It’s a little belated, but I wish everyone a wonderful, healthy, prosperous new year ahead, and hope the lunar new year celebrations were great for you! A lot of things around Chinese New Year remind me of my Chinese grandpa and his cooking, as well as some of the foods and ingredients I grew up eating. In the past, I would go to the grandparents’ house to pour tea for them, give blessings and honor them, eat jai and maybe some gau.
I was so fortunate to have opened a restaurant in Shanghai because it was necessary to travel to China many times. I got to eat Chinese food in China prepared by Chinese cooks and immersed myself into the culture, and got to know some really great people. I cannot say enough nice things about the staff. I learned so much about Chinese culture from them. I also learned that dishes like beef broccoli don’t exist there, and if you try asking for mustard and you might get a funny look or ballpark mustard.
The Chinese food we eat in Hawaii often is a hybrid or a Westernized version. To eat more authentic Chinese food, all you have to do is look for where the Chinese people go to eat — and a crowded restaurant is also a good sign.
I grew up eating a lot of Chinese food. Whether in restaurants or from my grandpa, it was good, tasty and it really was what I knew of Chinese food back in the day. Cantonese food was most common here in Hawaii, and if you trace it back to how the Chinese made their way to Hawaii, what area of China they came from, you understand who brought Chinese food to Hawaii first. I remember some celebratory meals at places like Wo Fat restaurant, but mostly they were simple meals. Dishes like sweet-sour pork, shrimp Canton, beef broccoli and egg foo young were ordered all the time. My personal favorites were simple, like noodles of all kinds whether it was in soup or in a gravy — crispy cake noodle especially — cold ginger chicken, lup cheong, dim sum, pork hash and Grandpa’s jook. My grandma taught me that if you order minute chicken cake noodle in Chinese and pronounce it the wrong way you might be ordering chicken poop. Maybe that’s why you never hear me trying to speak Chinese.
I remember going to a restaurant in Shanghai that two Americans opened, one from New Jersey and the other from Pittsburgh. Their sweet-sour sauce for pork was made with a ton of ketchup, vinegar and sugar. It’s what they remembered growing up with in the U.S. when their parents would take them out for dinner for some “Chinese.” They even had takeout containers with the red stamp on it, fortune tea cookies, Chinese chicken salad — all American creations. The menu was supposed to look like you were going to a Chinese restaurant in New Jersey. This place was packed with expats, and at the time, it was wildly successful.
Chinese food was often thought of as an easy, quick, inexpensive way to go out and feed the family as well as being OK to go to with rubbah slippahs and T-shirt. It is, in my opinion, one of the great cuisines of the world. When done well, it’s not anything like I grew up eating. The flavors are deep and layered, and the techniques rival the great European cuisines. You just need to move past the orange chicken and beef broccoli.
By the way, my good friend Buggy makes the best egg foo young in town. Fortunately for me, he taught me how!
Chef and restaurateur Alan Wong has wowed diners around the world for decades, and is known as one of the founders of Hawaii Regional Cuisine. Find his column in Crave every first Wednesday. Currently, Wong is dba Alan Wong’s Consulting Co.
