This is a very good article on the history of Chinese food in America, written by a Toisan man graduated from UCLA.
“In 1978, people in LA started talking about this great new Hong Kong-style restaurant that had opened up in San Francisco,” Chan says. “It was called Kam Lok. People from LA would fly up there just to eat. My wife and I flew up in the morning, ate there for lunch, ate there for dinner, then flew back in the evening. It was so much better than anything we’d had here.”
He went back to eat at Kam Lok earlier this year. Read to the end to see how he liked it.
That same year, the Asia Society in New York commissioned a story on Chan’s favourite Chinese restaurants. Chan wrote back with a dry list. When the editor followed up, asking why his list only contained places in California and none in New York, he replied with a casual aside, explaining how, in his opinion, New York Chinese food had been stagnating for years as immigration patterns shifted, and was rotten compared with that available in California.
While I hate to rip on a fellow brother (same village and school), come on, below says it all:
It was in this gastronomic crucible that Chan developed a taste for what would remain one of his favourite dishes well into adulthood: soy sauce on rice.
I do agree that NY Chinese food is not that great at all. I am obviously used to the style of cooking here but frankly I have been back to NY so often and have eaten at some of the finest ones back there (wedding banquets or family outings) that I really don’t recall saying wow this is really good OR so much better than San Francisco. Meaning, having multiple meals at different spots where place after place killed it, cheap or not. Vancouver, Seattle, Los Angeles I would say you can find good stuff.
First time I’ve seen this thread, and while I appreciate being the subject of the article, the author did take a bit of license with some of the facts. I outgrew soy sauce rice many decades ago despite the implication that it’s still one of my favorites. Also statements that I don’t like to eat, and I never return to the same restaurant are also inaccurate.
I also find it ironic to see this topic on a real estate message board since I spent 45 years as a real estate tax attorney.
Lately it has become a Covid19 message board. Help us change it into a restaurant board. Restaurants are finally reopening again. It would be great to find out what is good. I live in Tahoe, with very few Chinese food options. But we do have good Thai and Vietnamese restaurants that serve Chinese American food.
What Chinese restaurants remain open or have recently reopened is a major topic throughout the US on two separate levels. More obvious is the issue of where to find Chinese food right now. However at least as important is the fact that Chinese restaurants in the US are disproportionately family run operations and more at risk during the pandemic. As such there is a sense of duty among many diners to particularly patronize these mom and pop restaurants. In the heavily Chinese San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles, a Facebook group has been created highlighting restaurants, predominantly though not exclusively Asian, that are currently open to further both of these objectives.
