As we near the end of Hilary, I’m reminded of how fast the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday I was researching the Oxford food scene at home in California, wondering if I could survive here coming from the thriving Asian food scenes in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. The answer is yes. I can survive, even if it’s been difficult gastronomically at times. I can’t help reiterating that Oxford’s food scene can’t possibly compare to what I’ve grown up with, which has been a recurring theme in my columns.
Yet, my explorations of the local eateries have been a major highlight of my experience here thus far. It suddenly struck me that, six columns later, I still haven’t written a comprehensive column that truly focuses on my experience of being both a foodie and student at Oxford — in true local fashion. That was one of the things I wanted to do here: focus on my everyday eats at Oxford, since sampling local cuisine is such a major part of my lifestyle and cultural values. It doesn’t hurt that local cuisine is also featured in the oft-cited Netflix film My Oxford Year.
There’s some emotional significance there as well. Whenever I’m feeling especially isolated from everyone, I tend to turn to social media to see how other Oxford students are living their lives. I feel connected to others through those day-to-day details, that specificity of what others are doing at exact moments. It’s why I ask people what they did yesterday or over the weekend; it’s why I’m so invested in hearing about what people ate for breakfast. To acknowledge and consider my peers inhabiting different spaces, a local coffee shop or a restaurant on Little Clarendon, makes me more aware of the community here. Even if we’re just temporarily passing through the university, the idea that we’re all in these same spaces at different moments in time emphasises the physicality of being an “Oxford student” and resident. I want to be able to remember what it was like to inhabit this university after I leave.
If there’s one point that’s been drilled into my mind over and over at the Oxford Internet Institute, it’s that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) creates an output based on existing training data. Unlike GenAI, I “feed” myself through food rather than any specific training data. I haven’t explicitly documented any of my days or weeks here. As such, it isn’t entirely accurate, but I like to think that the below walkthrough is a pretty good summarisation, or imaginary “output,” based on an abstraction of my lifestyle patterns. As I write this, I imagine that if I were tasked with theorising what a typical “week in my life” looks like at Oxford, this would be the most accurate summary – and in effect, recommendations – based on all the various bits and bobbles of “data” that have been my gastronomic and academic experiences so far.
It’s Monday. I wake up a bit stressed out over an upcoming formative assignment. I’m also feeling a bit down again after seeing my peers post how much fun they’re having together on Instagram. I go to Holland&Barrett to purchase Vitamin D pills. Then, because I’m so close to Westgate, I decide to head up to the rooftop. I stand there for a while and take in the view. Then I go to Pho and order a warm bowl of noodles for the chilly weather. After I finish my noodles, I head down the escalator to Krispy Kreme and buy an Original Glazed Donut that reminds me of home. I decide to walk back to my dorm, stopping at Black Sheep Coffee on High Street to get a matcha latte. I study in my dorm for a while, then head out around dinnertime for a Najar’s spicy chicken wrap.
On Tuesday, I go to Rincha Thai Café, a recently-opened restaurant with some of the best vibes in Oxford. They truly designed the restaurant with cultural elements in mind. I order a Tom Yum noodle soup and a Thai iced tea in the bag — yet another small detail that makes me reminisce on my travels in Thailand. Then, I decide to go for a mango sticky rice because eating fruits is important, even if I’m cheating a bit by having them in a dessert. After class, I have dinner with a friend at Zheng, my favorite Malaysian restaurant in the Oxford area; their nasi lemak and teh tarik (a Malaysian milk tea drink) are truly out of this world.
I decide to take a trip to London on Wednesday when I don’t have class. I visit Yiqi in Chinatown for some gorgeous pan-Asian food, then HeyTea and Blank Street for matcha (yes, that’s two matchas in one day, but whenever I make the journey to London, it has to be worth it). Then I spend hours just walking around London, taking in the sights. Visiting the city helps ground me and put things in perspective. Nothing is as life-ending as it seems, I remind myself.
Thursday is a day full of back-to-back classes for me, but I choose to grab a Cajun chicken sandwich at Taylor’s on the way to my department, along with a hot latte. After classes, I get stressed again and decide to treat myself (a common theme here in my spontaneous, emotion-fueled spending habits is girl math) and take the bus to Cowley Road. There, I get an early dinner at Zhang Ji, which has arguably the best spicy pork belly around. After all that spice, it’s time for some milk tea. I go to In Cha for a solid mochi oolong milk tea with taro balls, which immediately transports me back to the sunny Californian plazas in the Bay Area.
I’m trying to do all the readings for the next week on Friday, so I’m a bit hesitant about going out to eat. Luckily, the St Cross dining hall is right across from my dorm, so I stop by for a quick lunch of meat and veggies. After some hours of reading, I take a break for my eyes and decide to let them fixate on another screen – the cinema. I walk to the Curzon in Westgate and grab a ticket for the latest film, Marty Supreme. I follow that up with another quick dinner of Taiwanese fried chicken at Ji’s The Chicken Shop in the food court downstairs.
On Saturday, I’m once again feeling a bit down and missing California’s In N’ Out. So I decided to go to Shake Shack, which might be controversial — a Californian is expected to maintain loyalty to the California burger chain rather than the New York one — but what can a girl do? The burger gets the job done, but it’s not quite as satisfying as our California staple. I work on my formative assignment and then head out for a Lebanese wrap at Rozana’s in the Covered Market.
When my Sundays aren’t spent preparing for the week ahead, I’m probably at my favorite Japanese restaurant in Oxford, Shin, in the Gloucester Green bus station square. I choose to get their chicken katsu curry, which is beautifully-plated and delicious. Whenever I eat something that surprises me in a good way, I remind myself that there are great food options in Oxford if you’re willing to venture out for them. They’re sometimes obscured by the all-consuming stress and emotional blues that have oftentimes characterised my time here. Despite that, good food remains the highlight of each day, each week, and my yet-to-finish Oxford year.