Screening of Meet and Eat at Lee’s Garden, by Day’s Lee
Free Activity | Space is limited, Reservation required
In conjunction with On the Menu – Montreal: a restaurant story and as part of Asian Heritage Month, the Museum will host a screening of the documentary Meet and Eat at Lee’s Garden. Directed by Day’s Lee, the film traces the history of Lee’s Garden, a restaurant opened in Montreal by her family in the 1950s. Through personal memories and recollections from former customers, the documentary also explores the broader history of the Chinese community in Canada.
The screening will be followed by a discussion featuring the director, Day’s Lee, along with artist Karen Tam and food writer and Jewish culinary historian Kat Romanow, both of whom contributed to the film.
Meet and Eat at Lee’s Garden, Day’s Lee
By Day’s Lee, 45 min., Canada, 2021
Film presented in English, with French subtitles, followed by a conversation and Q&A in English
A daughter recalls her memories of her family’s Chinese-Canadian restaurant called Lee’s Garden, one of Montreal’s first Chinese restaurants to open outside of Chinatown in the 1950s. Through interviews with former customers and families who owned other restaurants, the documentary explores how these early restaurants and the food they served played an important role in the social history of the Chinese and Jewish communities. The restaurants have since evolved from being one of the only means of employment for the Chinese to being the unofficial symbol of the community. Their depiction in art installations and television commercials has raised strong emotions within the Chinese community. As Chinese restaurants and the food they serve continue to evolve, it is these early restaurants and their Chinese-Canadian cuisine that have captured the hearts and memories of people everywhere.
Information
- Free activity in English, presented on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Space is limited | Reservation required - Duration: 90 minutes
- Location: J. Armand Bombardier Theatre
About
Day’s Lee
Day’s Lee is an author and documentary filmmaker. She produced, directed and wrote the documentary Meet and Eat at Lee’s Garden, which was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award in 2022. Lee writes stories about the Chinese Canadian community and is the author of the children’s picture book The Fragrant Garden, and a young adult novel entitled Guitar Picks and Chopsticks. Born in Montreal, she realized that her parents’ generation, who emigrated from China, didn’t have a voice. Language and cultural barriers prevented them from telling their stories of life, loss and disappointment. Lee’s passion is to share their stories and a history that is slowly fading from the public’s memory.
Karen Tam
Karen Tam is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based artist and curator whose research focuses on the constructions and imaginations of cultures and communities through her installations in which she recreates Chinese restaurants, karaoke lounges, opium dens, curio shops and other sites of cultural encounters. Since 2000, she has exhibited her work and participated in residencies in North America, Europe and China, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum, He Xiangning Art Museum, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Karen Tam was the winner of the Prix Giverny Capital 2021 awarded by the Fondation Giverny pour l’art contemporain and was a finalist for the 2017 Prix Louis-Comtois, a finalist for the 2016 Prix en art actuel from the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec, and long-listed for the 2010 and 2016 Sobey Art Award.
Kat Romanow
Kat Romanow is a Jewish food historian, cook, recipe developer, and food writer. For the past 12 years, she has been eating and cooking her way through the rich world of Jewish food in Montreal, sharing it all by way of cooking classes and lectures through The Wandering Chew, a non-profit she founded whose mission is to honour and celebrate the incredible Jewish food mecca that is our city. One of her greatest accomplishments and challenges was running Fletchers Espace Culinaire. Her recipes and articles have appeared in CBC Life, The Nosher, The Canadian Encyclopedia, Plate Magazine, and Tablet Magazine. She is a Montreal bagel evangelist and a lifelong Montrealer who lives here with her husband and four-year-old son.
Exhibition
Until October 18
On the Menu – Montreal: a restaurant story
The exhibition celebrates Montreal’s extraordinarily diverse and inventive food scene from the 1960s to today. Featuring a wealth of audiovisual testimonials, photographs, archives and objects displayed in an evocative setting, the exhibition highlights the evolution of Montreal restaurants, be they delis or fine dining establishments, and their crucial role in shaping the identity of both the city and province.
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