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Show www.dailyutahchronicle.com 5 ARTS Wednesday March 21, 2012 WA WIMINMIR • I IL 7 Vill 5 , -,111.1■1, 7777 . low nS , ME JN rxE GO ers and salads ?liciously ces: ASIAN SPICED ROOT CHIPS 2.50 Our crisp and addictive root chips consist of russet potatoes, purple potatoes, Grass Chicken yams, beets and lotus root. r Pork :ilantro-Chile Pests • Samba! Glazed with ;to .lmor an with Asian Spice glhtl frp, - AL 4.50 0;- El i1 rVAIMIPASIAll) late Chip f ii Nal it y Chef Special! O.ENO COFFEE BAG CALAMARI 7.00 Flash.tned calamari dusted with asian spice, tangy fried lemon slices and delicate fried with a chipotle aid dipping sai I LARON WILSON/The Daily Utah Chronicle SuAn Chow runs a haute Asian cuisine food truck with scheduled lunch and dinner stops all over the Salt Lake Valley. The Chow Truck's schedule is updated regularly at www.chowtruck.com . Food truck moves cuisine to new era Billy Yang STAFF WRITER Food trucks have come a long way. Today's mobile restaurants are shedding the "roach coach" moniker and moving toward haute cuisine. Since 2010, SuAn Chow and her Chow Truck have been at the forefront of Salt Lake City's mobile food movement. Chow has a unique menu infused with flavors from Asia. "Everyone understands tacos or sliders or salads," Chow said. "The twist is the actual base, the marinade, the sauces." Panko-crusted tofu, coconut lemongrass chicken and pineapple ginger pork are some of the menu's mainstays. Chow's flare for blurring the line between regional cuisines might have come from her upbringing. She is a second-generation Chinese-American, born and raised in Salt Lake City. Growing up, her parents owned a restaurant that featured Polynesian-themed decor and a menu of both Chinese and American dishes. Her family spent a lot of time at that restaurant, Chow said. `Act of Valor' falls short of realism in fictional portrayal ar movies are so depressing. They're all death and destruction and questioning of humanity. What we need is a victorious war movie portraying actual servicemen — one that inspires us to go fight and doesn't call into question the ethics of war or the worth of human beings. Could such a movie make us believe in the integrity and honor of U.S. military service? Would it help if it were the most realistic film about the military ever made? Would it matter if the film were just a two-hour recruitment ploy? These are a few of the questions that "Act of Valor" attempts to answer. The film, which opened last month, follows an elite team of Navy SEALs (played by real Navy SEALs) who set out to rescue a kidnapped CIA agent. Financially, the movie has done quite well. After four weeks, it's still in the top io at the box office and has already grossed more than $62 million. It's respectable, but it pales in comparison to movies such as "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax," which has already accrued $158 million. Besides their respective financial success, comparing the two is actually fairly appropriate. Where "Lorax" explores human greed, shows the classic man vs. nature conflict, and pulls back the strings to the proverbial puppet master, "Act of Valor" works the strings like a Russian orchestra. What makes "Act of Valor" different from other military movies is its objective, which is slightly less covert than the operations carried out on-screen. Even though the film was privately funded and a company known as the Bandito Brothers directed it, there's no denying that it's plainly a military advertisement. The film's main selling point — the glaze over its real intentions — is its unabashed action sequences. What action-flick fan LEVI ROGERS StaffWriter wouldn't love to see Navy SEALs using advanced weaponry to blow the crap out of people? What's not clear, though, is what makes this a more realistic movie. Like many of the military's propaganda posters, which feature skateboarders and extreme sports, "Act of Valor" plays up the excitement of being in the military, and, like the name suggests, does so by dangling the valor of service. What "Act of Valor" really makes is an appeal to realism. These are real Navy SEALs, facing realistic challenges and missions. Everything from the hand gestures to the diction is supposedly as real as it gets. "This is not a trumped-up, frizzy Hollywood movie," seems to be the claim the writers, directors and military are making. This is real. But it's not real — because, even if the film is mostly documentary with a little fiction, it's still fiction. It's a for-profit enterprise, so nothing's left to chance. It still has the Hollywood adrenaline-pumping, bulletswhizzing, seemingly impossible escape from death we're all accustomed to, and yet we're supposed to ignore all that and believe it's realistic. "Act of Valor" is as much a work of fiction as "The Lorax." At least "The Lorax" makes us face the damage we do to the Earth and to each other. "Act of Valor" hides beneath a sheen of glowing napalm. War movies are so depressing. Lrogers@chronicle.utah.edu "I saw how hard my parents worked and thought there had to be a better way to make a living," she said. "I always vowed never to get in the business." But in 1985, she started her own restaurant, Charlie Chow's. It was her way of providing a venue for her father to cook traditional Chinese food. "I wanted to rescue my father from his restaurant, which was a dying concept," Chow said. At the time, the public was becoming savvier about food and travel, and Chow saw » GALLERY ONLINE a market for authentic Chinese food in Salt Lake City. "We did black bean mussels and clams," she said. "I was the first to offer dim sum as appetizers on the regular menu." Her father died of colon cancer about a year See FOOD TRUCK Page 6 WHAT DO YOU FIGHT FOR? |