Big Night - Two Italian-American brothers, chef Primo (Tony Shaloub) and businessman Secondo (Stanley Tucci), open a bistro in New Jersey (named The Paradise) that purports to serve the finest traditional Italian cuisine. However, rival restaurant Pascal's is getting all the business by serving mile-high portions of spaghetti and meatballs and flasks of bad Chianti at exorbitant prices. Secondo gambles on one "Big Night at the Paradise," the finest Italian dinner ever. If it doesn't succeed, he will lose his shirt and be exiled to the old country. This is an intimate story about the immigrant struggle to attain the American dream. (1996)
Tortilla Soup - Widowed Latino chef, Martin, tries to hold is family together through the bond of carefully prepared meals. The food preparation scenes (actually created by Sue Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, the "Two Hot Tamales" of Food Network fame) can be appreciated on many levels: cooking lesson, act of love, devotion, offering of sacrifice, parental love from a man who has a hard time saying "I love you." But Martin is losing both his sense of taste and control over his three fractious daughters. When a pushy, nosy, but very sexy widow name Hortensia (Raquel Welch) comes along, the troublesome sub-currents in the family start to surface. (2001)
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman - Directed by Academy Award winner Ang Lee, this movie depicts Senior Master Chef Chu lives in a large house in Taipei with his three unmarried daughters, Jia-Jen, a chemistry teacher converted to Christianity, Jia-Chien, an airline executive, and Jia-Ning, a student who also works in a fast food restaurant. Life in the house revolves around the ritual of an elaborate dinner each Sunday, and the love lives of all the family members.
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