Quartier Asiatique

Today, Jeff judged his first (and hopefully his last) final of the Olympics, the men's 10 meter synchro. The judges panels for finals and semifinals are made up of judges from neutral countries, and this may be the only final without a US competitor.

While Jeff was judging, I took the opportunity to visit the Quartier Asiatique (Chinatown), which is located in the 13th arrondissement. Paris' Chinatown is reputedly the oldest one in Europe. Back in the 1990s, my friends brought me here for dinner. I recall it being rather nondescript. True enough, when I walked along Avenue d'Ivry, I saw lots of restaurants, but I did not see a Chinatown gate or any traditional Buddhist temples. Not surprisingly, the establishments were mostly Vietnamese, with some Laotian and Cambodian restaurants thrown in for good measure.

The beating heart of Paris' Chinatown is the Olympiades complex, a large and somewhat nondescript mall. The facade of the mall was deceptively low key, but once inside, I saw a rabbit warren of shops and restaurants, including Tang Freres, which is a well known supermarket chain founded by Laotian immigrants. I went into the supermarket and bought a number of snacks. I then wandered onto the rooftop plaza and came across a little gem - a temple set in what would ordinarily be a retail space. Wandering in, I heard the elderly temple staff speak Teochew, which is my father's dialect. I had a wonderful conversation with them in a mix of Teochew and Mandarin. I learned that they are ethnic Teochews, and they fled Cambodia for France during the upheaval of the 1970s. Rather tellingly, they replied “Kampuchea” in Mandarin when I enquired about their geographic origins.

After the temple visit, I popped into a Vietnamese restaurant for banh xeo, a stuffed crepe not commonly found in the US.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tang-freres…Leggi altro