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Eating around Georgia Tech: Asian food

I ate lunch today with my colleagues Ian Bogost and Aaron Lanterman.  Our destination: Tin Drum Asia Cafe in Tech Square. Quite frankly, I have a mental block against "Asian food."  I wish these people could pick a country and stick with it.  Asian food tries to please everyone and ends up as too wishy-washy to stand on its own as real food.  It's not that Tin Drum's food is bad---it's perfectly passable.  But I prefer food that tastes like someone's mother made it.

If you want to see how simplistic this "Asian" food is, you need look no further than rice.  Even I, a committed Caucasian, know that rice is supposed to stick together so you can eat it with chopsticks.  Tin Drum goes for Uncle Ben-style rice that acts like every grain is coated with Teflon.  Not only is it hard to eat, but the starchy coating that keeps the rice together adds flavor and texture that is an essential part of food from any part of Asia.
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