This week in PostMag: treats of the Tanka table and Asian comedians
The delights of indigenous Tanka cuisine that can still be found in Hong Kong, Asian comics blazing the stand-up trail, and a bike ride around South Korea’s Jeju Island
The Tanka are one of Hong Kong’s original indigenous communities, and their cuisine grew out of life on the water: fresh catch, preserved ingredients, cooking built for tight spaces. These days, not many places are still doing it. But a few remain.
There’s Lam Lau in Aberdeen, still serving the boat noodles and broth he’s been making for decades, but now from a moored kitchen. On Lamma Island, Christina Keung Mee-yee runs the Genuine Lamma Hilton Fishing Village Restaurant, a Tanka eatery her parents accidentally started in the 1970s while trying to sell ice. She pours biodynamic wine while her brother handles the kitchen, turning out straightforward, unfussy but delightful food with locally sourced ingredients.
In Shau Kei Wan, Kam Tung Kitchen is midway through its own generational upgrade. Po Yau-fai, aka Chef Fai, and his wife, Ada Kwok Yin-lai, built it from debt and sleep deprivation in the 1990s. They are both very much still there managing the mayhem, but their son, Marco, is helping to steer it into the next chapter, complete with a new, private-kitchen-style spin-off called The Treasure. The mantis shrimp with fried rice rolls? Worth reading for those alone.