Sometimes its best to just stop and enjoy the roses. In this case, the cherry blossoms were in full force this year from coast to coast as breathtaking as ever.

Click here to beautiful photos by Lia Chang

Enjoy this time-lapse video
created from more than 3,000 digital photos, one taken very three minutes during the 2008 Cherry Blossom festival. Or check out the Brooklyn Botanic Garden CherryWatch website at http://www.bbg.org/cherrywatch

Chef Susur Lee in the lobby of Shang, in the Thompson LES Hotel. (Photo by Lia Chang)

The inaugural 2010 Festival was 100% sold-out; this year’s festival expands to one week from May 2-8, 2011 at various locations throughout New York City. Participants of the LUCKYRICE Festival include members of the LUCKYRICE Culinary Council – Daniel Boulud, Susur Lee, Anito Lo, Masaharu Morimoto, amongst others, to include some of the world’s top restaurants, chefs, and mixologists. Tickets can be purchased at www.luckyrice.com. Proceeds from the festival will again benefit City Harvest.

“We are thrilled to be joined by BOMBAY SAPPHIRE and again by Conde Nast Traveler for the LUCKYRICE Festival this year,” said Danielle Chang, Founder of LUCKYRICE. “I am excited to share Asia’s rich culinary culture with so many New Yorkers and honored to be supported by our esteemed Culinary Council.”

ABOUT LUCKYRICE
LUCKYRICE is an integrated experiential marketing and media company that was launched in the spring of 2010. LUCKYRICE has quickly become the definitive guide to the Asian culinary world, which represents sixty percent of the world’s population. LUCKYRICE understands these cultures and creates a common denominator through the lens of food.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS*
May 2 – 8, 2011 | New York...

From April 1 to 29, Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) celebrates Hanami, the Japanese cultural tradition of experiencing each moment of the cherry blossom season, from the first buds to the full canopy to the multitudes of falling blossoms blanketing the ground.

Cherry Blossoms at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (Photo by Lia Chang)

In Japan, long-established customs associated with Hanami include strolling among the trees and capturing falling cherry petals in open palms. Brooklyn Botanic Garden is the United States’ finest site to experience Hanami, with more Japanese flowering cherries in one place, and a more diverse collection of cherry cultivars, than anywhere in the world outside Japan.

Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden: weeping Higan cherry, Prunus subhirtella ‘Pendula’. (Photo by Lia Chang)

During the Hanami season, visitors to BBG can enjoy several highlights inspired by its collection of over 220 flowering cherry trees:

Free Hanami tours (Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m.) focusing on BBG’s Japanese plant collections and specialty gardens, including the cherries, the C.V. Starr Bonsai Museum, and the Tree Peony Collection.
• Meet the Curator session with Chris Roddick, senior arborist
• Selection of special Japanese menu items at BBG’s Zagat-rated Terrace Café
• The Hanami Collection at BBG’s Gift Shop (both on-site and online atshop.bbg.org), featuring handpicked items inspired by the Garden’s blossoms and Japanese aesthetics

Cherry Esplanade (Photo by...

Friends and family honored Shirley Fong-Torres' life at memorial services in San Francisco on July 24. Her life and vivacious personality touched people worldwide with her books, television appearances, and her Wok Wiz company's daily guided walking and culinary tours of San Francisco's Chinatown and North Beach.   

Shirley was born November 16, 1946 in Oakland, daughter of Connie and the late Ricardo Fong-Torres, and was a graduate of U.C. Berkeley.

She was a teacher in Texas and California, a chef, and after working in marketing for Levi Strauss, she created Wok Wiz in 1985, offering tours, as well as cooking lessons.

Her business drew rave reviews and quickly grew, and she built a staff of tour guides to meet demand. She wrote such books as San Francisco Chinatown: A Walking Tour, The Chinese Kitchen, Wok Wiz Chinese Cookbook, and The Woman Who Ate Chinatown. Shirley wrote articles for many food and travel publications and frequently appeared on radio and television including The Food Channel, History and Discovery Channels, and inflight for Hawaiian Airlines, Qantas Airlines and JetBlue.

She was active in many community groups and often served on the board of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. She had homes in San Francisco and Pacifica.

She and her former husband, Richard Dong, were the parents of Tina Dong Pavao, and she was a vivacious, fun-loving grandmother to Tina’s two daughters with Matt Pavao, Maggie and Stella. Shirley...

April 26, 2018

Newport Beach

The 2018 Newport Beach Film Festival (April 26 - May 3) features great movies and some of the best galas on the planet - with more than 350 films to showcase this year - there is alot to party about!

Here are just a few highlights of this huge festival with a wide range of galas, seminars, and screenings from documentaries to narrative features. Check out the 240 page 2018 NBFF Flipbook. View the schedule for films from Action Sports, Dramas, Culinary, to Irish, European, Latino Showcases. The Pacific Rim Showcase features films from Australia, China, Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.

For the full schedule click here.

Ramen Heads

April 30, 2018 5:15pm

Triangle Cinemas- 1870 Harbor Boulevard 
Costa Mesa, CA 92627 United States 

Osamu Tomita, Japan's reigning king of ramen takes us deep into his world, revealing every single step of his obsessived approach to creating the perfect soup and noodles, and his relentless search for the highest quality ingredients. Five other noodle shops are highlighted in this film directed by Koki Shigeno.

Filipino Spotlight – ULAM: Main Dish 
Lido Theater, 3459 Via Lido 
Newport Beach, CA 92663 

ULAM: Main Dish Follow the rise of Filipino food via the award-winning chefs as they cross over to the center of the American table. This culinary movement is not only a remarkable achievement for American restaurateurs, but also as a validation of...