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A new play paired with Southeast Asian bites is debuting at a massive festival and expo celebrating Asian food and cultures in San Mateo this weekend.
O.M.G Entertainment – which has thrown Peninsula food events such as the Redwood City Night Market, Millbrae Lunar New Year Festival and Sunnyvale’s Mid-Autumn Food Festival – is bringing its West Coast Asian Foodie Fest and USA Asian Culture and Food Expo back to the San Mateo County Event Center for the third year Aug. 15-16. Expect an indoor expo with plenty of free samples of Asian food products that haven’t hit the mainstream market, as well as an outdoor area with more than 100 food vendors selling dishes from all over Asia.
Brand new this year is a third section of the festival organized by Kampong Collective, a new nonprofit that aims to uplift the voices and culture of the Southeast Asian community. A gallery area will offer seven activities for guests to learn about Southeast Asian culture, while a theater area will debut “Spice & Story,” an original short-form play paired with Southeast Asian bites from local Southeast Asian chefs.
Kampong Collective officially formed in April and grew out of the Singapore Festival held last September at the San Mateo County Event Center. Sharon Sim, the nonprofit’s co-president, explained that because of the success of the inaugural Singapore Festival, she and co-president Tabitha Chee saw an opportunity to not just highlight Singapore, but the broader culture of Southeast Asia.
OMG Group founder Peggy Hsieh attended the Singapore Festival last year and invited Kampong Collective to be a part of the West Coast Asian Foodie Fest, impressed by its immersive theater component. Now, Kampong Collective is bringing a debut 20-minute theater performance to the West Coast Asian Foodie Fest about the “story of three children of Southeast Asian immigrants finding their way in the U.S. (and) figuring out how to honor their past and their parents and their grandparents, but also creating this whole new identity for themselves in the country that they were born in,” Sim said.
Chee wrote the original script and was inspired by her own children’s experience growing up in the United States with immigrant parents. The play has five showtimes throughout each day of the festival, and each attendee will receive a box of five Southeast Asian foods that correspond with topics discussed in the play.
“You could go to Broadway for a decade and they will not feed you, even when food is addressed,” Sim laughed.
The box includes a curry puff (pastry filled with curried potato and onion) and sambal fish balls (fried fish ball and tofu fish cake) from chef Jai Kandayah of MYSelera Bistro in San Jose; kaya toast (toast with coconut-pandan jam) and kueh bingka (chewy cassava cake) from James Beard semifinalist chef Emily Lim of Dabao Singapore in San Francisco; and ondeh ondeh (pandan rice cakes filled with liquid palm sugar and rolled in coconut) from chef Judy Wee of Mama Judy.
“We really want to give voice to the Southeast Asian communities here in the U.S., and how best to do it but to bring out the best of our cultures to show, and a lot of people love the different flavors,” Chee said.
Kampong is a Malay word that means village, and it was chosen as the name of the nonprofit because it’s reflective of a time when doors were unlocked, meals were shared and neighbors looked out for each other, Sim explained.
“We wanted to bring that Kampong spirit into the U.S.,” Sim said. “That’s also very like ‘It takes a village,’ type of philosophy, but we’re calling it with a Southeast Asian twist: It takes a kampong.”
Kampong Collective hopes to replicate “Spice & Story” throughout the country, choosing to start in the Bay Area because of its success with the Singapore Festival.
“If other entities would like to take this and do it with their specific locations or their own audiences, we very much welcome that,” Sim said. “We’re helping build an ecosystem and a platform in the hope that it will multiply and really amplify these voices.”
Tickets for the USA Asian Culture & Food Expo and Asian Foodie Festival are $3.79. Tickets for the Kampong Gallery and USA Asian Culture & Food Expo and Asian Foodie Festival are $12. Tickets for “Spice & Story,” Kampong Gallery and the USA Asian Culture & Food Expo and Asian Foodie Festival are $25. Kids 7 and under are free. “Spice & Story” performances are Aug. 15-16 at 10:30 a.m., 11:40 a.m., 2 p.m., 3:15 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Kampong Gallery and the USA Asian Culture & Food Expo and Asian Foodie Festival are Aug. 15-16 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive, San Mateo.
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