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   Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 09:57:54 JST Adrianna Tan

   I just spent 10 minutes zooming into every dish and menu item from a Cambodian restaurant in Seattle to check if it was truly serving the Cambodian Teochew food that I was wanting (very similar to the Vietnamese Teochew and Singapore Teochew food I like). I think it is, but the best way to confirm is to check by eating there (tomorrow).

   One of the challenges of looking for familiar foods is I can find it across many 'countries' but it's the same dish but with a different name in another language. There are some hints, though.

   Kuay teow in Thai, Kuy teav in Khmer, kway teow in Malay, all from the same root words in Teochew

   #Food #Seattle #TootSea #Teochew

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 10:01:32 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Diana Zheng who wrote one of the first Teochew cookbooks in English ("Jiak!") says that in the diaspora it's immensely challenging to know which restaurants serve our food, unless you have local knowledge. We tend to blend in fully with our adopted diaspora identities (most people would see these restaurants and just call them Thai or Vietnamese or Cantonese) but underneath all of that there are a few dishes, words, phrases, that give us a hint that they serve our food too (Teochew- and- something else is often a blended identity).

     Funnily enough I was talking to a Thai-Teochew friend in LA and we were complaining about how Teochew food from China in LA and SF we really dislike coz it's like they never used any of our spices.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 10:03:52 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     One day I will write about how Teochew noodles are a story of migration around the world.

     From Kalimantan to Paris and Seattle and New York and Singapore and Malaysia, you can find and have probably had Teochew noodles; you probably just call it something else. And you've thought it was a native food from *there*.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 10:07:08 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Some of the hints are in the names.

     If they call wheat egg noodles 'mee' or 'mi'

     If they are a Chinese restaurant named 'Kim Tar' (this is the old Teochew name for 'Phnom Penh')

     If there is an old uncle pottering around tasting and being difficult about food quality

     If they have a fried shrimp roll dish that sounds like some permutation of 'hae jor'

     If any dish with beef sounds like 'goo' (the Teochew word for beef)

     If they offer a noodle soup with the soup on the side (dry style)

     It's probably Teochew

     I've eaten the same dish in Pontianak, Bangkok, Paris, Singapore and San Francisco, just with different names!

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 10:07:40 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Daniel Reeders

     @onekind oh yeah! seremban is such an amazing food town.

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     Daniel Reeders (onekind@beige.party)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 10:07:41 JST Daniel Reeders

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte Handmade beef noodles and kway cheup (sp?) at a market in Seremban — omg. And the story of the push and pull factors that influenced Teochew migration. My ex's dad was a great storyteller (though not to be trusted on the issue of Malay folks).

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 10:21:18 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Elmo Musk

     @rooneel i've had pretty good food when i've visited!

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     Elmo Musk (rooneel@mastodon.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 10:21:20 JST Elmo Musk

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte You gotta make a list of Seattle places! I live in Seattle, and probably live quite close to the Cambodian/Viet places you went to! How do you like Seattle food in general? IMO it's the worst major US city foodwise... >;(

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 10:26:41 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     "Because of that cultural exchange, many diners visit Teochew restaurants in L.A. and Orange County while perhaps mistaking the food for Vietnamese, Cantonese or Cambodian. Not to mention the confusing nomenclature: Teochew food is alternatively called Chiu Chow, Chaozhou, Teoswa, or Chaoshan, depending on the language spoken. “The cuisine has a bit of a branding problem,” Zheng laments."

     https://archive.ph/k8LLf

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     Chunshek :HomestarRunning: (chunshek@prettyaweso.me)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 11:03:32 JST Chunshek :HomestarRunning:

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte
     Growing up in Hong Kong, I never understood the meaning of the Cantonese word 貴刁 – what's so 貴 (expensive) or 刁 (obstinate) about cheap-and-cheerful rice noodles?

     It wasn't until I moved to Taiwan when I realized that word was just a phonetic approximation of the Hokkien/Teochew 粿條 (kué-tiâu)!

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Feb-2025 11:03:32 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Chunshek :HomestarRunning:

     @chunshek oh! TIL!