Despite its world cuisine, New York City was never considered to be famous for Vietnamese food - unlike other cities in California or Texas. But of course, New York wouldn’t have been New York, if it doesn’t have a bunch of Vietnamese restaurants. And as a Vietnamese, I felt more than obliged to try at least one of them.

I read about one place in Chinatown, where they would make their own hand pulled noodles and where true craftsmanship still exists. I thought we should check it out, since the last time I had hand pulled noodles felt like a century ago, when I was only a student in China.

If you love to dine in a beautiful setting with a great ambiance and a cinematic interior that whispers history, than that’s the place to be in Berlin! Once a pharmacy, it is now curing empty stomachs with good food instead of with medicine.

Umami is a clever name for a restaurant that focuses on Asian fusion. It’s a word play that considers the word ‘umami’, meaning ‘pleasant savoury taste’ in Japanese and the word ‘Mami’, meaning mum in German. Together with saltiness, sweetness, sourness and bitterness, umami is one of the five basic tastes, discovered in 1908 by a Japanese scientist named Kikunae Ikeda.