Starting with a big mess
So my buddy Dave texts me yesterday like “Yo, I need your Asian food expertise STAT! Got 50 ppl coming to this corporate thing and I need menu ideas from, like, 20 countries. Don’t overthink it, just gimme around 88 must-try dishes kthxbye.”
I stared at my phone thinking dude are you serious? That’s more dishes than I got chopsticks for. Grabbed my laptop, dumped cold coffee down my shirt (standard move), and tried googling “top asian dishes”. Biggest mistake. Got like a billion results, half were fancy-pants $100 sushi rolls, others looked like spam sites. Zero help.
My “organized” system collapse
Fine. Did it old-school. Yanked all my food notes from travel journals, greasy takeout menus stuck to my fridge, even napkins with scribbles. Spread ’em on the kitchen table – looked like a paper bomb went off. Started sorting:
- Scribbles on Thai Basil Pancakes (Bangkok street stall, 2017)
- Korean Gamjatang recipe I haggled from that granny in Seoul
- Burmese Tea Leaf Salad receipt stained with chili oil
My method? Put ’em into piles by country. Failed spectacularly. Indonesia pile kept sliding into Malaysia. Vietnamese Pho notes mingled with Japanese Ramen slips. One gust from my AC unit and poof, chaos everywhere. Said a bad word. Maybe seven.
Breaking the wall with actual eating
Enough paper madness. I marched straight to my freezer (needed therapy food) and grabbed last week’s leftovers: Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup, Korean Kimchi Jjigae, Filipino Adobo chicken. Stuck ’em all in bowls (mix and match baby) and microwaved that combo like a wild scientist.
Standing there eating cold spots and lava-hot soup chunks, it clicked. For Dave? Forget fancy research. Hit up my texts. Sent the same copy-paste to every foodie friend: “Drop TOP 2 Asian dishes you’d fight someone for”. Phone blew up in 10 minutes:
- Thai buddy: “Pad Krapow, Som Tum… DIE ON THIS HILL.”
- Auntie Chen: “My grandson DEMANDS Xiao Long Bao, Peking Duck every week. Fix this list!”
- College roommate (lived in Kyoto): “Takoyaki, Unaju or we’re not friends.”
That list built itself. Cut duplicates, added my own junk food pick (Singaporean Kaya Toast fight me), and bam – got the 88. Didn’t hit all 20 countries (sorry Laos), but Dave ain’t paying for authenticity checks anyway.
Final messy victory
Sent Dave a voice note: “Here’s your list. You owe me minimum three bao buns. Some stuff’s missing cause frankly I forgot what Cambodian cuisine tastes like. Deal with it.”
Then I made Thai Basil Pork (the real star of this circus) because all that “research” left me starving. Burned it slightly. Still ate it standing up. Typical Tuesday.
Afterthoughts (and regrets)
Dave texted back “Pancakes made of basil? Who eats that??”. Almost threw my phone. That’s Thai Crispy Basil Minced Pork right there, you uncultured –
Point is: Forcing these lists is never clean. Found my forgotten Tokyo train pass under the food papers. Called it a win. Still finding sticky notes in weird places though. Probably permanent.
