A reader passes along news of a Northwest Chinese Pop-up Restaurant event at AVA Lounge Saturday night, June 1, from 7:00 to 10:00 pm at AVA Lounge. To plagiarize the Eventbrite posting:
Come out Saturday for a sampling of authentic Northwestern Chinese food with dishes from the cuisines of the Chinese Muslims and throughout Central Asia. We'll also have beer and be playing various ethnic music from Northwestern China!
Tickets are, as the site says, $6 online through Eventbrite, or $10 at the door. Formerly known as Shadow Lounge, AVA Lounge is located at 5972 Baum Blvd in East Liberty (map).
One of the biggest complaints of Oakland's Kbox, Pittsburgh's first and only Asian-style singing room, has been the lack of much other than Chinese-language songs. Kbox announced today that they've added 8,000 K-pop songs to go with the 13,000 English-language and 70,000 Chinese-language songs available. They've recently made their songlists available online, so you can browse the newly-added Korean songs on their website.
Any reader 노래방 favorites? A friend learned Kim Do-hyun's "사랑했나봐", and the relatively slow speed mades it memorizable for non-native speakers. However, it's not among the 8,000 listed:
These results are similar to the City Paper's last fall, and 2013's haven't changed much from 2012's, with Umi replacing Ichiban Hibachi in the Japanese category and Dasonii bumping Green Pepper out of the Korean. The 2009 reader's poll also put Nakama and Sushi Kim in first place. A poll with more Japanese and Korean voters, though, would probably put Chaya Japanese Cuisine and Kyoto Teppanyaki on the list, and vote Golden Pig first place.
The Maridon Museum has three special exhibits of dolls, figurines, and sculptures on display now through the end of August: "Beautiful Birds", "Entertainers", and "Samurai". The museum is located at 322 North McKean St in downtown Butler (map), and is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.
A documentary worth watching is WQED's "In Country: A Vietnam Story", an hour-long 2006 program that follows a group of Vietnam veterans as make an emotional return to the country for the first time since the war. Accompanying the group is "Friends of Danang", a Pittsburgh-based non-profit with the mission of rebuilding and reconciliation almost exclusively known to the general public for the American destruction there. From a WQED profile [.pdf file]:
In Country: A Vietnam Story, tells two emotional stories; separate yet intertwined. There are the “Friends” themselves, the men and women who travel to and from Vietnam on a bi-annual basis, devoting their energies and talents to building an elementary school for the children of Danang. Their current reconciliation efforts are devoted to providing prosthetic and orthopedic rehabilitation services for children still being maimed by abandoned ordinance from the conflict, as well as funding the construction of a second school.
It's especially significant around Memorial Day, when we consider--among other things--American interpretations of the Vietnam War, a public imagining that focuses almost entirely on its own suffering: the loss of American lives, the tumultuous protests, and the upheaval of a generation. As we noted in 2011, the inscription on the Vietnam Veterans Monument in Pittsburgh, for instance, reads:
Welcome home to proud men and women
We begin now to fulfill promises
To remember the past
To look to the future
We begin now to complete the final process
Not to make political statements
Not to offer explanations
Not to debate realities
Monuments are erected so that the future
might remember the past
Warriors die and live and die
Let the Historians answer the political questions
Those who served -- served
Those who gave all -- live in our hearts
Those who are left -- continue to give
As long as we remember --
There is still some love left.
- T.J. McGarvey
No doubt a moving tribute to those who served and were forced to serve, but trying "not to make political statements" and "not [debating] realities" ignores the scale of destruction half a world away. We don't often enough acknowledge the enormous devastation wrought on Vietnam and its neighbors, the losses suffered by American allies acting on its behalf, and the tension their presence caused to Pan-Asian relationships. A major part of the American response to this war in particular needs to be atonement, not simply an accounting of its own losses, and projects like Friends of Danang are important parts of this.
The 32nd annual Bonsai Show will be held at Phipps Garden Center in Shadyside. (map) on June 1 and 2. It's presented by the Pittsburgh Bonsai Society and is free to the public.
Bruster's expects to add both domestic and international locations, including units in shopping centers, race tracks, airports and other non-traditional sites. The chain also is developing a franchisee referral and incentive program to be introduced this summer, with the goal of adding shops in current U.S. markets and western states. International markets being targeted include South Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Bruster's is a chain based in Beaver County, PA, with 200 locations in the eastern US (and one in Guyana). Elsewhere in the release:
"Bruster's historically has been a spring-summer destination," [Chief Executive Jim] Sahene added. "Adding units with indoor seating, expanding into non-traditional locations and offering a wider array of products will create opportunities for guests to enjoy Bruster's year-round and on more occasions."
New products and flavors, such as meal replacements and snacks, including fresh fruit smoothies with protein powder, as well as regular and Greek soft-serve yogurts, are in development. They will be served in a fun, entertaining "treat theater" style and a colorful new environment. Guests will enjoy more ways to personalize their treats.
If Bruster's does open in Korea, its ice cream will complete most fiercely with Baskin Robbins (1,045 locations) and Cold Stone Creamery (51 locations), two popular and ubiquitous western chains there. Red Mango (94 locations) and Smoothie King (111 locations) are two others covering similar territory. Surprisingy, self-serve yogurt places like Razzy Fresh or Sweet Berry---where customers choose their own flavors of soft-serve and add their own toppings---haven't taken off.
Curbed.com writes that the huge Japanese clothing design and retail chain Uniqlo will open in Philadelphia, joining locations in New York City and San Francisco and becoming the first in Pennsylvania. Uniqlo plans to eventually have 200 U.S. stores by 2020.
A board advertising the coffee buns, green tea buns, chocolate buns, and patbingsu at Sumi's Cakery.
Now that the temperature is consistently higher than my weight in kilograms, it finally appears to be safe to write about patbingsu. 팥빙수 is a Korean summer dessert made with red beans (pat, 팥), fruit, shaved ice (bingsu, 빙수), and occasionally ice cream. A couple of days ago the KoreAm Journal looked at the different varieties that turn up on all the café and fast-food menus in South Korea each summer. In Pittsburgh, about the only place that offers it is Sumi's Cakery, a Korean bakery on Murray Ave. in Squirrel Hill (map).
In larger cities you'll find it in Korean restaurants and cafes, of course, but also at Korean-owned yogurt places. Below is a poster hanging on a Sweet Berry in Oakland that was closed long before the picture was taken in 2011.
