Neighborhood Worm: Digging Up Local Flavours

In this day and age of global brands, its easy to fall back on the familiar in unfamiliar places. I love the fact that I can get my morning Starbucks coffee (my current fave: iced tall double half toffee nut non-fat latte) in most places that I travel to. That continuity is very comforting. But the places that I love most are the places where I don't need to rely on a standard like Starbucks (let's face it, Starbucks actually does not have great coffee, what they really serve is that Cheers feeling). I would never dream of walking into a Starbucks in Paris! The fun thing about travel is getting to try things that cannot be found, or aren't as good as, at home -- espresso in Italy, satay, hainan chicken rice and Peranekan food in Singapore, Japanese gadgets, etc.

So when I met Gene Miao last year, I was very excited to hear about his new project, DayTauChung, which is Cantonese for neighborhood worm, someone who knows the ins-and-outs of the local neighborhood, all those secret addresses that are unique to that particular place. I finally got an email today announcing that the beta version is up-and-running. Check it out and help him update it with local addresses. Be sure to check out the About page, which lists 5 guiding principles for listings, but also the More Food for Thought makes for a fascinating read about how the project grew out of his RISD architecture degree thesis, drawing on French, post-structuralists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's distinctions between State and Nomad paradigms.