In New York, a Grand Feast of Asian Food
New York’s LUCKYRICE festival now in its second year, once again proved to be a striking showcase of some of the city’s – and country’s – top chefs who are dedicated to bringing a modern flair to dishes and ingredients rooted in China, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries and territories. Even Macau found a place at this year’s festival, which concluded Sunday.
A case in point: the festival’s Grand Feast at the Mandarin Oriental, which featured chefs and representatives from 20-plus restaurants, tourism boards and wine and spirits brands. Boldface names on the list included Iron Chef Morimoto and Cooking Channel star-in-the-making Ching-He Huang (of “Chinese Food Made Easy.”
In many ways, this was as much a high-end foodie bash of the open-ended variety – think the South Beach Wine & Food Festival’s Grand Tasting – as it was a particularly Asian event. With a crowd that numbered in the hundreds devouring new-wave sashimi-style dishes and sipping on German wines, the vibe was definitely New York chic, not Hong Kong hustle-and-bustle. “If you look around, there are very few Asians in attendance,” said festival founder Danielle Chang, making the remark almost as a point of pride.