Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I spent summers in Hawaii as a child, while we were visiting my grandmother. It took me many years to realise that the Hawaiian culture had been coopted to promote tourism, while the Hawaiian people were often in pretty desperate situations, suffering from the same issues as Indigenous communities around the world. So, I was definitely interested in reading about a Hawaiian family in what advanced reviews called magic realism and many, many strong reviews (which seem much more positive overall than the reviews on Goodreads).
While I was pleased to recognise the local language (we were fascinated as kids with the pidgin dialect) and references to local stores and cultures, I went back and forth on this. There are wonderful, luminous poetic passages, and while the earthy scenes of sex seem to have put off some other readers, I thought they had an energy about them. But I did find that the characters fluctuated between elevated, poetic language and the local dialect, in a way that didn’t quite work for me. And the brother who spoke in the most vernacular and was least book smart (but perhaps most street smart): I didn’t find it all that compelling to spend time with him. The sister was smarter, but as a gay man, I didn’t find her struggles with her sexuality and identity to go very deep. And perhaps a purposeful weakness of the characters but I found they referred back nostalgically too often to their ‘hanabata’, ‘small kid’ days.
I won’t spoil the structure of the book for those who haven’t read it, but I did like the way that it subverted expectations, expanding a story focused on one family member to all of his family members. And I think the sense of the healing power of a culture, of old gods, of tuning into one’s heritage did work.
So, I found it OK in all, not great (for me) but I’m glad that the book seems to be finding an audience and has gotten some great reviews. It’s good to hear from new voices.
Chin Chin has a storied reputation: hard to get into in Melbourne, also in Sydney. As I’ve mentioned before, I find it interesting that in Australia, white Australian male chefs become experts in Asian food, and open fine-dining modern Asian restaurants. When I grew up in Vancouver, they were all Chinese chefs in the kitchen of every restaurant, whether at a hotel or ethnic food; this changed to a focus on authenticity where the chefs were from the culture of the cuisine presented, so this Australian model is interesting.
I didn’t quite know what to think with season Ben Cooper, the white executive chef of Chin Chin, on Masterchef this seasion, in a challenge where contestants (many of them Asian-Australian) had to recreate his dish, a Thai jungle curry, without a recipe. It felt jarring.
Yet there’s no denying that the flavours at Chin Chin, whether they are learned or are an authentic presentation of a particular culture, are absolutely delicious. Rather than the much-talked about umami flavour (the sort of savoury combo of other flavours), I found the flavours of most of the dishes quite distinct: a beautiful combo of spicy, sour, salty and sweet. Although tempted by one of the ‘feed me’ menus, I thought I would have more control by choosing dishes myself and that’s what I did, and was rather pleased with myself.
Our menu:
Finally, it was an interesting mixed crowd: some young women on one side of us, a larger family with young children on the other side, a few couples like us who looked like they are local to Surry Hills: I think restaurants as good as this attract a wide base of customers. I’ll make sure we return in a shorter amount of time than my last interval!
Almost four years since I’ve been to the Colonial, and I’m impressed they’ve kept it open. As I’ve said many times on this blog, the restaurant business is hard in Sydney! And getting through the COVID lockdown: these are hardworking folks who have been making sacrifices!
We also couldn’t get into another two or three restaurants. On a Saturday night, just after the COVID lockdown is opening up, it’s not easy to get in anywhere.
The food is tasty and simple. The British fish curry, tofu mango and cucumber salad were all fine. I thought the eggplant was the standout, bhaigan barta, and the naan were good: I always like getting the one with raisins and coconut in it. We also had a seafood platter to start with which was tastier than it looked.
And the wine was a reasonable price. All good. It was basically $50 a head, including grog.
Indian food like you’d get in Blighty (18 Nov 2016)
So, here’s the thing. I meant to try out Trunk Road… (which looks cool and was packed with people when we walked by)… and we ended up at the Colonial. Oops. Next time. The idea behind it is that England has its own kind of Indian food, a mixture and melding and adaptation from so many Indian migrants. And I remember this from when I lived in London: the restaurants around Kings Cross, the ones near Brick Lane. There were many different areas each with its own twist, as well as British-only dishes, like Balti curries.
In any case, we opted for two starters: a delicate fried fish, and a tandoori sort of chicken which was supposed to be spicy, and wasn’t too spicy (both pictured above). We had a goat curry with a thick gravy. I like goat since it’s unusual. Two different kinds of naan bread, very crisp and tasty.
Washed it down with an unusual natural sparkling wine from across the road, a bit strange but not bad with Indian food.
I thought it was fine. Good, friendly service. Tasty. Nothing special (to me, though the naan bread was exceptional) but if I was from the UK, in search of British Indian food, perhaps I’d have been very excited.
We were looking for coffee, perhaps Vietnamese coffee, after our amazing pork rolls at Alex ‘N’ Rolls. On that little strip of Illawarra Road, we couldn’t find anything. Lots of small restaurants, but nothing that looked like it served Vietnamese coffee. Until we saw Take Coffee. Hurrah!
We split a mango pudding as well, and each had a Vietnamese coffee, though mine was salted! Strong coffee. Condensed milk. And a pinch of salt. It was a bit like salted caramel. Absolutely delicious and a change from your regular Aussie latte!
I always liked cocktails, and got into a regular negroni habit, but the cocktail making really kicked off with the COVID-19 lockdown. It’s been fun to explore new drinks and treat ourselves to a covid cocktail. My strategy is to find an interesting liqueur (or possibly spirit) and then try a whole bunch of different drinks made with it!
We thought we’d grab a quick lunch in the neighbourhood before hitting Peter’s of Kensington to scratch that kitchenware itch. Kensington’s long had a reputation for interesting and tasty Asian food, but on this day, a Sunday, it looks like places are still closed because of COVID, are are closed for good, or closed a while ago and I didn’t notice.
This place was open and has a good name! And the Indonesian place on the corner was actually so packed, we couldn’t get into it. I didn’t even know Turpan was Uighur before I sat down but was excited. I’ve really enjoyed Uighur food in the past.
There was a lunch special for two, which included handmade noodles, a pilaf and some lamb skewers for $40, which sounded like a good deal. I really, really like the texture of Chinese handmade noodles: springy and with a good bite to them.
I found the rice a little greasy. Tasty, but a little rich.
Newsflash!
While I really wanted to find savoury tart shells, I couldn’t! So, I made my own out of frozen shortcrust pastry (that turned out much better than I thought), filled them with fresh ricotta (delicious, and better than when I’ve made it myself, and relatively cheap as I went for the cow’s milk version rather than buffalo milk), and then put thin slices of the truffle on top (with a bit of basil to top it off).
I love Japanese tea and often serve it to my reiki clients before (and after) a treatment. While hojicha is my standard, with roasted rice, sencha is another green tea that I like and got a hold of lately. It’s a green whole leaf tea, and 
I’ve made the recipe for two (because cocktails like company) but halve it if you’re drinking solo.