It is hard to believe that it has been 1 year since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Restaurants were one of the first sectors hit, as restaurants were ordered closed in cities across the US in March 2020. Restaurants in Chinatowns across the US were among the first hit by declining restaurant patronage, even before the dine-in bans, largely due to racism and xenophobia. In March 2020, chef and food historian Grace Young started making a video series documenting the effects of the early pandemic on Chinese restaurants in NYC. These videos were produced with the Poster House Museum in NYC who contacted Grace to work with them in conjunction with an exhibit on Chinese posters, “The Sleeping Giant: Posters & The Chinese Economy.” Grace sprung into action, and with photographer Dan Ahn, interviewed restaurant owners and other leaders in Chinatown about how the epidemic was already affecting their lives and businesses. It is especially poignant to look back on these stories now, as Asian Americans have increasingly been the target of violent crimes in the US.
You can view all eight videos in the series on Vimeo, which ended in October 2020. Grace’s projects brought welcome publicity to the restaurants and businesses, earning widespread media coverage, including a GrubStreet article which called her the “unlikely voice of Chinatown.” Unfortunately, some of the restaurants featured, including French-Malaysian restaurant Aux Epices, closed even over the course of Grace’s coverage, and their future remains uncertain. However, Grace’s video coverage of this community was only the start. In December 2020, she started an Instagram campaign to highlight Chinese restaurants around the world, #savechineserestaurants. In January 2021, Grace also started a Go Fund Me to support legacy restaurants in NYC’s Chinatown, to which you can still donate. Grace’s coverage of these businesses during the early throes of Covid-19 is a poignant record of the effects of the virus on one community’s food culture. Unfortunately, one year on, Chinatown NYC is still a long way from recovery.
The transatlantic connection between 
We have been focusing a bit on the Philippines this week during our online food explorations, and have become enthralled by its diverse food culture. We are already itching to visit in person some day and try all the street food! One of the major restaurant types in the Philippines is the Carinderia, which is a combination of a street food stall and a buffet restaurant. The origin of the name is 
So things have been a bit quiet here on ETW, that’s because things in the real ETW universe are quite hectic! New house, new job and 2 books to write between the two of us. So that has left little time to post here on the blog, sadly, though our Instagram is a bit more active. Oftentimes, at the end of the day we are too tired to do anything but watch a YouTube food video or two. We are obsessed with the 
Tomorrow is Christmas – and here it is blustery and cold – but imagine if you could go to beach! In this vintage Australia Christmas video, you can!
We love Indian food, though to be honest we do not make it as often as some other cuisines. However, that is something we are looking to change! We recently 
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Eating The World 