Home cooking, far from home.
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Food is a love language, but it's not just about what's on the plate. It's about taking care of your loved ones, thinking of their well being, and sharing pieces of your heart through things that we so easily take for granted.
Food was always central to our life, but it was never just sustenance. It was how we showed care, expressed emotion, connected with each other. It was how we loved.
When my family first came to the United States, my mom cooked and catered to make ends meet, feeding young Burmese immigrants who missed the taste of home. They'd pick up their lunches in tiffin tins.
She eventually opened a restaurant in her own name, blending Burmese, Thai, Chinese, and other Southeast Asian cuisines under one roof. Not Too Sweet is my effort to bring those underrepresented tastes into more spaces in New York City, starting in my own apartment.
I'm not a chef, and I haven't trained in professional kitchens. I'm someone with a lot of love for feeding people, for the details that make a table feel cared for, and for the tastes of home that can be hard to find.
Before Not Too Sweet, I taught at and ran the Columbia Bartending Agency, then worked in cocktail bars including Fred's Restaurant at Barneys New York. I'm an immigrant from Burma by way of Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles, and I've lived in New York City for over a decade.
These dinners are part memory, part study, and part homesickness: a way to cook the food I miss, share the places that shaped me, and make room for other people to feel at home for a night.
Dinner dates, menus, and photos from past nights — posted at @nottoosweetsea.
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