What's New?
23rd August
Well time has flown and lots has happened with my life.
I am now a
proud father and as such site updates have been impacted I'm afraid!
CantoDict is still going strong though and I hope to find time for some useful updates soon.
On a less positive note, we are currently undergoing a spam attack, so please bear with us while we
try and deal with this.
/\dam
Last 10 posts in our forums:
Re: Support to RECALL Radical Socialist Governor Gavin Newsom 14:02 by ♭♫
[+-]The Democratic party creates problems so that they can pretend that they are "solving" problems with scams using federal funds just like the playbook from the Southern Poverty Law Center getting caught for funding the KKK in order to solicit donations to fight the KKK.
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BREAKING NEWS: Speaker Johnson Issues Full-Throated Warning About Communism Amidst DSA Gains
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♭♫
When Socialist-Democrats decriminalized theft in California, thieves were embolden to steal more things causing many retailers to leave California. When California became a sanctuary state, illegal migrants from all over were incentivized to go to California and exploit social welfare and health programs that are bankrupting the state so the state needs to increase taxes to pay for people who aren't legally allowed to work but are taken care of by state programs that should take care of our homeless people first. If the "Stop Nick Shirley Act" is passed, that will embolden more criminals to set up shop in California and commit more fraud against the Federal government. This is how the Democratic party evolved into a socialist party and then into a communist party. Anyone who escaped Red China can see through how the Democratic party has been hijacked by socialist communists.
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07/22/2026 by ♭♫
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marketech-apac.com]
Hong Kong – Singapore-based media company So Drama! Entertainment has entered into a strategic partnership with TVBI Company Limited, the international arm of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB, to widen access to Cantonese entertainment content and strengthen audience engagement across Singapore and Hong Kong, the companies announced on 20 July 2026. 07/22/2026 by ♭♫
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Re: A Glimpse of how Failed Sanctuary City Policies Backfired and is creating more problems then it solves 07/22/2026 by ♭♫
[+-]So far, the fraud pattern are massive in sanctuary cities which itself is a fraud.
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as major fraud investigations take place across America certain politicians are running from allegations they have deep connections to illegal behavior. 07/21/2026 by ♭♫
[+-]Please support our Chinatown businesses so that they can continue to support the rest of the community. When Chinatown thrives, then the communities around Chinatown also thrives. Chinatown is high tide and lifts all boats which is why we need to protect Chinatowns with Chinese-owned mom and pop shops from failed government policies. These small businesses have a common cultural denominator in which you can see altars in the back with offerings worshiping the god: Guan Gong.
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I Spent $1,000 on Chinatown Food... Then the Night Turned Chaotic
I went to San Francisco’s Chinatown before closing to gather enough food for people experiencing homelessness in the Tenderloin.
Several places were already sold out or closed, but one bakery and one barbecue restaurant were still able to help complete the meal.
We brought dim sum, chow mein, chicken,roast pork, rice noodles, walnut cookies,drinks, and more to the streets.
What followed became one of the most overwhelming feeding nights I’ve experienced.
There were beautiful moments, difficult moments and lessons I will carry with me into every outreach that comes after this one.
Thank you to everyone who supports From Heart to Hand and helps make these meals possible. 🤍
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♭♫
Tenderloin is referred to as "Little Saigon" in Cantonese.
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I went into San Francisco’s Chinatown before closing to gather food for people experiencing homelessness in the Tenderloin.
I wanted to build a Chinatown buffet with whatever I could find - chow mein, fried rice, string beans, sweet and sour pork, fried chicken, breads,, egg tarts, watermelon and water.
Some places only had what was left.
Some orders had to be adjusted.
Some still gave with so much heart.
By the time I started serving,the day became more overwhelming than I expected.
People wanted to help.
People stood close.
And I was learning, in real time, that love also needs space and boundaries to move safely.
Even though the day felt messy, the food still reached people.
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Lifting the community one bun at a time
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In-N-Out Wouldn’t Take My Order… So I Went Into Chinatown Before Closing
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♭♫
She lifts 2 communities at the same time.
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I went into Chinatown before closing and asked if any shops had leftover food they’d be willing to discount if I bought what was left. Little by little, one yes turned into another - and by the end, I brought trays of Chinese food, bakery items, and desserts back to feed people on the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin.
What started as a quiet ask became more than I expected. Not just food, but small moments of kindness, people remembering what was brought before, and care continuing even after the meal was over.
This mission is never only about food.
It’s about presence.
It’s about returning.
It’s about carrying what you can, and meeting people where they are with dignity, compassion, and care.
07/21/2026 by ♭♫
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chicago.suntimes.com]
The race is Project Vision’s biggest fundraiser of the year. As of Saturday, it had raised nearly $35,000 in online donations for underserved Asian American youth in the Chinatown area. 07/21/2026 by ♭♫
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Re: Cantonese Style Beijing Duck 07/21/2026 by ♭♫
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washingtonian.com]
Another section of the menu is also devoted to Cantonese barbecue, including a Canton duck set. Yu plans to bathe the bird in duck fat and roast it on a French rotisserie. The breast will be served with bao buns, while the rest of the meat will be taken off the bones and incorporated into a lo mein with fresh noodles.
Kroll, a sommelier by trade, plans to pair the food with plenty of sparkling reds, light chilled reds, and smoky-peppery reds, which he says is “phenomenal with duck.” For whites, he’s eschewing subtlety for highly aromatic, volcanic, savory, and floral wines. “When you have intensity of a flavor like this, you need intensity of flavor in wine,” he says. 07/20/2026 by ♭♫
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www.thestar.com.my]
A CANTONESE opera singing group in Ipoh is working to preserve the centuries-old art form in the 21st century.
Dwindling public interest, rising operating costs and the difficulty in attracting younger performers are just some of the challenges faced.
Among the association’s current crop of opera singers is a 15-year-old, offering a promising sign that the art form can still capture the interest of younger generations.
Lau, a long-time member of the association, said his interest in Cantonese opera began as a teenager growing up in Penang.
“Back then there was no television. Every afternoon, the government radio station would broadcast Cantonese opera songs.
“I would listen while following the lyrics printed in Chinese newspapers. That’s how I learned to sing.”
The group has begun offering free training in an effort to nurture a new generation of performers. 07/20/2026 by ♭♫
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www.latimes.com]
The delicious rewards of seeking out Cantonese micro-cuisines in L.A.
Pork belly steamed with shrimp paste at Bao Kee restaurant in Hacienda Heights.
Pork belly steamed with shrimp paste at Bao Kee restaurant in Hacienda Heights. (Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
June 6, 2026 7 AM PT
High on my list of dream trips: a couple weeks roaming and eating through China’s Guangdong province with friends born in the region.
Hong Kong and Macau are the most obvious famous touchstones around Guangdong (previously in the West called Canton, which was a corruption of its name in English first begat by Portuguese traders in the early 1500s), though both those cities are technically their own Special Administrative Regions. The province covers nearly 70,000 square miles, and its recorded history stretches back at least 2,200 years. It’s safe to say — at the source and in the diaspora — that the monolithic umbrella of “Cantonese cuisine” hardly covers variations between Guangdong’s zigzagging coast along the South China Sea, its port city capital Guangzhou on the banks of the Pearl River Delta and its many inland communities.
L.A.’s regional Cantonese cuisines
A few years back, I wrote about running around Los Angeles seeking out the specific, light-handed, seafood-rich specialties of Chiu Chow, one Pinyin term for Chaozhou, or Teochew, the name referring both to the city about 180 miles northeast of Hong Kong and its cuisine. My guide was Lee Man, a food writer and scholar of Cantonese cuisines (really, they’re plural) who lives in Vancouver. Among our stops: Seafood Palace in Monterey Park for “Chiu Chow special porridge” infused with the flavors of oyster, dried shrimp and preserved vegetables.
This week, The Times published my review of Bao Kee Cafe, a four-year-old restaurant in South El Monte with two destination-worthy strengths: delicious soups that also happen to emphasize ingredients from Chinese medicine traditions, and Toisanese dishes that reflect the owners’ origins.
Toisan, alternatively spelled as Taishan or Hoisan, is on the other side of Guangdong, about 75 miles west of Macau, and is notably where the first wave of Chinese emigrants departed for the United States beginning in the 1850s.
I had three guides through Bao Kee: Imen Shan, owner of Tea Habitat in Alhambra and long the primary supplier in my oolong habit, and photographer-writer Dylan James Ho, who brought his mom, Bessie, to one of the meals. All three of them have Toisanese heritage.
The review focused on the original Bao Kee location; owners Bonnie Chen and Kevin Liao also run a second, larger Bao Kee in Hacienda Heights with an expanded menu. My curiosity around the slightly more rustic style of Toisanese cooking hadn’t yet quelled, so Shan and I met there for lunch this week.
Shan first nudged me toward the tiny South El Monte cafe for her love of the soups, and at the Hacienda Heights location I saw why: The soups at the original are superior, with a wider selection and more concentrated broths, gripping in their pure-chicken or pleasantly bitter-herbal flavors.
Hacienda Heights, though, is where one finds a very Toisanese specialty for a group: a clay pot full of deeply seasoned rice tossed with sliced eel, earthy and faintly sweet and mimicked in slippery textures with slivers of shiitake.
Eel claypot rice, a Toisanese specialty from China's Guangdong Province, at Bao Kee in Hacienda Heights.
Stir-fried green beans flecked with minced pork also included a distinct condiment that’s often translated as “olive vegetable” in English. It’s known in Cantonese as laam choi, a mixture of preserved olive and mustard greens that adds the expected brininess but also mushroom-adjacent umami. A dish of resonant, sustaining elements that brought appreciated contrast to the meal.
Our favorite part of the meal
A clear winner on the table: tiles of steamed pork belly smeared with shrimp paste, which led with a knuckle-sandwich pungency but quickly mellowed to a stereophonic sort of shrimp flavor.
Shan swooned. “I love this over white rice with nothing else.”
The menu goes in plenty of directions we didn’t follow: Chinese American classics like fried shrimp and walnuts or ginger beef, Hong Kong-style meats like five-spice goose best ordered ahead, the obligatory incorporation of Sichuan dishes so in line with restaurants’ desire to please the broadest tastes. Easily, the biggest joys came from zeroing in on Toisanese specificity, which, if you’re hunting, tend to be labeled as “Taishan.”
It was heartening to see the dining room mostly full around noon, and then the midday crowd disappeared by 2 p.m. Leaving the empty restaurant, I noticed a basket near the register filled with zongzi (or jung, in phonetic Cantonese), the glutinous rice bundles wrapped in bamboo leaves. Shan, deciding to buy a couple, pointed out these were stuffed with preserved egg and the more pliable, winey-sweet Toisanese sausages.
Stir-fried pork belly and green beans with minced pork and olives at Bao Kee in Hacienda Heights.
“These are especially popular now because it’s Dragon Boat Festival season,” she said. “It’s amazing to watch the super-intense rowers in these elaborately decorated boats race down the Pearl River.”
Yet another reason to book a ticket to Guangdong and to appreciate what we have here.
Bao Kee Restaurant: 2111 S. Hacienda Blvd., Hacienda Heights, (626) 333-2168, baokeecalifornia.com 
