XO Soused Special - British Chinese cuisine - Wong family dynamics in the 1990s-2000s

Episode 2 goes inside Andrew’s family as they battle to carve a space in London’s hospitality sector .

As Britain’s Asian restaurant sector transformed in the lead up to the new millennium, so too did the ambitions of many a restaurateur -not least Andrew’s father, who constantly cast about for new ideas and concepts.

What kind of pressures, limits and opportunities did this present to the family? How did the teenage Andrew understand these forces as they impacted on his father in particular? What did it mean to have a family business in this patriarchal world, and where did it leave Andrew’s mother and Andrew when his father passed away?

An image of photo of the interior of Kym’s - one of Andrew’s father’s restaurants - in the 1990s with a teenaged Andrew in a front-of-house role. Source: Andrew Wong

Tomorrow: British Chinese cuisine - Wong family dynamics from 2008 - the present

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Intro and outro music: 遊子 [wanderer] by mafmadmaf.com

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