What happens when a chef cooks her way back to a heritage she almost lost?

Eva Chin is the chef behind Yan Dining Room — a 26-seat room built inside Hong Shing Restaurant, born out of a fire, where she cooks what she calls "neo-Chinese cuisine": traditions followed, rules broken.

In this conversation we get into how growing up between the US and Hong Kong, training in kitchens around the world, and rebuilding her own identity through food all end up on the plate. We talk about how every dish becomes a vessel for memory and how a private dining room became an intimate storytelling stage. We get into the stereotypes that have boxed in Chinese food in North America since the railroads, her case for "anti-gatekeeping" cuisine, and why she believes food can heal intergenerational wounds that conversation can't.

It's a conversation about identity, authorship, and what it means to cook a cuisine that's still being written.

Chinese Food Isn't What You Think It Is — Eva Chin of Yan Dining Room

00:00 – Yan Dining Room origins
02:21 – Dining room as storytelling
06:41 – Neo-Chinese cuisine & nostalgia
10:36 – “Fusion is confusion”
13:42 – Rewriting Chinese food stereotypes
20:07 – Critics & early reception
27:07 – Wine pairing Chinese food
30:12 – Becoming a chef (no school)
33:10 – Brae & Australia foraging
34:50 – China train journey & Hong Kong wake-up
38:53 – Food, family & healing
41:06 – Moving to Toronto / Momofuku
44:25 – Anti-gatekeeping Chinese food
48:47 – Farmers, terroir & sustainability
54:48 – Future of Yan

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