Chopsticks Or Fork?: Season One – TV Review

TL;DR – This is a delightful documentary exploring a world that hits a deep nostalgic note for me.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I watched this on ABC IView

Chopsticks Or Fork? Image Credit: ABC TV.

Chopsticks Or Fork? Review

Tonight I was looking for something to watch as I ate my dinner, and in a world of streaming where you have so much choice, it is almost paralysing at times just to pick one thing. But as I sat there with all those windows open, there was this moment when a documentary series about rural Chinese restaurants in Australia appeared, and it intrigued me. Now that I have watched every episode, I can tell you that this was the right choice.

So to set the scene, the premise of this show is that presenter Jennifer Wong and the crew, including director Lin Jie Kong, travel to rural towns in Australia to look at the Chinese Restaurants that take up a focal point in these communities. Here we get a show that is a part travel show, part food exploration, and part look at the intersections of culture these restaurants make. We get these stories and more as we meet six different families from restaurants across Australia from The New Bo Wa in Moree, Raymond’s at Malua Bay, Oriental Palace in Hervey Bay, Pagoda Chinese Restaurant in Atherton, Gawler Palace & Happy Garden in Darwin.  

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TV Review – Carpark Clubbing

TL;DR – This might be the most joyous, charming, and a little bit absurd series I have seen in a very long time.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Carpark Clubbing. Image Credit: ABC.

Review

Comedy is one of those genres that is so difficult to get right. Sure it is not hard to make people laugh uncomfortably at gross-out jokes and the like. But for something to be truly funny you have to care about the characters involved. This is how shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, Parks and Rec, and Futurama (to name but a few) work. Today I get to look at a show that did all of that and more, but it did it in only 8 minutes.

So to set the scene, we open in Western Sydney in a carpark of the local doughnut stand Double Dee’s. Bonita (Monica Kumar) and her friends are getting ready to go out to the city when a mixup at the shop leaves her doughnuts with Sokhey (Sophea Op). Hoping on over to her car to sort it all out she gets left behind by her friends and decides to wait there while her Uber is coming. Which is the point when Nashrah (Tasnim Hossain) gets kicked out of her learner driver lesson and then there was three.

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