bcla
On our rugged Eastern foothills.....
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2012
- Messages
- 25,615
Before her entry into the Chinese food scene in the US, most "Chinese food" in the US was simple Cantonese food or variations of Cantonese food meant to appeal to American tastes - like egg foo young or chop suey. Her first restaurant in the US was The Mandarin in San Francisco, which was more of a banquet style northern Chinese cuisine. She introduced potstickers and other things that weren't Cantonese. Apparently she had difficulties dealing with suppliers because she wasn't Cantonese and didn't speak the language.
I think that was where I attended a wedding banquet in the 80s of a family friend.
Say what you will about it, but her son is Phillip Chiang, one of the cofounders of P.F. Chang's.
I think that was where I attended a wedding banquet in the 80s of a family friend.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Cecilia-Chiang-an-S-F-legend-and-the-matriarch-15681915.php
She was shocked by the Chinese restaurants in San Francisco. Clad in fluorescent lights, linoleum floors and plastic tables, they were inelegant and worse, monotonous. She would famously recall how all the menus seemed the same, led by Americanized versions of Cantonese food, or even dishes that did not exist in China: chop suey, sweet-and-sour pork, egg foo young, egg drop soup. This was not the complex, graceful regional cuisine of China that she knew so well.
Say what you will about it, but her son is Phillip Chiang, one of the cofounders of P.F. Chang's.
