{"id":633,"date":"2021-11-18T23:03:54","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T22:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/18\/how-a-facebook-group-that-started-in-response-to-anti-asian-sentiment-has-become-a-culinary-community-eater-montreal\/"},"modified":"2021-11-18T23:03:54","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T22:03:54","slug":"how-a-facebook-group-that-started-in-response-to-anti-asian-sentiment-has-become-a-culinary-community-eater-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/2021\/11\/18\/how-a-facebook-group-that-started-in-response-to-anti-asian-sentiment-has-become-a-culinary-community-eater-montreal\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Facebook Group That Started in Response to Anti-Asian Sentiment Has Become a Culinary Community &#8211; Eater Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"cfbc967f0983488262956e73eca9483a\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3859091246952232\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- blok -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3859091246952232\" data-ad-slot=\"1334354390\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n\n<\/div>\n<p>Local 88 unites Montreal restaurants, diners, grocers, and home cooks in an appreciation of Asian food<br \/>Laura Luu was on maternity leave at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, and what she saw happening to the Asian community worried her. The actress was hearing disturbing stories about anti-Asian sentiment relating to COVID-19 disinformation. Some were hitting close to home, with friends and relatives telling her about unsettling situations in the city which targeted them as Asians.<br \/>Montreal police confirmed what Luu was hearing anecdotally: the number of hate incidents and hate crimes relating to race or ethnic origin <a href=\"https:\/\/montreal.ctvnews.ca\/racially-motivated-hate-crimes-up-by-53-per-cent-in-montreal-last-year-report-1.5472848?fbclid=IwAR36FxYdQ5V3RaCQMk53lmgsrvvP33IzxzjkWB9dwrZ73WGXJ6tJBlmX9R4\">increased exponentially from 2019 to 2020<\/a>, and Luu didn\u2019t want to sit around and watch it happen. She decided to start two Facebook groups in parallel: the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/2537319439854894\">Groupe d\u2019Entraide contre le Racisme envers les Asiatiques au Quebec<\/a> (Mutual Assistance against anti-Asian racism in Quebec, GECREAQ), and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/900434453710676\/\"> Local 88<\/a>, a public page dedicated to supporting local Asian restaurants.<br \/>\u201cWithin ten days, the groups were booming within the Asian community,\u201d Luu says, noting that the Local 88 page now has almost 11,500 followers, mostly from Montreal and the suburbs, but with followers from Toronto as well. Luu ultimately left the administration of the GECREAQ page to invest more energy in Local 88. \u201cI was afraid my favourite places would close,\u201d she says. \u201cWith the rise of anti-Asian racism, Asian restaurants here suffered more than the average. I love to eat and I really missed going to those restaurants.\u201d<br \/>The name Local 88 was resolvedly optimistic on Luu\u2019s part. \u201cEight is a lucky number in China. And even though it might not necessarily be the same in other Asian cultures, anti-Asian racism was mostly targeting Chinese descent communities,\u201d Luu says. \u201cPlus, Local 88 is easy to remember and pronounce in English and French.\u201d<br \/>Local food blogger Jason Lee (<a href=\"https:\/\/shutupandeat.ca\/\">Shut Up and Eat<\/a>) has deep roots in Montreal\u2019s Chinatown \u2014 his ancestor\u2019s grocery store is now the Beijing restaurant \u2014 and echoes Luu\u2019s concerns about the possibility of Asian restaurants shutting down during the pandemic. \u201cI always thought my favourite restaurant would be here forever. The anti-Asian situation in the pandemic shook me up, to think that might not always be the case,\u201d he told Eater Montreal.<br \/>Local 88 members use the page for everything from restaurant recommendations to advice on where to find specific dishes. Sometimes it\u2019s the restaurant that pipes up, but more often than not, it\u2019s a crowdsourcing response that shines the spotlight on where to get what.<br \/>That\u2019s how Cindy Ha\u2019s restaurant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.au14princearthur.ca\/\">Au 14<\/a> started getting more orders for their miniature b\u00e1nh kh\u1ecdt, a cr\u00eape garnished with pork and shrimp. One of the city\u2019s original Vietnamese restaurants, Ha was concerned that their regular customers would forget about them during the lockdown. \u201cLocal 88 reminded everyone that we were here, we were open, and we had the dishes that would fulfil those cravings for comfort food. I can see that whenever I post information about a new dish, or someone recommends a dish from the restaurant on the page \u2014 like the b\u00e1nh kh\u1ecdt \u2014 because our orders go up.\u201d<br \/>Eric Ku from Chinatown\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/order.chkplzapp.com\/dobe-andy\/menus\">Dobe and Andy<\/a> echoes Ha\u2019s observations about the page. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a good platform to keep the community aware of new dishes that we\u2019re putting out,\u201d he says. <a href=\"https:\/\/teochewfoodie.ca\/\">Teochew Foodie<\/a>\u2019s Chanel Dai says it\u2019s a good platform to promote products because its members are interested in learning about Asian food. And the community pitches in with their expertise, too. In one case, local Asian food writer Victor Yu shared information about poon choi, a special Cantonese dish for the Chinese New Year holiday, which Luu says generated interest and sales for restaurants on the South Shore and Chinatown.<br \/>Restaurants can post information about special dishes and promotions at any time, subject to moderation from Luu and her team of administrators. Twice a week, home-based suppliers are allowed to share information about everything from special fruits (rambutan, dragon fruit, and durian, among others), wagyu beef and seafood, to Thai, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese foods. (Promoting homemade sushi is not allowed, however, due to health and safety concerns from raw fish.)<br \/>Buying from home cooks is a tradition for Linh Le Kim, whose own pop-up, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/anchedesserts\/?hl=en\">\u0102n Ch\u00e8<\/a>, specializing in classic Vietnamese desserts, has been featured on the page. \u201cThere\u2019s an informal economy called \u0111\u1eb7t in Vietnamese,\u201d she says. \u201cLiterally it means \u2018order\u2019 \u2014 a grandmother will make food for her family and have extra batches of food to sell on the side. That\u2019s the kind of thing I look for on the page, and there\u2019s always something.\u201d<br \/>The inclusion of home cooks and suppliers is seen as a positive by most members, even by some restaurateurs. \u201cI love the fact that it\u2019s really restaurant based but they allow others who are selling as a side gig to post on certain days,\u201d says Dobe and Andy\u2019s Ku.<br \/>\u201cThe page has become a speakerphone for what\u2019s happening in the community,\u201d says Jason Lee. \u201cPeople share other information on the page, too, like when there were break-ins at restaurants in Chinatown, and Dak Hing on Van Horne, that news got shared on Local 88 and it raised awareness about what\u2019s happening in the community.\u201d<br \/>From local news to dalgona candy and bubble tea, Local 88 is a treasure trove of information and voices. \u201cFor me, the page serves two purposes: promoting our community and serving as a reminder to us that there are lots of restaurants worth checking out that you might not know of or be thinking about,\u201d says blogger Lee. \u201cIn the end, we can\u2019t necessarily count on anyone\u2019s business but our own.\u201d<br \/>Sign up for our newsletter.<br \/>Check your inbox for a welcome email.<br \/>Check your inbox for a welcome email.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/montreal.eater.com\/2021\/11\/17\/22787232\/local-88-facebook-group-montreal-asian-food-restaurants\">source<\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Local 88 unites Montreal restaurants, diners, grocers, and home cooks in an appreciation of Asian foodLaura Luu was on maternity leave at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, and what she saw happening to the Asian community worried her. The actress was hearing disturbing stories about anti-Asian sentiment relating to COVID-19 disinformation. Some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAow1sXXCw:productID":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monblogeur.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}