Chefs Prep For New Asian Cuisine Festival
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NY1 samples some of the city's best Asian cuisine, as part of the upcoming Lucky Rice Festival. NY1's Michelle Park filed the following report. Pick up your chopsticks and get ready to chow down on some Asian food, as the Luckyrice Asian Food Festival, co-sponsored by NY1, is here between April 29 and May 2.
"I don't think it's anything new that people love Asian food," says Luckyrice founder and CEO Danielle Chang. "Luckyrice is creating a platform that can put all this interest together. The idea is really to celebrate how Asian culture has become so prevalent in America."
It's the inaugural year for the festival, which kicks off with a cocktail reception on Thursday and consists of all sorts of workshops through Sunday.
Pastry chef Pichet Ong of Village Tart will be hosting a dessert and tea pairing workshop, and he will invite some of his closest pastry chef friends.
"I invited pastry chefs who are local to the city, who are using a lot of Asian ingredients, not necessarily in Asian restaurants," says Ong. "It's becoming a very popular trend right now, but it's beyond trend. The fact that you see green tea ice cream in a general supermarket is a sign that Asian ingredients in dessert-making is here to stay."
For those who want to try a taste of everything, there will be a night market on Friday and a grand feast on Saturday, where over 100 restaurants will be sharing a bite of their Asian dishes.
Chef Tadashi Ono of Matsuri will be showcasing his yellowtail sashimi with yuzu-green pepper sauce.
"We'll be showing New York how deep and wide Asian food culture is. I want them to discover there are all different kinds of Asian cooking too," says Ono.
Chang says she wants New Yorkers to know that they can find Asian-inspired food in the most unexpected of places.
"When you see an $88 Peking duck at Cafe Boulud [on the Upper East Side] or you see Asian influences in a French traditional kitchen like Le Bernardin [in the Theater District], you really get the sense that Asian cuisine and culture is mainstream and celebrated in so many ways."
So if you are what you eat, most New Yorkers are at least part Asian. For a complete list of events, visit www.luckyrice.com.