Before the awards and the queue that curled around the block, before food critics scribbled in small leather notebooks while pretending not to look impressed, there was a boy named Alessio Ferrara in a steaming riverside city of Asia where the rainy season came like a drum, sudden and pounding. The air smelled of fried shallots at dawn and exhaust at noon; at night, hibiscus closed their eyelids and cicadas laid down a hiss that stitched the alleys together.