at the dinner table, one of them joked that it was brought about by the Shanghai Expo fever, while another said that the Shanghaiese dumpling eatery was famous for its large servings at one of the cheapest prices in town. For A$ 10 (HK$ 70, 7 euros or US$ 9), there would be enough dumplings to fill one up until a ‘dumpling coma’ is induced. It is very difficult to beat this value for money nowadays in Australia, and that eatery was especially frequented by university students seeking a bargain.
That evening we enjoyed some hearty German fare in Hofbräuhaus Melbourne. Its name is most likely inspired by the famous Hofbräuhaus in Munich, but whether these two are business affiliates is very hard to tell. The patrons of the restaurant hailed from all corners of the world, and the waiting staff was just as multicultural. There was even a Chinese staff member participating in the slap dance performance later in the evening.
Two months ago I went to yum cha with a few colleagues, and at my table there were an Australia whose father and mother were Italian and Greek respectively, as well as an Indian family. There was no shortage of conversation topics when we started to talk about food, especially when it came to each of our own traditional cuisines. We all felt that food has become so globalised these days that it was only too easy to eat other kinds of food, since it could be as simple a matter as grabbing a packet from the supermarket freezers. One of the Indians even suggested that there was no such thing as local or traditional cuisine any more. Although this may be taking things a bit too far, interplays between traditional cuisines and new influences will only become stronger in the future as exchanges between distinct people and cultures become more frequent. On the flip side, it gives a chance for different cuisines to expand their reach and establish themselves on foreign soil. Curry is a famous example, as it is no longer confined to India and has earned a reputation of being the new national food of Britain where it has become the staple for many people. These days British curry has developed its own style and cooking methods, to the extent that it can now be promoted in its own right even in the land where curry originated. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, a dish that I feel represents the epitome of fusion between local and foreign cultures is the curry spaghetti, a common dish served in the local-style eating houses. It is indeed mind-boggling how the two things as disparate as curry and pasta have blended in a place far away from their origins, in an establishment that is also rather unique to local culture. Undoubtedly, Italians would have never thought of using curry as a sauce to their pasta, while Indians would have never chosen pasta or other types of noodles as a condiment to their curry either. I wonder how an Italian and Indian would think of it when they get a chance to try this curry spaghetti in a local-style eating house of Hong Kong.
4月30日跟朋友吃晚飯，趁朋友還沒有到，獨個兒在餐廳附近的唐人街逛逛。星期五晚人流比平時多，好些食肆外排了不短的人龍，計有上海水餃店、蘇杭菜館和一家吃餃子和江南菜的，但最特別的是，排隊的絕大部份是洋人！究竟江南菜有甚麼特別吸引呢？後來吃飯時，跟同桌的人談起，有打趣說是上海世博熱潮蔓延到澳洲，另一人說那家水餃店出名多快省，祇消10澳元（70港元、7歐元、9美元），一大碗水餃多得令人真的「吃不消」，在現今澳洲社會實屬超值，所以特別吸引大學生光顧。
我們那晚在Hofbräuhaus Melbourne吃德國菜，餐廳名稱源自慕尼黑聞名全世界的皇家啤酒館Hofbräuhaus，不過兩者有否關連 則不得而知了。餐廳顧客甚麼人種都有，就算是侍應生也是來自世界各地，到表演傳統德國的拍掌舞（Slap dance）時連華裔侍應也有份兒。
兩個月前和同事飲茶，同桌便有澳洲人（父、母分別是意大利人和希臘人）和一家大小印度人，一談到吃，大家便特別投契，單是各自的家鄉菜式和食物就已是談不盡的話題，大家都感嘆，隨着全球一體化，吃外國菜實在輕而易舉，甚至隨便從超市的大冰箱拿出來也可，其中一個印度人也說，地方菜、家鄉菜這些觀念也可能愈來愈沒意思了，此話雖未免有點誇張，但隨着全世界人流和文化交流日益頻繁，地方菜、家鄉菜受外來影響又或在他國落地生根都不足為奇，例如在英國，印度菜早已普及得成為「新英國國菜」，甚至現已衍生出英式咖哩，自成一派，還可「回流」到發源地並作推廣。而在香港，最令我感受到本土和外來文化交融的一道菜，就是不難在茶餐廳吃到的咖哩意粉（咖哩意大利麫）；意大利人絕不會想到以咖哩作為麫條的醬汁，而印度人也不會以麫條作咖哩的配菜，但這兩樣東西偏偏在香港可以結合起來，並透過象徵本地文化的食肆發揚光大，不知意大利人和印度人在香港的茶餐廳吃到這道菜時會有何感想？
That evening we enjoyed some hearty German fare in Hofbräuhaus Melbourne. Its name is most likely inspired by the famous Hofbräuhaus in Munich, but whether these two are business affiliates is very hard to tell. The patrons of the restaurant hailed from all corners of the world, and the waiting staff was just as multicultural. There was even a Chinese staff member participating in the slap dance performance later in the evening.
Two months ago I went to yum cha with a few colleagues, and at my table there were an Australia whose father and mother were Italian and Greek respectively, as well as an Indian family. There was no shortage of conversation topics when we started to talk about food, especially when it came to each of our own traditional cuisines. We all felt that food has become so globalised these days that it was only too easy to eat other kinds of food, since it could be as simple a matter as grabbing a packet from the supermarket freezers. One of the Indians even suggested that there was no such thing as local or traditional cuisine any more. Although this may be taking things a bit too far, interplays between traditional cuisines and new influences will only become stronger in the future as exchanges between distinct people and cultures become more frequent. On the flip side, it gives a chance for different cuisines to expand their reach and establish themselves on foreign soil. Curry is a famous example, as it is no longer confined to India and has earned a reputation of being the new national food of Britain where it has become the staple for many people. These days British curry has developed its own style and cooking methods, to the extent that it can now be promoted in its own right even in the land where curry originated. Meanwhile in Hong Kong, a dish that I feel represents the epitome of fusion between local and foreign cultures is the curry spaghetti, a common dish served in the local-style eating houses. It is indeed mind-boggling how the two things as disparate as curry and pasta have blended in a place far away from their origins, in an establishment that is also rather unique to local culture. Undoubtedly, Italians would have never thought of using curry as a sauce to their pasta, while Indians would have never chosen pasta or other types of noodles as a condiment to their curry either. I wonder how an Italian and Indian would think of it when they get a chance to try this curry spaghetti in a local-style eating house of Hong Kong.
4月30日跟朋友吃晚飯，趁朋友還沒有到，獨個兒在餐廳附近的唐人街逛逛。星期五晚人流比平時多，好些食肆外排了不短的人龍，計有上海水餃店、蘇杭菜館和一家吃餃子和江南菜的，但最特別的是，排隊的絕大部份是洋人！究竟江南菜有甚麼特別吸引呢？後來吃飯時，跟同桌的人談起，有打趣說是上海世博熱潮蔓延到澳洲，另一人說那家水餃店出名多快省，祇消10澳元（70港元、7歐元、9美元），一大碗水餃多得令人真的「吃不消」，在現今澳洲社會實屬超值，所以特別吸引大學生光顧。
我們那晚在Hofbräuhaus Melbourne吃德國菜，餐廳名稱源自慕尼黑聞名全世界的皇家啤酒館Hofbräuhaus，不過兩者有否關連 則不得而知了。餐廳顧客甚麼人種都有，就算是侍應生也是來自世界各地，到表演傳統德國的拍掌舞（Slap dance）時連華裔侍應也有份兒。
兩個月前和同事飲茶，同桌便有澳洲人（父、母分別是意大利人和希臘人）和一家大小印度人，一談到吃，大家便特別投契，單是各自的家鄉菜式和食物就已是談不盡的話題，大家都感嘆，隨着全球一體化，吃外國菜實在輕而易舉，甚至隨便從超市的大冰箱拿出來也可，其中一個印度人也說，地方菜、家鄉菜這些觀念也可能愈來愈沒意思了，此話雖未免有點誇張，但隨着全世界人流和文化交流日益頻繁，地方菜、家鄉菜受外來影響又或在他國落地生根都不足為奇，例如在英國，印度菜早已普及得成為「新英國國菜」，甚至現已衍生出英式咖哩，自成一派，還可「回流」到發源地並作推廣。而在香港，最令我感受到本土和外來文化交融的一道菜，就是不難在茶餐廳吃到的咖哩意粉（咖哩意大利麫）；意大利人絕不會想到以咖哩作為麫條的醬汁，而印度人也不會以麫條作咖哩的配菜，但這兩樣東西偏偏在香港可以結合起來，並透過象徵本地文化的食肆發揚光大，不知意大利人和印度人在香港的茶餐廳吃到這道菜時會有何感想？
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