With the importance of ‘brand’, of storytelling and the prolific use of social media to attract customers, it seems appropriate to me that restaurants can be judged through the prism of Instagram and the fleeting tool of Stories. It is after all, a curated space for the business to tell their story. This is a piece of writing that was difficult to write because it hit emotional points that are sometimes hard to articulate, so this is a string of thoughts.
Food is the focal point of a restaurant, to be examined and appraised. It is often thought. In communities which have a robust food culture the dissection of dishes is an act of bonding, of creating memory and building connection to space and time and place. “We eat to remember place” anthropologist David Sutton writes, in his work reflecting the Greek island of Kalymnos.
Restaurants have a history and an anchor in the idea of being spaces of restorative-ness, of gathering and of being with people, of nourishment.
In the capitalist space and structure of the London restaurant scene there are competing threads of intention. Aesthetics is key. Entertainment is key. Nostalgia runs riot.
***
I watch the launch of a South East Asian-inspired restaurant through my phone, through the Instagram Stories. In a society which has a robust social media presence the detailed look at the fleeting stories on Instagram is a natural media to consume a restaurant. And it is discussed, dissected and decided upon – as a place to visit or not.
I watch as a Thai band performs to a mostly white crowd, who mostly ignore them. The singer is a woman, wonderfully dressed, singing in Thai. I am sure they have agency in this performance, that they were probably paid well and that they had a good time. My academic side thinks this is the most important aspect, but I can’t help but react.
This image, these short videos made by individuals and re-shared by the restaurant, hit my stomach and gave me a visceral reaction that I don’t know if I even have the words to express.
I am reminded of when I didn’t have agency. When I put on a pretty dress and went out into the world and was treated like flesh. To be consumed. Eyes eating, words coating me to make me small. When I was still a teenager. And beyond.
I was explaining to my white friend the other day, that I mainly wear oversized t-shirts and dresses because I don’t have the time and energy to deal with the comments and looks and racial sexualisation that my tits in my small frame will gather – my body feels unruly and misbehaving and there to be judged, so it is better covered.
My understanding of sexuality has been understood in terms of race and racism. My experience of racism is laced with exoticism. A body in space, for others. In my 40s I am still untangling ideas of desire, mine and others; and racism.
***
Anyone can cook anything, can start any business, and can do it well. But do they need to do it?
***
In this month, ESEA History Month.
Watching white men be nostalgic of [a section of] Asia they remember from their 20s is, awkward. At best. Deeply triggering at worst.
The pissed up nights of Brits Abroad: Lads in Bangkok is layered with something a little bit grim. Power imbalances, sexual connotations, expectations; boys will be boys but at whose cost? Re-imagined in Central London. A stone’s throw from our very own Chinatown.
My stomach turns.
I see so often stories by white men, in particular, writing on social media of food that is ‘banging’ and ‘spicy’ – spicy a stand in for chili heat, of course. A distinction that gets ignored and grates me. But this idea of heat also seems to be a stand in for ‘authentic’. Eradicating the idea of nuance in food from the region – hot, hotter, hottest. It’s masculine in tone, It’s colonial in feel – consuming the heat of the East, meeting the challenge of heat.
Conquering.
Banging.
***
I can only speak to my experience, as a mixed race, SE Asian woman growing up in a white space, but traversing back and forth to Malaysia. But I am sure that there are similarities and connections across other identities.
The South East Asian identity can be seen as a brown body and works in conflict or in togetherness with ‘yellow fever’ of East Asia. And we get pooled together to be ESEA, helpful in solidarity, but promoting homogeneity at times. The oriental identity, renamed but still connected. These brown bodies are the peasants, the farmers, the sex workers. The primitive; the century old societies and histories not known, or not studied, or not valued. The war movie quotes of “love you long time” (and worse) are engrained in the idea of us. Less submissive, more explicit. I have heard it all. In my ambiguity, in my mixed-ness and other-ness and non-white-ness, I am exotic for the eyes upon me.
There are of course non white and ESEA people at the restaurant launch, posting and being re-shared on Instagram Stories. London restaurant isn’t an entirely racist one. And I have no doubt many enjoyed the evening; we are not a homogenous group. I also know many that didn’t, but posted anyway - it was launch party, it was all free, that is the etiquette.
My perspective and life experience will lead me to have certain reactions and readings of a space and situation. I doubt this restaurant will struggle, so my thoughts are inconsequential.
But as I scan the restaurant’s social I see details of the dishes and drinks served, but an absence of story about the band as artists or people; the stories don’t name them as a band let alone as individuals. They are just bodies in space for the entertainment of the guests. I don’t see the details of the people (I assume Thai? The royal family? Thai boxers?) that adorn the walls.
There is a film about the namesake of the restaurant. Beautifully done, of course. Romantic lingering vistas of river. A topic unrelated to the business of this space, except for the name. The restaurant space is a space that is about consuming.
***
And when a pandemic hits again, and if it originates from ESEA, we will be spat upon again. Because that is how adding to the cultural landscape works. People who look like me are simply aesthetic, props.
Michelin has taught us that food is the only bar to judge a restaurant, the rest is noise. But no amount of excellent execution of a dish is going to convince me to go to this place. It has “but I have an Asian wife” vibes.
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