Today’s interesting, very well researched piece by The New York Times’ Frugal Traveller taught me a few things about my own gastronomic backyard as it weaved its way through Vancouver’s diversity of Asian cuisines and influences. For example:

But it also helps to know that Ping’s was once, a couple of decades ago, a Chinese-Canadian restaurant, the kind of greasy, not very exciting place you’d probably avoid. But according to my dinner companions, Alec and Karen Tsang, for a few years of that time, the children of the original owners of Ping’s would take over the restaurant in the evening, rechristening it Ping’s at Night and serving innovative, often vegetarian food in a room lit by black lights. It was a secret then, and an awesome one. The present-day Ping’s Cafe is related only by accident — the new owners found the old awning and decided to keep the name — but unknowingly carries on its tradition of creativity.

Hmm, cool + tip of the hat, NYT. Read the whole piece here. It also touches on Japadog, Rangoli, the Argo Cafe, and Cambie’s Cafe Gloucester.