We’re honoring AAPI month with one of our favorite local AAPI community leaders, Cynthia Huie, owner of On Waverly, an AAPI gift shop and bookstore in the heart of Chinatown. Cynthia shares her childhood fondness for shrimp chips made at home by her grandfather, her lasting love for the crunchy, salty, airy snack.

Cynthia talks about representation through retail, her relationship with her grandparents and how that has led to intergenerational friendships as an adult, and how our kids get to take a lot of things for granted–and that’s a good thing!

Plus creating community and bringing people back to Chinatown, super cool events series and spaces, and that one time Freesia met a Grammy winner when she was hanging out at On Waverly.

This episode we pick up the soy sauce/restaurant kid threads with guest Eddie Lo. Now a food professional himself, Eddie talks about growing up in Chinese restaurant and being raised by amazing cooks, including his grandma, who would make him Hong Shao Rou, a braised pork belly dish.

We talk about growing up in Wisconsin and Southern California eating exclusively Chinese food, having a first hamburger in college, and then never looking back on trying new foods.

Eddie shares how his full throttle into new foods led him to cooking classes, traveling for food, and eventually to the businesses he runs today teaching dumpling classes and promoting premium soy sauce Liv Cook Eat.

On this episode we’re doing something a little different. In the spirit of March Madness we present to you, March Madness of Chinese Cuisine!

We partnered with our friend Curtis Chinn of the Infatuasian podcast and our friend Cynthia Huie at On Waverly to record this live, with an audience inside of On Waverly, the best AAPI gift shop and bookstore in Chinatown.

This was a just for fun attempt to crown one Chinese dish winner among many excellent choices. It was all for goofs and laughs so please don’t @ us if your favorite dish didn’t make it out of the first round or didn’t make the brackets. They were near impossible choices and my personal pick didn’t make it out of round one.

Anyway, we hope you enjoy this fun live episode. We’ll be back soon with regularly scheduled programming!