Denver Restaurants Ask: “How Asian is Asian Enough?”

Should every Asian restaurant have chopsticks? If a restaurant uses forks and knives instead, does it lose its authenticity? And what is authenticity anyway?

Is authentic food for a Vietnamese immigrant the same as authentic food for someone born in the US to Vietnamese parents? What if one of those parents is white? What happens if a white person cooks “authentic” Chinese food, but a Chinese chef turns traditional Chinese cuisine upside down? Does it even matter? And if so, to whom should it matter?

A group of Asian companies will try to answer some of these questions on Sunday, October 6 during a Tattered Cover discussion titled “How Asians Are Asian Enough.”

The idea for the panel discussion arose from frustration with Ni Nguyen, whose Denver restaurant, Sắp Sửa, was recently criticized for its lack of chopsticks and accused of trying to gentrify authentic Vietnamese cuisine – comments Nguyen called racist.