EatingAsia: Robyn Eckhardt, Freelance Writer

Eight years ago Robyn Eckhardt abandoned a dissertation on politics in rural China to write about food. She hasn't looked back, and now writes on food -- and also travel, music, the environment, and architectural and cultural preservation -- for publications such as New York Times, Saveur, Food & Wine and the South China Morning Post.

Robyn is a contributing writer at Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia and reports on food culture in Asia, Turkey and elsewhere for US food and wine website Zester Daily.

She is a former Food Editor at Time Out Kuala Lumpur and the author of Food & Drink chapters for Lonely Planet guides to Kuala Lumpur, Melaka and Penang; Singapore Malaysia and Brunei; and Vietnam. For National Geographic's Food Journeys she wrote five essays on street food in the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. She's been interviewed, on air, about Asian street food culture by the The Splendid Table's Lynne Rossetto Kaspar and KCRW's Evan Kleiman.

Robyn has been living, cooking and eating in Asia -- Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Vietnam and now Malaysia -- for over 15 years. She speaks Mandarin, Turkish, kitchen-and-market Thai, and a smattering of Malay/Indonesian. In another lifetime she also studied Japanese, while earning grad degrees in Asian studies and political science from Harvard and UC Berkeley.

She lives in Penang with her husband and frequent collaborator, professional photographer David Hagerman. When not reporting or writing or overseeing the refurbishment of the couple's late 19th-century shophouse in George Town, Robyn leads private, customized street food excursions in Penang and Chiang Mai.

Contact her at: [email protected]

Selected writings: