S03E04 - Beyond Cheap & Cheerful: How We’re Selling Asian Cuisine Short
Transcript
Jay Ooi
So Kev, what’ve you got there?
Kevin Cheng
I’ve got the VB Banh Mi from Yellow Fever in Redfern, yes that’s actually the name.
Jay Ooi
And how much did you pay for your banh mi?
Kevin Cheng
It was $13, which is probably the most I’ve paid for a banh mi.
Jay Ooi
But just 50m down the road, I’ve got a banh mi with roast pork, so a little more expensive. $6.50.
Let’s dig in.
Jay Ooi
We all love a good banh mi, but like a lot of Asian food, it’s been shafted into what we consider cheap eats. Why do we consider a lot of Asian cuisines “cheap”, and what’s the effect of this?
Hello and welcome to Shoes Off, stories about Asian Australian culture, I’m Jay Ooi.
Kevin.
Kevin Cheng
Hey Jay.
Jay Ooi
I have to say, I really enjoyed my $6 banh mi, even though I know I can get it for $4 elsewhere.
Kevin Cheng
And I probably enjoyed my $10 one more.
Jay Ooi
….debateable.
Kevin Cheng
If they were both $10 you would have enjoyed my one more.
Jay Ooi
You know, maybe you’re right. What got you thinking about this perception of Asian food as cheap?
Kevin Cheng
Actually a great friend of mine Rachel, who’s also obsessed with food, alerted me to the apparent double-standard of Asian food always carrying the perception of having a cheap price tag. Now I can’t seem to get it out of my mind. Why does spaghetti cost so much more than handmade Chinese noodles? Why do I have to fork out so much for a sandwich when a banh mi is so cheap? Ravioli vs. dumplings? The list goes on.
Jay Ooi
I think you’ve hit a bit of a nerve for me. I have on more than one occasion been that guy who was like, let’s go get cheap dumplings for dinner, or passed a fancier fine dining Chinese restaurant and gone, yeah, nah that’s not real Chinese food.
Kevin Cheng
Exactly! We do this all the time, especially us as Asian Australians. So why do we have this perception?
Yvonne C Lam
I guess everyone is influenced by their parents' attitudes, but I think we're all individuals like we rebel against our parents on an everyday basis. Like what is authentic Chinese food anyway.
Kevin Cheng
That’s Yvonne C Lam, who is the digital editor at Gourmet Traveller magazine and a Vietnamese-Chinese-Australian. Yvonne has noticed how the views of our parents can impact what we consider good or “authentic” Asian cuisines.
Yvonne C Lam
My parents definitely do have that attitude of like, "Oh, if it's expensive, it mustn’t be a place for us." Which I feel sad because they probably don't feel like they belong in those spaces and that they only do believe in cheap and cheerful places.
Yvonne C Lam
But I try to support them broadening their minds by actually being there. When we enter these spaces I'm trying to show them that, "Okay, well, like this Vietnamese restaurant, might charge a bit more but maybe they're using beef from a local supplier in New South Wales or maybe the bok choy they're using comes from this like lovely farm in Leppington where they use like organic stuff." Like I just try to make them think about that and I think it works.
Kevin Cheng
Many Asian-Australians also grew up in households where eating at home was the norm.
Jay Ooi
Yes we would often only go out for cheap chinese food, or to the local RSL for a cheap dinner.
Michael Le
Okay, so as a child can you remember the times when you go out and you eat something and you think it's great, but then someone in your family; whether it's a sibling or your parents or uncles and aunties, they say, "Mate, that's so expensive. We can make it at home. It's so much cheaper." That in itself is introducing you to scarcity. Like, does that make sense? Making you feel that yeah,
VO
That’s Michael Le, the owner of Vietnamese restaurant Great Aunty Three and is a first generation Vietnamese-Australian.
Michael Le
I think we forget how much effort, time, and quality process goes into making that dish. That restaurant deserves that price, if not more, but because we have this mentality that we can get it cheaper or make it better, I think the Vietnamese community or culture, we love cooking. We can recreate any dish we eat, literally. So it just comes into a normal conversation and as we grow up and we see something, we can't help but say, "Oh yeah, what a rip off. I can make that." Or, "I'd rather eat there."
Jay Ooi
Kev, I hear this so much - and Michael’s right, it’s really normal for us to discuss how we could make that at home, or where we can get a good cheap meal.
Kevin Cheng
And this constant comparison is prevalent in a lot of the Asian community.
Michael Le
Yeah, I'm talking as a whole. "We" as in the Asian community. In particular, the Vietnamese community. In my experience, more so because that's what I experienced growing up, surrounded by just friends who told me that, "Yeah, why would you pay $5.50 for a pork roll? You can get it for $4.50." And I think we forget that this place makes it better. Maybe he spends more time making the bread, or the cucumber he selects is from the farm that is locally fresh. We don't know, but you should be able to at least try the food before you criticize it.
Victor Liong
I think Asian-Australians are still stuck in that mindset of, "Oh, Chinatown Noodle House does $14 lamb noodles, and they're the best." You know what I mean? "Just ask for extra noodles, and they'll charge you a dollar." You have these great life hacks from when you were in university, but they're not good. You know what I mean? It's not adding to, progressing the kind of narrative.
Kevin Cheng
That’s Victor Liong, the owner and chef of Melbourne’s Lee Ho Fook restaurant, which serves what he calls “New Style Chinese” food, taking inspirations from classic dishes and incorporating his fine dining training.
Jay Ooi
This is the Victor Liong who previously worked at Sydney’s Mr Wong, the modern Cantonese restaurant that is more expensive than the average Chinese diner.
Kevin Cheng
Yeah, because of its commitment to quality produce, skilled cooking, modern ambience and service. It’s the type of eatery that is divisive among Asian-Australians because of exactly what we just talked about -
Jay Ooi
Right, that I can go for yum cha for ⅓ of the price elsewhere.
Victor Liong
Look, I think you're going to meet that kind of apprehension. My parents have been there a few times, and they love it. But I know in their heads they're like, "We can get better food going here or here," but I think it's like when you create a restaurant like that, it's basically it's helping wave the flag of, "Look, the benchmark should be here, and every other Chinese restaurant should be happy to charge this." I think that when you get that style, that level of apprehension with Australian-Chinese people, I feel it's like our parents are still stuck in the '50s in their mindset. You know what I mean?
Jay Ooi
I agree, I feel like a lot of our parents are definitely paused in time, where we think the best restaurants are these family run restaurants where everyone is pitching.
Kevin Cheng
And this ensures their restaurant prices are as low as possible so they can beat the competition. Price was often the only way they saw they could differentiate themselves. It’s this competitive pricing model that has also held back Asian cuisine.
Michael Le
I think it comes down to the mindset, the mentality. If you look deeper into this, you cannot say it's within their DNA or our DNA. It's not the way we are, but we are the product of our parents' upbringing. Remember that our parents went through the Vietnam War. It was a devastating time in their life. They lost everything, so they spent their years after the war preserving what they have. Making sure that their children doesn't go through any sort of scarcity. So that kind of rubbed off in our mind. I feel that that's how I have been raised, so yeah. I'm making an assumption for the people who do have to go into a competitive pricing and reduce their price because they feel that they need to get the customer's attention.
Michael Le
But I think that's the wrong way of thinking. It's not about price. It's about creativity and products, or quality. I think we need to compete on a quality standard, rather than a price standard.
Michael Le
It's the stigma of, "I can get it cheaper. Why should I pay that much?" So it's all about are we willing to go through that roller coaster ride on the defense mode again? I’d rather go on offense. Yeah, you know what I mean? I honestly believe that if people are willing... I can give you a great example.
Michael Le
Pho An, people love it or hate it.
Jay Ooi
I went to Pho An the other week!
Kevin Cheng
Yeah, it’s an iconic Vietnamese restaurant in Sydney’s western suburbs, which is often lauded for having the best pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) in the city.
Jay Ooi
It is pretty damn good I have to say, but they do charge a premium for it, what was it, $17 for a bowl of pho?
Kevin Cheng
Yeah, it’s not extraordinarily expensive, and yet a lot of us find it too pricey for what you get.
In my honest, humble opinion, I admire that business. I've been eating there since I was a child. My childhood memories was my parents sitting together with me, eating pho, at Pho An. As much as people knock it, I stand up for Pho An. Not because you know, I have any connection with them. It's because I feel that they're the one business in the Vietnamese community that stands up for their quality. So they price it accordingly. So we should learn from Pho An.
VO
But for others, Yvonne says this pricing war is a sad reality for many family run businesses, who are often forced to work to the bone and cut operating costs just to survive.
Yvonne C Lam
But it's also so sad that the desire to succeed in this capitalist world means we need to force ourselves into backbreaking work and devalue the product that we're offering in order to survive. Like that just speaks to like a broken system where like if there's a cluster of bánh mì places, they all need to like fight it out with each other in order to survive. If that means like sacrificing their bodies, and their families, and their time they spend with their children that's a mess. It's really sad.
Yvonne C Lam
And I don't know the solution to it, and it's definitely a problem, you're right, but it's a... I guess it's a chicken and egg thing. If everyone recognized that the $10 bánh mì place has something more to offer as well as the $6 bánh mì place, and there's a way that you can support the both of them without either of them having to cannibalize each other or like, ruin their livelihoods. Yeah, I wish there was an easy way to sort that out. But in my mind, for me, I'll probably just buy bánh mì from both of them and have two bánh mì lunch, and I'll be $16 poorer, but I'll probably be a lot happier and better fed.
Jay Ooi
This is like the banh mi’s we had earlier
Kevin Cheng
And banh mi (excuse my pronunciation) just means “bread” in Vietnamese, but we’ve come to know it as Vietnamese pork rolls.
Jay Ooi
And you can get them for like $3 or $4 in parts of Sydney.
Kevin Cheng
And I’m sure you can in other parts of Australia too. But why is this the case? Why are we paying so much for other sandwiches while the banh mi has to stick to rock bottom prices?
Yvonne C Lam
I agree there is that double standard that exists and I guess we're talking about cheap food and Asian food and how they're so intricately linked. Nothing epitomizes that more than I think than a bánh mì. And then just in my conversations with chefs. There's one. There's a really fun conversation. There was a really enlightening conversation I had with Thi Le who runs Anchovy in Melbourne. And just typically in pre-COVID it's, I guess, one of those modern Vietnamese restaurants that my mom would recoil at that because it's contemporary, probably would cost you $80 per person to dine there. But in COVID times, they've been forced to pivot, that P word. They've been forced to recalibrate my new... in COVID times they've been forced to calibrate to selling bánh mì and bánh mì for them, and even if it's bánh mì, she used another word which was Cambodia's version of bánh mì. Forgive me, the name escapes me.
Yvonne C Lam
But she said they'll be charging $10 for that, which, compared to their pre-COVID offering is actually quite an affordable price point. But because now all of a sudden, we're concentrating this attention on the bánh mì and just all that loaded history of people's concept of what a bánh mì should be, it should be under $5. She started getting some backlash from that. And people were like, "Oh, that's really expensive for an Asian sandwich." And I'm like, "Yo, like this amazing chef, who's worked at all these celebrated restaurants is producing this $10 sandwich like you guys should be celebrating that." It's like that's extremely good value, but all people can see is like, this is expensive sandwich, why would I pay that when I could get a rich man and get something for five? It's really sad.
Jay Ooi
Right, so even though most people would be willing to pay more than $10 for a sandwich made by such a chef, suddenly, because it’s a banh mi, it’s not worth the price tag.
Kevin Cheng
And maybe because of this mentality, most eateries selling pork rolls have to keep their prices low despite the hard work that goes into making them. Let’s keep in mind that these places have to get up in the early hours of the morning just to bake the bread, then prepare all of the tasty fillings.
Michael serves his own version of the banh mi at Great Aunty Three, and copped some criticism after opening due to the price that he charged.
Michael Le (10:05)
Yes, there was a bit of backlash and comparison initially. But that was, I hate to say this. It's not from the locals, but rather from people who are familiar with the food from Cabramatta because when we opened a pork roll, from my memory, was about $4. And we were selling it for $6.80. People had that expectation of what a pork roll should look like, should feel like, and should cost, but I had different plans for a pork roll. I never wanted to introduce something that's already been commercially available. I wanted to do something different. So it was something, it took a bit of time for people to accept, yeah. But for the people around the inner west area, they really appreciated it.
Jay Ooi
So we have these perceptions of what certain Asian foods should cost, and many of us, myself included, like a bargain and think we know the best places to get good Asian food for cheap.
Kevin Cheng
But we might also have this view that more expensive Asian food is not authentic, or is overpriced. Partly, this has come from our parents and what they’ve taught us about food and eating out, but there are more forces at play here.
Yvonne C Lam
Unfortunately, I think the industry that I'm part of food media has a lot to blame.
Yvonne C Lam
So the perception of cheap Asian food is I think, unfortunately one that's started by someone probably a writer who wasn't familiar with that sort of food and just naming it shorthand. A quick shorthand way to describe it. And unfortunately, that's been cheap. And unfortunately, that's the only way largely that it can be accepted by the reading community and the dining community. Yeah, the only way it can be valued is if it's under $20.
(26:05)
And I guess because the nature of food has always been and how it's represented is it's always so vexed and the shortcut is to put it in a category, right? So the grand category is Asian food within that the one I guess a lot of people will be familiar with is Chinese food disregarding other regional specialties within it, or the cross cultural like Chinese Malaysian, Chinese Singapore, Chinese Vietnamese, Chinese Thai food that you'll get in that. So there's that it's easy to categorize it in Asia, and Chinese and other country blocks.
(26:50)
And then well how do we describe this? How do we ascribe value to this food that is quite unfamiliar, let's call it cheap and cheerful because that sounds sellable, we're making it jolly and cheap but also simplistic language like that has these long term consequences over time of ascribing only a monetary value to a cuisine. Like it can only be valued because it's cheap disregarding like, the level of expertise behind it, disregarding the level of skill that people have trained to produce that sort of cuisine, or even like disregarding the long history and stories that have led to this restaurant being open and serving this food.
Kevin Cheng
I think this is something we can easily overlook, or think that it doesn’t affect us much, but when we always see certain Asian cuisines lumped into cheap eats categories, or best value eateries in Melbourne, it can end up influencing how we view these foods. Slowly, we start to think that Asian food is food that’s meant to be cheap.
Victor Liong
Well, I think you've got to look at it like it's, A, it's kind of Euro-centric in any kind of media, I guess. Even in my career at the start of it, I only saw value in cooking European food, French food. I was passionate about it. At the very start of my career, I cooked ... Before I even started cooking, I was working at a delicatessen that served Italian small goods, and I really liked that. I was really passionate about that.
Victor Liong
I guess it was after that it was like, "Okay, you've learned some of this. If you're going to be a chef, how are you going to learn from what the media or society prescribes as the best? So you just go and you map out your career, and I ended up there. It was all European and French food, a little bit of Japanese through it, right? And then after a while, I kind of flipped back and said, "You know what? I'm going to try and have a bit of a journey of self-discovery and do some Chinese cooking," and it's been great.
Jay Ooi
So Victor’s experience shows how what we think is the pinnacle of good food as a society ends up reflecting what restaurants top chefs train and work in
Kevin Cheng
And this can easily self perpetuate. Chefs from other cultural backgrounds often end up training in European restaurants, which makes it harder again for a lot of Asian cuisines to rise beyond cheap eats. It’s a very Euro-centric way of viewing dining, and Asian-Australians aren’t as easily able to pursue cooking food that’s inspired by their own heritage, and in a fine dining setting.
Victor Liong
But then, at the time, I was at the right age where I was like, "Look, okay, either I keep going on this route and chase the path of possibly opening my own restaurant in a Western setting, either like a cool bistro or even travel a little bit." But then I bumped into Dan Hong,
Kevin Cheng
Dan Hong is a prominent Vietnamese-Australian chef who is the executive chef at Sydney’s Merivale group. You might’ve seen him on TV before, or even follow him on Instagram.
and I had a chat with him. He was like, "Oh, we're opening this quite large Chinese restaurant. Do you want to come and have a look? The team's really cool." I thought, "Yeah, you know what, I'll just go and just see how that would pan out."
Victor Liong: ((27:40)
But I think the cool part about that was we all had to work at Ms. G's for just under a year while that was being built,
Kevin Cheng
Ms G’s is a modern Asian diner in Sydney’s Potts Point and was opened by Dan Hong and Jowett Yu.
and the team at Ms. G's at the time was still the best I've ever worked with. It was like the right kind of mix. I bumped. It was the first time I've worked in a kitchen that was basically all Asian, and they were all kind of my age group, plus or minus four years up and down. To see them in different stages of their careers and also having a very similar story, there was a lot of guys that did Western fine dining but then, "Oh, we're not sure what to do, but where do we go next?" And I just saw these amazing, talented chefs that all looked like me. So I was like, "Fucking this is sick. I'm rocking in a team that we're all basically brothers."
Jay Ooi
Who would have thought that working as a chef with other Asians cooking Asian food was a foreign experience to Victor?
Kevin Cheng
and it was a bit of a game changer for him.
Victor Liong: ((28:44)
That was really cool, and we all learned a lot from each other, and that's when you realize, before that you never thought you'd have any kind of value in terms of creativity or contribution in the industry. But then you work in a team like that, and you open a restaurant like Mr Wong, and you see the guys around you. You just go, "Yeah, this is ..." It was a nice first step into me making a decision to open Lee Ho Fook and cook in the style that I do. I think if I didn't have that experience, I probably would have taken a slightly different path.
Kevin Cheng
So working with Dan showed Victor that he could challenge these views that Asian food can’t be priced higher than it is, and led him to opening Lee Ho Fook.
And there’s one other force that shapes our views on what good food is.
Victor Liong
Also, it depends on your image with the rest of the world. I don't think China's winning that many points in popularity at the moment, so and also, you don't really hear about it. I think if it was just people walking around going, "Hey, what's the top Chinese restaurant in, say, Beijing at the moment?" I don't even know. You, know what I mean? I guess that you could name three of them in any other Western city, or go, "Hey, top three restaurants in New York." You could go, "Yep, that's it." And that's not even the gastronomic Western capital of the world. It's just a hub city.
I think it's tricky, right? Because I think in everyone's minds when they think of pasta, it's like a romantic ideal of going like Rome at lunchtime. You go to a trattoria. There's Vespas zooming past. The Monica Bellucci's out the front. You're just twirling Cacio e Pepe, so you paid for that image in your head. But then if I went, "Oh, hey, we're going to get hand-pulled noodles," you're thinking, "Oh, wet market, next to the Wuhan bat soup guy. I'm not paying more than 1/3 of the price of that."
Jay Ooi
That’s a really good point, when we don’t see and aren’t aware of the great culinary restaurants in parts of Asia, and when we have these preconceived images of certain cuisines, it furthers this idea that some western or european cuisines are worthy of being more expensive.
Kevin Cheng
But I think there is also the opinion that Asian cuisine doesn’t require as much time, skill or quality ingredients as other cuisines. Victor brings up a comparison between a French pastry chef, and a chef that makes your dim sum when you go to a yum cha restaurant.
Victor Liong
Well, you got to think, right, so if you're a pastry chef, you're dealing with the dough and how to cook that dough into something. But then if you're a dim sum chef, you're dealing with the dough, and that dough is either baked, steamed, or fried. So you've got three slightly more complex kind of ... Then you're working with different starches, and then you've got to fill this thing. You've got to fill this pastry with something, right? And it's usually pork, chicken, seafood, or sweet, traditional pastry stuff.
Victor Liong
And then how do you prepare that filling to go in that dough? So you've got to have an understanding of basically a fish cook, a meat cook, a pastry chef, and then they're not like, "Oh, we're just going to bang this all into the tray and give it an hour." It's like, no, they're all tiny, and they all have to be made individually by hand. You know what I mean? So it's some very skillful, very dainty, very artistic kind of cookery, but I guess that it just falls into that one big umbrella or something that's identifiable by the majority as a dumpling. It sits there. If you google that dumping in an Eastern context, you get a Xiao Long Bao, but then you google dumpling in a Western context, you get like a matzo ball type thing. How is that all in one umbrella? You know what I mean?
Victor Liong
So it's like saying imagine if you're a Grand Cru wine producer in Burgundy, and then you're stuck next to the goon bag, you'd be like, "Well, fuck you." You know what I mean? "What am I, a joke?"
Jay Ooi
I never really considered how meticulous, precise and time consuming a lot of Asian food can be.
Kevin Cheng
Yeah, the skill and experience required for even those cheaper dumplings you eat is much higher than we give it credit for, yet we still want to see them like a goon bag -
Jay Ooi
Right, it fits the description and it’s definitely good value for money.
Kevin Cheng
Michael from Great Aunty Three has also come across the same attitudes with Vietnamese cooking, and he didn’t fully appreciate how labour-intensive Vietnamese cooking was until he learned from his mum and grandmother.
Michael Le
I know it's very intensive. For example, pho takes at least eight hours to 12 hours to get a good broth. Don't forget, every pickle that we put in a pork roll takes about a day or two to mature, or be in a good pickled state. There's a lot of labor in everything to do with Vietnamese food.
MIchael Le
I often tell my friends that I feel that the Vietnamese food is very under priced, underappreciated. Especially when you go to a Italian restaurant and try a nice pasta dish. They range from $18 to $35, plus. And a spaghetti bolognese, I would say, is about $20. So I know there's a lot of work to make the tomato sauce, which is the same as a pho, but we sell it for $13. That's where I feel there is a difference in pricing.
Kevin Cheng
So Asian food is often priced cheaper, and because of this perception that Asian food should be cheap, and because we like to compare how we can get the same bowl of pho for cheaper at this other place, this makes it really hard for us to be willing to pay more.
Victor Liong
I think you're always going to battle, as a Chinese restaurant, you're always going to battle the, "Hey, I can get 24 dumplings for $12 on Little Bourke Street," which is the tail end of Chinatown. "Why are you doing six for $48?" I guess you're always going to have that feedback.
Victor Liong
It's like anything. Well, I look at it as a business owner now, and I go, "Look, you're just not my audience," right? I'm not saying that you're an ignorant idiot. You're just not my audience. You'll never find a guy that goes, "Hey, I want to buy two Maseratis, but, hey, how come I can buy 100 Honda Civics for the price of one of these?" It's like, "Well, don't shop for Maseratis," right? I'm not saying Lee Ho Fook's a Maserati. It's like, well, we cook in a certain way with a certain kind of ideal for the style of food that we do, and I charge for it.
Victor Liong
I look at it and go, "Look, I think it's a fair price for the expertise and the time and the ingredients and all of that." And I'm not disparaging the cheap dumpling place because it's probably run by a mom-and-pop. That's their business model. But, yeah, of course. I think you're always going to bump into that kind of criticism or feedback, I guess. I had a really good mentor once tell me, it's like, "Well, they're paying for the idea Vic." If my food was a cut-and-paste restaurant like you find in any Chinatown around the world, then okay, fine, I would have to swim the tide in terms of pricing and the rest of it. But then if I'm opening a personality-driven Chinese restaurant in Melbourne, then the rest of it's like, well, they're paying for a lot of your creativity and your ideas.
Jay Ooi
Right, I think this is something I definitely overlook at more expensive Asian restaurants - the culinary expertise, the balance of flavours, the textures, presentation, service, ambiance
Kevin Cheng
And when we just compare it to the same type of product elsewhere, we can easily dismiss more expensive places. For Michael, he says the comparisons started as soon as his restaurant opened back in 2011.
Michael Le
Yeah, at first I felt a bit let down, like this is everything you've given up in your career to build. But I quickly realized that people were just saying that because they weren't familiar with what our food quality is. So I gave myself permission, or I put myself on a mission to educate people and let them know what the difference is. And because don't forget that my family makes pork rolls for 40 years, so I know exactly what goes in a pork roll. I've been to a factory where the pork roll is made, and that is why I chose not to sell a pork roll, a typical pork roll.
Jay Ooi
So Michael is trying to do something different with his pork rolls to set them apart from all the $4-6 ones that we like to compare them to.
Kevin Cheng
And in the fine dining world, even though European restaurants continue to dominate “best restaurants lists” while Asian fine dining restaurants find it harder to be accepted, things are changing.
Yvonne C Lam
From the baseline, I think they do have a harder time just because of everything we've talked about. But I think there is a growing appetite to patronize these restaurants because there is recognition that they're doing cool things, that they're in a way still paying homage to their heritage and the food they would have grown up with but they are also excited to explore which new directions they can take it in.
Yvonne C Lam
And I think diners, I think we've talked about the conservatism that exists in diners minds about perceptions of how Asian food should be. And I'm actually glad that's slowly changing. Like restaurants like we mentioned Le Ho Fook, Anchovy, Mr Wong, Sunda, another restaurant in Melbourne, where Khanh Nguyen has done really cool stuff with Vietnamese and Southeast Asian flavors and playing around with them. And they're getting attention and they're getting accolades. And I think that's very heartening, and it's a very heartening thing to see.
Jay Ooi
But we still have a lot of cheaper Asians restaurants run by immigrants trying to build a life for their kids. So what happens when the older generation starts to retire?
Kevin Cheng
It’s a great question Jay. It’s definitely something that’s been happening in other western countries with large Asian populations like the U.S. and I’m glad you asked Jay! Victor Liong says it’s already happening in Australia too.
Victor Liong
Yeah, that's definitely right. That's definitely it's the hardworking societal mentality, but that's changing. There's a movement of Chinese restaurants in America closing because the guys that opened the restaurants have been successful all their kids are in universities now. There's no need for them. They just retire. They close, and that leaves a gap in the market for the next guy because we're still in the first-generation migrant.
Victor Liong
You can see this happens all over the world. Singapore, the hawkers are getting too old. What happens? Guess what? They're not selling Bak Chor Mee for $2 anymore. We're selling it for $19 because that's what is actually what it costs to sell that, right? And all of these, there's a movement heading in that direction. That's just, I guess, we're still stuck in that, and it's perpetuated by what you said, Jay, was, yeah, the mentality of just keep the price low or how do we cut the cost.
Victor Liong
I've always been of that economic lens of sustainability of the workforce. You can't expect mom-and-pop shops to only just hire their kids, not pay them, not draw a wage, and sit there and prop up one part of that economy. There's got to be a discussion of sustainability on that sense. But, yeah, we're in that period of a bit of change, and I think it's very easy to look at it and go, "Hey, it's a race to the bottom in terms of pricing. Why am I paying so much for Pecorino Romano and black pepper when this guy's hand stretching noodles?" Unfortunately, it's just the collective perceptions of this, but we're in a time where that's shifting, I feel.
Michael Le
I think Vietnamese cuisine has evolved in the last three to five years. It has evolved immensely. Now, if you look at Marrickville, there was a stage when Marrickville was all old timers, or old school Vietnamese restaurants and now within the last three years, it's evolved to have new generation restaurateurs. Like you've got the likes of Hello Auntie, you've got Co Ba and they're all phenomenal restaurants. Yeah, I think they're doing a great job.
Michael Le
Yeah, people like Co Ba is celebrating street food too, so there is now an opportunity to celebrate street food without the street food price. So I think we are becoming more aware, or more better business people. Not sure, but one of those. I think maybe people are just becoming more aware that the Vietnamese food is now appreciated and you don't have to mark your price down to impress or get customers anymore. It's now a challenge of quality, which is good.
Jay Ooi
So with the older generations of Asians who are willing to work crazy hours starting to retire, we’re now starting to see a shift in Asian food not competing on price but on their creative products.
Kevin Cheng
More second generation Asians are trying to break into the restaurant world without competing solely on price. And I think this is a good thing - in a country like Australia, seeing a lot of Asian parents working all the time for not that much money is quite heartbreaking, so I’m glad the cycle isn’t continuing with their kids.
Jay Ooi
So what else can we do to change this perception and uplift Asian cuisine to its true value?
Kevin Cheng
Yvonne reckons we could start with more diverse voices in food media.
Yvonne C Lam
Like there are so many multitudes of stories from people who do come from migrant backgrounds who are first gen, second gen migrants, these amazing stories to tell. And unfortunately, I think, if you don't come from that background, the nuance and the richness of those stories are lost. So I do feel that opportunity A, to tell those stories and bring my experience and knowledge into these narratives, but also you do feel a burden because there's only so few of us, you're like, "Oh, wow, that's a lot of weight to carry." And the only way that can be dispersed is if there were more writers and more people in editorial, powers of editorial authority who can change that.
Yvonne C Lam
But from the industry I work in it's ever more important to ensure that in our newsrooms, we reflect the diversity of restaurants, and foods, and cuisines and the people who work in these restaurants. Because you will... just because of the added value of having these people from diverse backgrounds you like, yeah, there's just so much more opportunity to tell cool stories.
Kevin Cheng
Like all forms of media, having diverse voices will bring more diverse and nuanced stories, and can help change this narrative that Asian food must be cheap.
Yvonne C Lam
And I understand newsrooms have less than resources and less than monies but there's definitely a way to like, yeah, get cool emerging writers into your newsrooms. And actually, like I'm part of this advocacy group called Diversity In Food Media Australia, so DIFMA, and that's definitely something that we're advocating towards, like seeking out writers from different cultures, different abilities, different sexualities, who just through their lived experiences are able to learn something of value in the way that we talk about food, which is something that everyone can connect with because it's like... So many people call themselves foodies, but I think it's such an unnecessary term because everyone eats food and everyone enjoys it, and if you're not, you're probably a psychopath.
Yvonne C Lam
So like, just think of all the cool stories of missing out on if you're just going to get people from one culture and one part of Sydney telling them. Yeah, it's incumbent upon the whole institute to ensure we get more cool faces and experiences in writing those stories.
Jay Ooi
But the other side of that coin is us as diners, right? We need to catch ourselves when we talk about how cheap certain cuisines should be.
Kevin Cheng
Instead, let’s appreciate the history, time, effort and ingredients that goes into making a lot of these Asian foods. And let’s expand our understanding of different cuisines.
Victor Liong
You know what? I remember when at the start of my career there used to be modern Italian restaurants, and that used to be everywhere. And then as they kind of died out a little bit, they became a little bit more region-specific. You know what I mean? Like 20 years ago, you would never have found a Calabrese restaurant or a Sicilian restaurant just in food from there. You know what I mean? And I think only recently, I remember it was Pilu at Freshwater was the first, "We only do Sardinian food." The setting was perfect, and people that have been to Sardinia or know the region, they go, they patronize it. It's amazing.
Victor Liong
But then it starts flowing around, and then people start understanding. It's like you don't go to a Milanese restaurant and ask for pizza, but you don't go to a Sardinian restaurant and ask for risotto because it just doesn't fucking exist. Right? I think that's what's happening to Chinese restaurants at the moment because it used to be just like the Flower Drum, which was university. You'd go there every decade because it was just so cool. They were like, "We do Cantonese food," and Cantonese food's broad. It's very luxurious. It's great.
Victor Liong
But then if you wanted something more exciting, I remember when Szechuan restaurants starting popping up, and then that was the thing. You'd go there, and there'd be hot, spicy, numbing, oily, perfect. And then from that became Xi'an restaurants, Uyghur cuisine. That all starts filtering out. The only problem is in everyone's head, it's still the Chinese restaurant of the '50s. You've got to think it's kind of like the Italian restaurants that used to have the candles and to the real naff tablecloths and the bread baskets. Now if you went into something like that, you'd be like, "What the fuck?" I'm in a time warp.
Kevin Cheng
Asian food is so diverse, and it’s really exciting seeing more of these local cuisines popping up.
Jay Ooi
But for us as diners, we need to stop expecting Asian food to always look like this image we have from our childhoods, thinking that’s the only good and authentic version of Asian food.
Kevin Cheng
Exactly!)
Victor Liong
Yeah, correct, but then I think everyone, they have that expectation for Chinese restaurants. You go in there and you expect red, gold, lanterns, rosewood. I think they'll expect that in their heads for what the hospitality experience is, but then if you go into a really cool restaurant in Guangdong, like the hottest restaurant right now, that just looks like a cool restaurant. It doesn't look like some kind of 1950s chinoiserie bizarre. But it's because people don't go to that region.
Kevin Cheng
But it’s not just about educating diners - restaurant owners who are trapped in the cycle of cheap prices and cheap labour could also do with some assistance.
Michael Le
I've been waiting for some sort of advocate for Vietnamese restaurants. You know, this is a friend's suggestion; we need someone to advocate and get our restaurants together and just advocate because everyone knows how to cook. But I don't think they understand how to run a business because I'm sure there's a lot of business owners out there who are selling a product, but it's barely making enough money to make ends meet. But they are kind of stuck in this rut, where they are afraid to increase their price.
Michael Le
What they need is a bit of guidance on not to increase price, but to increase their quality and creativity. Just yeah, have some guidance around running a business. Because I can tell you as a fact that we had an experience in Surry Hills when we opened and we were selling our rolls for $10. A newcomer from Cabramatta came and opened next door and they sold their rolls for $5. I had no problems with that; I thought good on them. I thought that that was very brave, but I kind of knew in my heart that the rent is so high and expensive there, they would need to sell a lot of rolls to be able to afford the rent. So it was a numbers game for me, and yeah. It wasn't long after, they closed.
Michael Le
And that's what I was trying to say. You need to really know your numbers in this game because if you can go out and open a little hole in the wall and just sell cheap rolls, but your numbers better add up. Otherwise, you know, you're locked into a 25 year lease. On a business point of view, there needs to be someone out there to help educate people who are running restaurants. Because they've got the mentality of, like we were talking about earlier, the scarcity mentality, but that's not going to benefit in the business world.
Kevin Cheng
Okay let’s wrap this up Jay. What have you learnt today?
Jay Ooi
So Asian food can often be viewed as ‘cheap’ partly because that’s how we grew up - going to cheap Asian restaurants run by families trying to make a living and competing with each other on price. But partly the media we consume talks about Asian food as cheap and cheerful in a way that say, french food would never be talked about.
Kevin Cheng
We end up comparing cheaper eats, and saying that expensive Asian food is not for us. So Asian food in our mind stays in the cheap eats section, where cheap means good,
Jay Ooi
But that also means it’s harder for Asian food to be elevated into the fine dining ranks.
Kevin Cheng
Exactly. We have seen it shift slowly, with more Asian fine dining restaurants opening, and more cheaper Asian restaurants closing, with more innovative eateries taking their place.
Jay Ooi
And we have a part to play too - in appreciating more of what goes into expensive Asian food, and in watching the way we talk about Asian food with each other.
Kevin Cheng
Exactly. The narrative is advancing, but we can speed it up by giving Asian food the spotlight it deserves. And especially in Australia, we are so lucky to have access to so many cultures and cuisines.
Jay Ooi
What’s the easiest thing we can do as diners?
Kevin Cheng
Just eat out when they can, try new cuisines and experiences and learn more about the cuisine of other cultures.
Yvonne C Lam
Everyone go out and eat if you feel healthy and rich enough to. Because yeah, I mean, I don't want to... the whole restaurant industry is not doing so well right now so yeah, do what you can to support them.
Victor Liong
I think it's just like if you eat out more, you'll make up a decision of yourself. You'd be like, "Okay, why is this guy expensive? I go there because I really like this," and whatever that is, and it comes ... Things are expensive because they cost something. You know what I mean? And that cost has been transferred onto the customer. Whatever that is, that's more valuable. So it could be skill, ingredient, time, all of these, value, whatever that is, right? And if it costs more, it's got to be worth that in something. If you get that, then you understand why. You know what I mean?
Victor Liong
my biggest thing is just eat out. Go try everything. See why. And then if it's cheap, you know what, you're on a bargain, but that's not forever.’
Kevin Cheng
So Jay, are you willing to spend more than $5 on a banh mi?
Jay Ooi
Yes, I totally see your point. A good banh mi is definitely worth more than $5, especially when I’m willing to pay $10 for a sandwich.
Kevin Cheng
This episode of Shoes Off was written and produced by me, Kevin Cheng.
Jay Ooi
With help and editing and mixing from me Jay Ooi.
Kevin Cheng
Special thanks to all the guests in today’s episode: Victor Liong, Yvonne C Lam and Michael Le.
Jay Ooi
In the show notes for this episode at shoesoff.net you can find links to Yvonne’s writing, as well as Victor and Michael’s restaurants.
Some music in this episode is by Avik Chari, and the episode artwork is by Alli Chang.
Kevin Cheng
What are your thoughts on the perception of Asian food as “cheap”? Let us know @shoesoffau on facebook and instagram.
Jay Ooi
If you liked Shoes Off please subscribe, we’re on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you’re listening to it right now, or head to shoesoff.net
Kevin Cheng
And if you have a foodie friend -
Jay Ooi
Don’t we all?
Kevin Cheng
Please share this episode with them.
Jay Ooi
Thanks, and catch you next episode.
Guests
Yvonne C Lam: https://www.yvonneclam.com.au/
Victor Liong: https://www.leehofook.com.au/
Michael Le: https://www.greatauntythree.com/
