DINING WITH ASIAN FOOD AND WINE

Thailand’s Songkram (The Water Festival)

By

Ronald Jan, M. D.

April 15^th may be Tax Day in the U.S.A. but in Thailand it is the 3^rd day of a 3-day holiday—The Water Festival (April 13, 14, and 15). It is the day when the Thai people pay homage to ancestors and to elders and a day when they pour water upon each other and upon statues of Buddha to represent cleansing the house, the body, and the mind of bad thoughts thereby purifying to begin a fresh start in the New Year. The holiday is a religious holiday but also a playful one during which it is customary for people to be dowsed with water. (Thai Water Festival Image from Rhea Nath www.holidify.com › pages › festivals-in-thailand-873)

Of course, every festival is accompanied by wonderful food and Thai food has become increasingly popular worldwide. Here in Sacramento, we can enjoy wonderful Thai cuisine at Tee and Ann Devahasdin’s THAI (The House of Authentic Ingredients) Restaurant in Sacramento. Tee, a descendent of Thai Royalty met Ann at U.C. Davis as she was studying for her Ph.D. To present the best Thai cuisine, Tee recruited from Thailand Wong Jankheun, a rising star in culinary arts in Thailand.

[Thai dish Mu Krob Tod – Photo Courtesy of Ronald Jan, M.D.]

One of my two favorite dishes is Mu Krob Tod, Pork Belly boiled then marinated with salt and vinegar then pressed to flatten the skin and baked to make the skin crispy.  The Pork Belly is then presented with a choice of 2 dipping sauces—one a sweet soy sauce and the other a seafood sauce with salt, lime juice, Thai chili, garlic, sugar, and cilantro.  The result is a wonderfully flavored pork belly with a crispy skin and the flavors of the fat blending with the pork that is enhanced by dipping into either of the two sauces.  My favorite is the seafood sauce with its multiplicity of flavors and a gentle spiciness.  

[Thai dish Muu Tod – Photo Courtesy of Ronald Jan, M. D.]

The other favorite dish is Muu Tod, deep fried Pork Shoulder that was marinated in special spices.  The dish is not spicy hot and has wonderful aromas / flavors of umami with enough fat to keep the meat moist and flavorful.  Then sprinkled with finely ground parched rice.  The dipping sauce is Nam Jim Jaew, a spicy tamarind sauce with herbs. The flavors of the sauce and spices complement the fat of the pork shoulder and the pork’s gentle umami flavors.  

[2016 Yao Ming’s Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Reserve in Napa Valley’s AVA - Photo Courtesy of Ronald Jan, M. D.]

The ingredients of both of dishes work well with a wine with full body and rich tannins such as a Cabernet Sauvignon, one of the principal grapes of Bordeaux, France described on the two preceding wine articles in wechineseus.com. For this balance, complementary to the fat and umami flavors of the pork the 2016 Yao (Ming) Family Wine Howell Mountain Reserve from Napa Valley, AVA works well. Howell Mountain presents with excellent drainage favoring the growth of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape with excellent exposure to the sun while avoiding any morning fog from the San Pablo Bay that could seep onto the valley floor. The Cabernet Sauvignon’s tannin will blend well and soften with the fat associated with the meat’s umami flavors allowing the blackberry / black cherry fruit of the grape to express itself with the flavors of the Pork Belly and sauces leaving a long, pleasant finish.

Pairing a red wine with bold flavors and bold tannins with Asian food can be a challenge but with THAI Restaurant’s pork belly and deep-fried pork shoulder one does not need a Water Festival to enjoy this fine Thai cuisine paired with a California Cabernet Sauvignon with body, structure, and enough fruit like the 2016 Yao (Ming) Family Wine’s Howell Mountain Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley AVA. More comments about flavors and aromas of foods and matching wines will be discussed in the next month’s Dining with Asian Food and Wine in wechineseus.com.

About the Author: Dr. Ronald G. Jan who specializes in Vascular Surgery is a Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of California at Davis School of Medicine. As a hobby, he holds WSET level 3 certification in wines and has been writing and publishing wine commentaries.

(We Chinese in America Media Editor Tang Zhao, March 31, 2022) Since the outbreak of the COVID 19 epidemic in early 2020, the U.S. economy has been hit hard. However, with the increase in vaccination rates, the severe disease rate caused by the Omicron variant has decreased. Governments at all levels have gradually lifted restrictions related to the epidemic, and all walks of life have entered a recovery period. Despite the rapid development of real estate, trade, e-commerce and other industries, there is still a lot of pressure in the hotel industry where Chinese like to invest. (Photo from Dreamstime.com)

Jiang Xiaomin, executive director of Asia Pacific Hotel Group, said that the biggest difficulty for hotels is that they cannot find employees. In 2022, there will be “compensatory” travel and the return to the previous way of life. Coupled with the impact of inflation on the hotel industry, the occupancy rate and house price will rise. In the third quarter of 2022, that is, the three months of July, August, and September, the average house price will rise, exceeding the house price in 2019, an increase of about 19.6%-20%, and the profit of available rooms will return to 82% before the epidemic. standard.

(Hilton -Image from Hilton.com)

"The biggest change in the U.S. hotel industry is the rapid recovery of leisure hotels and the decline in demand for business hotels. The epidemic has changed the travel habits of the entire United States, including the way of work. Companies will avoid unnecessary business meetings. Many people are used to working from home. And after more than two years of lockdown, people will experience “compensatory” consumption." Jiang Xiaomin said.

He believes that in the classification of the hotel industry, individual non-chain hotels and small chain hotels will recover faster, and in the summer of 2022, we will see a rise in budget hotels, while high-end luxury five-star or for large hotel chains, the situation is not so optimistic, and it is estimated that it will not return to a better state until 2024.

(Hotel image from Booking.com)

In addition, the management methods of the hotel industry are also changing. For example, guests and employees can check in and enter the room without contacting them, and guests can pay and leave remotely without going to the front desk. Guests and service staff do not want to see each other. For long-term staying rooms, cleaning is changed from daily cleaning to once every three days. The hotel industry will operate more intelligently due to technological progress, and these changes will be faster in small and medium-sized hotels, so the recovery will be much faster than that of large luxury hotels.

Yang Maosheng, the founding president of the Greater Los Angeles Hotel Industry Association, believes that it is estimated that it will take two years for large hotels to recover before the epidemic. If there is a new epidemic that cannot be controlled, then the source of tourists will be greatly limited. For example, a lot of plane flights have been canceled recently and guests can't come.

He believes that different hotel locations will be affected differently. For example, some small and medium-sized hotels in the Chinese area are engaged in the business of residents. Once households move, their homes need to be renovated, relatives and friends visit, or nearby construction traffic is blocked, they will choose to live in a hotel near their home to spend a short period of time, so the impact of the epidemic will not be great.

In addition, large hotels by the sea will not be greatly affected, because during the epidemic, many people want to stay away from the city and go to places with few people by the sea. Therefore, hotels by the sea will not be greatly affected.

However, large hotels cannot quickly recover to the situation before 2020, especially the hotel industry related to study abroad, business, investment, or the source of tourists from abroad, such as European countries, is more difficult to restore.

(Source: World News Network)

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(We Chinese in America Media Editor Tang Zhao, April 1, 2022) China's Huawei, (Image from Facebook) which has been boycotted by Western countries such as the United States and Europe, recently released an annual report saying that its revenue in 2021 will drop by 28.6%, but its profit will increase by 75.9%. Meng Wanzhou said Huawei may have "passed through the dark zone of this catastrophe". How could Huawei, which has been deeply resisted by Western countries and faced many obstacles to 5G development, reverse the adversity in a short period of time? It is reflected in business and financial operations on the report, and behind it there is a hidden political force that is unfathomable.

Meng Wanzhou was finally allowed to return to China in the US-China secret judicial transaction in September last year after experiencing political wrangling and legal battles between the US and China. After returning to China, she made her first appearance at Huawei's 2021 annual results presentation, continuing her anti-US campaign. The heroic victory gesture announced that Huawei has overcome international adversity in the past year. Although its revenue decreased by 28.6% to 636.8 billion yuan (RMB, the same below), its profit increased by 75.9% to 113.7 billion yuan. The full-year operating margin was 19.1%, doubling the 8.1% operating margin in 2020.

Meng Wanzhou pointed out that Huawei's net profit has increased significantly despite the sharp decline in revenue, which is partly due to the proceeds from business disposal. She did not mention the details of the business disposal (sale) income in the report, but Huawei's annual report listed a net income of "disposal of subsidiary business" of 57.431 billion yuan, in addition to government subsidies of 2.571 billion yuan. These two revenues account for 52.8% of Huawei's 2021 net profit.

According to mainland financial circles, the revenue from Huawei's disposal of subsidiaries mainly refers to the Honor mobile phone sold in November 2020. The reason for the sale is that "the key technologies in the industry are difficult to obtain, and the consumer business is under tremendous pressure." To continue, it was decided to sell the business.” In order to avoid jeopardizing the survival of suppliers due to the closure of Honor, the Honor mobile phone was taken over by Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Company.

Shenzhen Zhixinxin was only established two months before the sale of Honor. It was jointly invested by Shenzhen Smart City Technology Development Group and more than 30 Honor's agents and distributors. The company's equity is 98.6% held by Shenzhen Smart City Technology and 1.4% held by Shenzhen State-owned Assets Collaborative Development Private Equity Partnership.

According to the analysis of financial circles, Shenzhen Smart City Technology, which took the lead in taking over the Honor mobile phone, belongs to the Shenzhen State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. It is equivalent to the state-owned enterprise management department working with some distributors and suppliers under the name of "State-owned Assets Collaborative Development Private Equity Fund Partnership" to take over the loss-making Honor mobile phones. The shareholding ratio of dealers and suppliers is 1.4%, and the rest are arranged by Shenzhen State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. In essence, the state’s money is used to pay for the Honor mobile phone that is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Huawei sold low-end mobile phones that lost money and server units that couldn't buy chips. Its main business, 5G communications equipment, still relies on the support of the government and mainland telecommunications operators. Mainland financial circles believe that the large-scale launch of 5G has not only failed to improve the quality of the network but has actually declined. Even some operators have forced slowdowns on existing 4G users or abolished 4G base stations in order to promote 5G solutions. These practices have attracted widespread criticism. It is obvious that the existing Huawei 5G network faces the same problem as other countries' 5G networks: insufficient user upgrade experience. In addition, the capabilities of the 5G network and the development of the industry chain have not yet reached expectations. There is no clear progress in the business of virtual reality, holographic projection, and the Internet of Vehicles, and the expansion of network applications is extremely limited. If the prospect of 5G in the future is clouded again, many people are concerned about whether Huawei will find the SASAC to take over the 5G business.

(Source: China Times News Network)

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(We Chinese in America Media Editor Tang Zhao, March 30, 2022) The refurbished and reconstructed new center buildings of Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 are completed and will open to the public on April 20. (Provided by LAX)

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the 29th to celebrate the completion of the new center building of the renovated and reconstructed Terminals 2 and 3. The project cost $2.3 billion, and the new areas are expected to open in April.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joined Los Angeles World Airport (LAWA) and Delta Air Lines representatives for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The building is scheduled to open to the public next month, followed by the opening of the new concourse in Terminal 3, with the connection to the international terminal due to be completed in 2023. The entire project was originally scheduled to be completed in 2024, but thanks to the epidemic, the progress was accelerated by 18 months. By then, passengers will enjoy a modern experience and an efficient and seamless experience between terminals.

The new four-story, 770,000-square-foot building is part of a multi-year renovation of the terminal. Its final state will be a 27-door complex that will open to the public on April 20. Departing travelers will access ticketing and check-in, security, and baggage claim through the new facility. The building is designed around a modern, comfortable, and seamless travel experience. Guests are greeted by a 250-foot LED dynamic display behind the ticket counter.

In partnership with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Delta Air Lines eligible travelers can use their digital identities to drop off their bags completely hands-free. The expanded TSA security checkpoint will feature 14 lanes, allowing passengers to move through security faster and more smoothly. In the future, after completing the security check, seamless access to each terminal can be achieved.

The new building is broadly sustainable with an emphasis on environmental protection. Includes low-flow plumbing installations that use 100% non-potable water supplied by reclaimed water. Use low-energy materials in interior space design, improve indoor air quality, and design cool roofs to reduce heat island effects and reduce air conditioning usage. Also includes regionally sourced recycled materials and recycles 75% of construction waste.

Garcetti said that LAX is a core pillar of Los Angeles' economic strength, and this completion will bring LAX to a new milestone that will not only change the passenger experience, but make LAX one of the premier airports in the world.

The modernization of the airport has made the travel experience more comfortable, and LAX will continue to be the backbone of the local economy, said Joe Buscaino, Los Angeles City Councilman and Chairman of the Travel and Tourism Commission. The airport handles tens of millions of passengers each year, and the 2028 Olympics are expected to see an even greater influx of international tourists.

(Source: World News Network)

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