Halifax Waterfront carnival celebrates Asian cuisine, culture
Posted Nov 6, 2021 04:56:00 PM.
A local group is holding an Asian food festival carnival on the Halifax Waterfront on Saturday afternoon to share and celebrate Asian cuisine and culture.
“It feels good to represent our culture,” Brenchelle Uy, who co-owns Chatime's Lacewood location with her husband and is running a stall at the carnival, says. “We're Filipinos and our business is from Taiwan, so it really is a big opportunity for us to represent our cultures.”
The carnival tops off the first-ever Halifax Asian Food Festival that ran from Oct. 29 to 31. It was set to run on the festival's final day, but poor weather postponed the event to Nov. 6.
Around a dozen vendors have set up stalls at the Halifax Waterfront beside The Salt Yard and Waterfront Warehouse. Vendors are offering food, drinks and small crafts from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday.
Even though the event is still in the beginning hours, sales and traffic have been strong — and vendors are excited about Halifax's response.
One hour into the event, Sugar Bakery's employee says around one-third of its products have already been sold.
“Many people should know what our flavours are like, what our food is like — it's very important,” Lihong Tang, who's working the stall, says. “Because food is just like music; it can grab everything together. I think it's a very good idea and time to celebrate us.”
Cindy Zhao's running the stall for downtown Halifax's ZenQ, which offers an assortment of Asian food and desserts such as bubble tea, and around the same time, she says she already had around 20 sales of bubble tea.
Stalls for other local businesses have also set up shop, including Hi Tea which serves bubble tea; Ready For Joy which serves Chinese and Japanese cuisine; and Mo Handmade which sells small craft goods.
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Last weekend's Halifax Asian Food Festival was presented by Off The Eaten Path, a new brand that focuses on sharing and promoting Nova Scotia's multicultural community.
The weekend festival saw several local Asian restaurants create special (sometimes limited-time) dishes, drinks and desserts that represent Asian flavours and cuisine.
More than two dozen restaurants participated in the weekend festival. Businesses such as Noodle Waroom, Star Anise Vietnamese Noodles, Backoos Korean Food and Rasa: Flavours of India — as well as the businesses participating in Saturday's carnival — created special Asian dishes.
Joyce Liu, who's at the helm of the festival and owns media production company Lumi Studios, says the festival's first year has been a success. More than half of the participating businesses reported selling out of their special dishes before operating hours.
“The biggest meaning to me behind it is to help the community realize how diverse Asian culture is,” she says. “I'm from China, and even before I did this festival, I didn't realize how diverse Asian culture is and I learned so much about Korean culture, Japanese culture, Indian culture, Thailand's culture, all through organizing this festival.
“This cross-culture understanding is the biggest thing behind it. That's what we want to do with Off The Eaten Path.”
It's an idea she says was born out of the recent rise in Asian hate crimes; by highlighting Asian culture, she says she hopes it'll help create a bridge between different cultures.
An Angus Reid Institute survey released in June shows that 58 per cent of Asian Canadians have experienced incidents of discrimination in the past 12 months.
Going forward, she says the brand will help showcase other cultures from around the world through “food and this common thread we have.”
Next year's Halifax Asian Food Festival will run in May 2022 during Asian Heritage Month. For that event, Liu says the event will run for one whole week and she hopes more businesses will participate.
Moreover, she hopes to make the festival province-wide because she realizes some restaurants in other parts of Nova Scotia have some of the best Asian dishes in the province.
She says her favourite Asian dishes come from a Korean restaurant in Wolfville and a noodle dish in New Glasgow's Mamatsu Fresh Asian Kitchen.
“Those are hidden in our smaller towns,” she says. “Sometimes, I will just drive to New Glasgow to have a bowl of noodles — that's how good it is.”
She says she wants to highlight those kinds of businesses and showcase how immigrants in Nova Scotia — both those living in urban centres and rural communities — are thriving.
“We hope to keep going to different pockets in the city to do these types of festivals,” she says.