Naming is such sweet sorrow

mr. fob lives on. Not in name, but in spirit. This is the ethnic food exploration business that some business school friends and I started last year. We run tours at mom-and-pop restaurants that serve great authentic food from different countries.

The name mr. fob was a riff on FOB, which means fresh-off-the-boat, for the uninitiated. It's used to describe recent immigrants in the Asian community. In turn, the fobs call people like me ABCs (American-born Chinese). mr. fob was a character we created, a kindly middle-aged fob who knew all the great restaurants to go to, and not just Asian ones but miraculously also Oaxacan, Indian, Moroccan, and even Ethiopian restaurants.

Sadly, a few weeks ago our name got around to some people who found it offensive. So they wrote us a bunch of nasty emails and insisted we change it. After much internal debate, we agreed it was our best option.

We are reborn as Tastination. Taste + Destination.

It was quite a grueling brainstorming and selection process, and everyone defended their favorites (usually the ones they came up with) passionately. We could only consider names for which the URL was still available. (Found out there are lots of meanies out there who park URLs and don't use them, then try to charge you loads of money. Like this guy in La Habra who tried to get $10,000 from me for "Hungry Ninja.") In the end, we polled a couple of hundred of our friends and got about 75 responses with the overwhelming favorite being Tastination. We hope you like it.

Here were just some of the names we went through. We might have been a bit delirious when we thought of some of them. Don't ask.

aefla (authentic ethnic food lovers association)
begopa
bepoga
bouffedom
chewtrain
chezsauj

cuisinecompass
cuisineat
eatavenue

eatdownhome
eaticy
eatizen
eatore

eatwithfatty
ethnicfoodie
fattystable
fiestasauce
fiestysauce
fiestytofu
foobuff
fooddummy

foodluva

fooducate
foodventurous

foopert (or with PH)
foopin
foorney
fooyin
foozine

foreignfoodie
gogrubbin
goodwithchopsticks
howyoueat
mahndu
mrJuanTon
mrmandu
mrphoodie
myphood
outdiner
pantanie
pholla
phoodfinder
phoodfinds
phoodles
phoodtown
phorksticks
platefull
reefoo
udany
wantonton
wantony
wewillwokyou
wontanie
wontonie