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Film Festival Dispatch: Sights, Sounds & Tastes of Hong Kong

  • April 2, 2012 8:52 am

Working for film festivals does take a toll sometimes, but then again, I get to travel to cool places. In March alone, I headed out to SXSW in Austin, SFIAAFF in the Bay Area, Saigon and Hong Kong for the annual Filmart and the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF). Run by friend and mentor, Roger Garcia, the HKIFF and Filmart (the film market arm of the organization) has been on a roll with strong film programming, celebrity-studded events, capped with the Asian Film Awards, honoring the best in Asian cinema.  Read more...

Soup Goddess

  • November 4, 2011 2:27 pm

I want to marry this woman. Running a rickety little soup cart behind a small hotel along a steamy and smelly river in the middle of Saigon, the “Lunch Lady” is by far, one of the jewels of street food cuisine. I’ve been looking for her for a long time, especially after I watched the Vietnam episode of NO RESERVATIONS with Anthony Bourdain visited Nguyen Thi Thanh a.k.a. The Lunch Lady, who makes the best soup noodles in the city. Her specialties are the hu tieu, bun bo hue, and of course, pho. Only open from 11am – 2pm everyday, office workers, backpack tourists and traveling foodies congregate around the rickety cart, sit on little plastic seats and slurp up soup nirvana.  Read more...

FLOUNDERING FILM FLUNKEE vs. the Sam’s Club Samples Meal!

  • September 19, 2011 12:00 am

I’m not in the movie business for the money.  Which is a helluva good thing because I’m not exactly rolling in the dough right now.

It’s been a life of cutting corners and scrounging every half-cent just to survive.  Thankfully, I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy and this just feels like I’m becoming more and more prepared for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

One of the corner scraps I’ve cut is – sadly – my proclivity to be a foodie.  Like Offender Elaine, I love food.  But not with that uncaring, inattentive sort of love reserved for the tail end of marriages – I adore it.  I enjoy its tastes, its textures, its sublime ability to evoke all manners of emotions in a singular bite.

Think less a corpulent person at a Las Vegas buffet and more the rat from Ratatouille.

But food, like many of the other great things in life, comes at a price and, right now, it’s a price I can’t really afford.  Not too often anyway.  Read more...

Film Festival Dispatch: Far East Film Festival in Italy

  • May 10, 2011 6:33 am

I had the great pleasure of attending the Far East Film Festival, located in Udine, a small town about 90 minutes (by car) from Venice. Why have an Asian film festival in the middle of nowhere Italy? Well, why not? The inception of the festival began in 1999, when a retrospective of Hong Kong cinema was presented to local cineastes. It was wildly successful and from then on, the Centro Espressioni Cinematografiche, a presenting organization of film events around Udine, started the Far East Film Festival. Now in its 13th year, it is considered a true destination point for Asian film aficionados and has launched international spotlights on Asian auteurs like Johnnie To, Quark Henares, Jang Jin, Patrick Tam and Feng Xiaogang, just to name a few.  Read more...

I am not a foodie : (

  • July 26, 2010 2:00 am

I am not a foodie.  Plain and simple.

If I draw a 5 mile radius around my home in Los Angeles, there exists some of the finest restaurants known to humankind.  From top-rated Michelin fare to Zagat’s best to world-renowned, celebrity chef kitchens, some of the most amazing (and most expensive) gastronomically orgasmic restaurants on earth are within walking distance from my pad.  For the ardent foodie (such as my sexy Offender, Elaine), he or she would be in abdominal bliss knowing that such fine dining is but a hop, skip, and a jump away.  But for me, it’s no big deal.  In fact, it’s no deal at all.  It’s like I’m a gay eunuch living in a neighborhood brimming with the finest of titty bars.  Read more...

I’m So Rucky…

  • March 18, 2010 12:22 am

In my everyday life, I often see the world through Woody Allen or Larry David tinted glasses (as opposed to Oprah Winfrey or Tony Robbins.)  Especially in a city where people exist largely in their hermetically sealed SUVs and enclaves, I’m not always feeling the communal “we’re all in this together” vibe and it’s easy for me to get annoyed and put upon by the frustrations, the injustices, and irritations of the world.  But there are these moments, when I step back and realize that I’ve been blessed with luck and other “bonus offers, “freebies”, and “gold stars” from life, and that I am not Job…God is not jabbing his finger at me and that I should in fact, show some gratitude for those things I enjoy – big and small that are good.  As coined by Martha Stewart – the high priestess of perfection, here’s a shortlist of “good things”.  Read more...

Taipei Hodgepodge

  • December 14, 2009 3:03 am

First off, Taipei rocks! I love this city and like all major cities in Asia, it’s an ideal place for foodies and insomniacs. Where else can you have 24h bookstores, pubs, karaoke, and dim sum? And don’t get me started on the famous night markets! Here’s Shilin Night Market, circa 1:00am:shilin market

adidas girl

There’s just too much to eat at night markets, but I especially love the candied cherry tomatoes, strawberries and yams.  Read more...