Yellow Fever - Torrance

On the east coast, people thought I was exotic. They looked at me and saw eyes that would forever elude them, a language they could never learn, and a cuisine they could never crave. Their frank curiosity was inescapable, even in Boston and cosmopolitan NYC. When I moved to the west coast, I was in for quite the culture shock. I stepped off a plane and no one stared. I walked into a restaurant and no one gawked. I walked through Chinatown and no one asked for directions. When people spoke, no one was louder and slower, and best of all, no one asked where I was "FROM FROM". 

Ignorance can be as ugly as the Ugly Rolls, but it can also be a lesson learned. Take a bite of what you perceive as strange, and you might see what you're missing. The ugly rolls are truly aesthetically impaired, but they're full of fragrant pork.

Asians are as common as palm trees in SoCal, and practically everything comes with some far-east flair. Yellow Fever is the embodiment of #stuffwhitepeoplelike...except Asian. Think Lemonade, the world's whitest chain. But while Lemonade sacrifices flavor to remain painfully healthy, the Shanghai Bowl delivers guilty pleasure in moderation with refreshing vermicelli and irresistible pork belly bits.

All cultures come together on the west coast, and there are few better fusions than the Parmesan Furikake Fries. American frites, Italian cheese, and Japanese seaweed and fish formulate a far-east bowl of bar food.

Take a lesson from SoCal and catch yourself a little Yellow Fever. Some cultures are just contagious, and Asian is one you want to contract. White people beware, there is no vaccine for this kind of yellow fever.