Monday, February 05, 2007
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Fusion cuisine gone mad
Not far from our new flat is one of the most unusual combinations of ethnic cuisine I've ever seen in one place:

("Dardana Chinese and Albanian food": photo linked from mattsal.com)

I'm not at all familiar with Albanian cuisine, but a skim of a few websites (marga.org, wikipedia, boston phoenix) suggests it's not a million miles away from Greek/Turkish/other Middle Eastern cuisines (one Albanian restaurant featuring caged animals should probably not define the cuisine). And has very little in common with Chinese food (at least, any variety I can think of). There are a couple of Chinese restaurants in Albania (Asian restaurants in Tirana), but their descriptions suggest there's nothing particularly Albanian about them besides their location. I have no way of knowing whether there are any Albanian restaurants in China, but I would suspect there are not many. Leading me to wonder whether this particular establishment is (literally) unique (no doubt this claim will be quickly debunked by someone out there, perhaps by an expert on Sino-Albanian relations).

I imagine that it's not really a fusion restaurant in the typical sense of the term (grape leaves stuffed with Peking duck? Sweet & sour chicken with olives and boiled eggs?), but more likely offers an Albanian menu, plus a Chinese takeaway menu to pay the bills. We'll just have to see what happens when we finally (inevitably) pay a visit.

consume
Monday, February 05, 2007 3:17:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  |  Related posts:
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Monday, February 05, 2007 6:35:06 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Do let me know!! Probably you will blog about that too. My guess is that Dad is Chinese and Mom's Albanian and they have fused food too. Or Vice versa, of course.
Big Mama
Monday, February 05, 2007 11:11:26 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I was passing there the other evening and could see in the window for once. It actually looked alright in there and it was reasonably full. Of course the bus wasn't close enough to establish what they're serving there. I'd be delighted to accompany you on any future visit.

Maybe the Chinese food is just leftover from the previous tenants and they'd don't want to waste it...
Sarmoung | sarmoungAT NOSPAMlivejournal dot com
Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:39:35 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Chinese and Albanian, intriguing, especially as I was googling for 'Lincoln's Inn', so I entered chinese + albanian into google as well. Also intriguing, here's a selection:

"A selection of Chinese Albanian dictionaries"; "Chinese, Albanian Leaders Meet on Relations"; ".. Foreign Ministry of Chinese-Albanian and Chinese-Yugoslav Relations"; "This document reviews Albanian-Chinese relations during the mid-1960s"; "Chinese-Albanian Relations: The End of an Affair?"; "Albanian-Chinese Simplified" and much, much more.

I must look up sahara + polar bears ...




Richard Schroder
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