The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Food festival to celebrate Asian flavours, culture
After living through a year and half of pandemic lockdowns, Joyce Liu could finally explore Halifax again early this year. The entrepreneur, who's been in Halifax for 10 years, noticed something different about the city.
“I realized, oh, wow, there are so many new immigrant businesses, and lots of them are in … different cultures that I'm not familiar with,” she said in an interview.
Many of the businesses she saw were Asian: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian. The diversity of cuisines piqued Liu's curiosity. It wasn't easy to know what to order at a new restaurant. Whenever she asked the owners or servers for recommendations, she was met with one answer.
“They will say, Oh, I don't know how to describe, but this is really good.”
With a door of new flavours opened before her eyes, Liu wanted to bring her experience to Haligonians. She also hoped to help people get a better understanding of the story behind a dish or how it would taste. The best way to do that, she thought, was a food festival.
Following many delays due to the continuously changing COVID-19 restrictions, Liu's vision is finally a reality.
Off the Eaten Path kicks off Friday, Oct. 29, featuring 25 Asian restaurants and cafes to showcase their unique food. Participating restaurants will take people on a journey through a special dish that was created for the three-day event and will be available for dine-in from Oct. 29 until Oct. 31. Some establishments are also offering take-out or delivery.
The festival will be capped off Sunday by a carnival at the Salt Yard area on the Halifax waterfront. The carnival will be held rain or shine between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.
FOOD THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY
After pitching the idea to the Downtown Halifax Business Commission and the Spring Garden Area Business Association, Liu had the financial and human-resource support to take on the project. The next step was going door-todoor to meet with business owners and convince them to participate.
“We would literally just search on Google Maps and then make a massive list of restaurants. I think we probably knocked on, at least, I don't know, like 50, 60 restaurant doors.”
Liu's idea was simple. She asked the owners and chefs to create a dish that represented their culture's flavours.
“It can be a traditional dish, or it can be a new dish that's very popular in your home country,” she said.
One thing Liu finds interesting is how different people judge the authenticity of a dish.
“It's totally okay if this is not a traditional authentic flavour because food changes with people.
Food (is designed) to make people happy, to have the people surrounding you enjoy the food with you. … So as long as it's a flavour that you love, as long as it's something you are really like ... we will say that's really good food and then we want to let more people know that this exists in Halifax.”
Liu said she hoped people will give feedback on the dishes they try through the festival's Instagram account @off_the_eatenpath.
Since the dishes were made specifically for the festival, Liu ensured the Instagram account and website included detailed information and photos of each dish so that people know what to expect. If a dish receives positive feedback, it could encourage the businesses to keep it on the menu, she said.
“We hope to use this as a chance, as a trial for both business owners and customers to try some new flavours and to push everyone's, I would say, comfort zone in food.”
SHARING IS CARING
Jacky Yu, owner and chef at The Red Fusion Asian Restaurant, was touched by Liu's approach.
At the Red, a popular choice for diners from different backgrounds, Yu experiments with fusing Chinese flavours with spices from different parts of the world, such as Latin America and southeast Asia, said Liu, translating from Yu's Cantonese.
For the festival, he developed two dishes — fusion deep-fried eggplants and splendid rice, a creative take on the Chinese Yangzhou fried rice.
The eggplant dish mixes southeast Asian and Japanese elements to take you on a tour across Asia, she translated.
For Yu's splendid rice, he stir-fries seafood, tofu, and vegetables in a thick sauce that's served surrounding a dome of fried rice. The traditional Yangzhou fried rice from which Yu drew his inspiration for the dish has all the ingredients mixed and cooked together.
Before enjoying a fresh meal with Yu at the Red, Liu marvelled at the prevalence of sharing in Chinese food culture.
“Everything is shared. So that's why you see lots of those, round tables turning tables in Chinese restaurants. We hope to introduce that part of the culture to (people) here in the local community.
"We want you to go out to share your food and share your joy with your friends and family.”