NY Times · Aug 6, 2024
The Tiny Chinese Restaurant That Became an Olympic Hot Spot
For the past two weeks, Tang Zhongqiu’s narrow restaurant, Yang Xiao Chu, has been transformed into a bustling, unofficial hangout for Olympic table tennis fans.As Tang Zhongqiu knows, there often comes a time in an Asian person’s trip to France when one grows weary of the endless parade of bread and seeks respite in a simple bowl of rice.
This is true of backpackers and businesspeople and, it turns out, Olympic table tennis champions.
So while Tang assumed there would be an uptick in customers at his Chinese restaurant in the 15th arrondissement of Paris after a nearby convention hall was converted into the table tennis arena for the Summer Olympics, he had no idea it would be like this.