If you are putting on a performance and there is food promised, expect me to be interested. This was the case when a promo for the curiously named “B&S Food Show Ep 1: Beef and Noodles” landed in my inbox several months ago.
Without thinking, I booked two tickets for myself and a friend, promptly forgetting about it during the hectic festive season. Crucially, that meant I didn’t read too much into what the show would entail.
Held recently at Homebrown in Kowloon City, a tiny independent cafe that has a charming open kitchen and a cooler full of locally produced kombucha, teas and beers, the show was what many would diplomatically call “intimate” or “cosy”. Two rows of benches and stools for the audience had been set up in a narrow space next to the kitchen bar, giving most people a front-row seat to the performance behind it.
Kicking off with light banter and cold brew teas, show creators and performers Samantha Fa and Billy Sy – the latter of whom is the founder of SY Performative Arts – warmed up the audience as they whipped egg whites, stirred broth and puttered around, setting up their mise en place within the tiny kitchen.
The performance format encouraged audience members to interact with the stars through the occasional discussion. Fa and Sy switched effortlessly between cooking and performing their respective monologues, each centred on their personal stories of immigration, identity and fostering family relationships through food – and, yes, they served the titular satay beef and Hokkien noodles.
Both actors spent several years living abroad in the UK and their stories of feeling unmoored and homesick resonated hard with me as I also spent a large chunk of my twenties living in London, far from both immediate and extended family.
