Chinese Restaurants
A Chinese Restaurant in Venice (with a boat docked out front)
Sunday, May 4th, 2008My friend Kathleen took a photo of this Chinese restaurant in Venice for me (love the boat out front).
Chinese restaurants, Italy, photo, venice
Chinesefoodmap.com, for Chinese people.
Monday, April 28th, 2008This is awesome (though it’s in Chinese): www.chinesefoodmap.com, a Google maps mashup of Chinese restaurants that Chinese people want to eat at across the country, with ratings.
Chinese restaurants, chinesefoodmap.com, google maps
This is the Chinese restaurant story about waizhou that started it all
Sunday, April 20th, 2008Sometimes people ask how it came to be that I would write a story on Chinese restaurants. The story actually starts two years before the book with a story I did for the New York Times, published in January 2003, on a Fuzhounese immigrant family that travelled from New York City to rural Georgia to […]
Facialisation and racialisation…Fortune Cookie Chronicles’s Academic Cousins
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008A reader just sent me a blog summary of an academic paper on Chinese takeaways in Great Britian.
The title of the paper, by David Parker, is ‘The Chinese Takeaway and The Diasporic Habitus- Space, Time and Power Geometries” — which is just a fancier way of saying “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles” (kidding). It is published […]
Zoe’s in Somerville, where the Chinese go to eat
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008I did my WBUR interview with Here and Now at Zoe’s in Somerville, which is ote cited asone of the most authentic Chinese restaurant in the Cambridge/Somerville area. (See Yelp reviews, which have mixed opinion on the authenticity).
It’s a place where the dominant language spoken over tables is Chinese — especially last night since […]
Harvard Advocate poster with Chinese Take-out Carton
Monday, March 17th, 2008I think the posters for my events are quite adorable and amusing. This one from The Harvard Advocate (and another one I will show from the Library of Congress) uses symbols of Chinese-ness (fortune cookies and takeout boxes) that are actually things largely indigenous to America.
The takeout boxes are so American they are not really […]
My Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World, on the brink of bankruptcy?
Saturday, March 8th, 2008So the restaurant that I picked as the “Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World” is struggling and may be on the verge of bankruptcy, according to the Vancouver Sun, which is really sad.
Sam Lau’s business (like many Vancouver Chinese restaurants) is being hammered by cheap flights to Hong Kong and the weakness of the […]
Newsweek! An interview at Tang Pavilion
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008Newsweek has a pretty lengthy feature in their books section this week by Jennie Yabroff (who asked really engaged questions about immigrations and bigger thoughts, where I really had to think, like didn’t have stock answers for).
For the interview, we went to Tang Pavilion, near the MoMA in Midtown East, which is known for its […]
Hong Fu, you have to wonder if this was meant with irony
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008Driving along in Cupertino. Again, had to stop and take a picture
Chinese restaurants, Cupertino, Hong Fu, quirky
So what is ‘authentic’ Chinese food anyway?
Sunday, February 10th, 2008Fred Ferretti, a food writer, has a critical piece in The New York Times op-ed page about the authenticity of Chinese food in America. (Ripping on Chinese food in America seems to be a resonant topic for The New York Times op-ed page/NYT Mag this year, see previous pieces by the Zagats, Nicole Mones and […]
Indian Chinese food, catching on in Singapore?
Thursday, February 7th, 2008Reuter’s Gillian Murdoch seems fascinated by the emergence of Indian Chinese food in Singapore, writing a fairly substantive review of a restaurant there. Singapore, remember, has substantial ethnic Chinese (East Asian) and Indian (South Asian) populations — and the food in the region often reflects that. But Indian Chinese food is not the same as […]
A welcome letter to the Baghdad Chinese Restaurant
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008A friend of mine who works in the Baghdad bureau ofThe Los Angeles Times sent me a welcome letter that his translator wrote to the owner of the new Chinese restaurant in Baghdad (which was informed, in part, by reading this blog).
Dear Sir,
I was yesterday following up some stories on the web about your restaurant, […]
Story #3 on the Baghdad Chinese restaurant, this time by ABC
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Yet another story on the Baghdad Chinese restaurant (really, people love Chinese restaurants), this time a Reporter’s Notebook by Hilary Brown of ABC. This restaurant will soon be the most covered restaurant in all of Baghdad
My favorite excerpts:
There’s no menu so I had the bright idea of calling ABC’s Beijing bureau to find out what […]
More on the Baghdad Chinese restaurant: no Sweet and Sour Pork
Friday, January 25th, 2008Media just loves the Chinese restaurant in Baghdad story. The Times of Lonndon also takes alook at the Chinese restaurant in Baghdad with a piece that is horribly headlined: “Chinese chefs take a wok on the wild side in world’s most dangerous city.”
Tidbits we learn
It is probably the only non-Iraqi restaurant — and possibly the […]
Chinese restaurants return to Baghdad
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008h
The security situation must be improving in Baghdad: A Chinese restaurant has opened in the Karrada neighborhood. (There had been several Chinese restaurants in Baghdad beforehand, including two in the Green Zone, but all of them they had closed down as security got worse and worse). Menu is limited, but it includes dumplings. And they […]
This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed at home. This little piggy went to dim sum…and ended up roasted
Monday, January 7th, 2008These two pigs were spotted in Jing Fong in New York City’s Chinatown after dim sum with friends (one who said “Ooh! Make sure to get the Christmas tree in the background). Given that Americans don’t like to reminded their food ever ran, swam, flew or breathed, this would probably not go over well with […]
Super Chinese Delivery: Chinese hot dogs via FedEx
Thursday, December 20th, 2007Here is an email from the owner of Chai Peking glatt kosher Chinese restaurant in Atlanta about my City Room post about his (yummy!) Chinese eggrolls.
A gentleman from Chicago read the article and ordered, I believe, 6 Chinese Hot Dogs to have shipped Federal Express to him.
My question. Wait. Did he freeze them? If so, […]
Has Bloomberg really eaten in the 2,500 Chinese restaurants in New York City?
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007In a speech at Shanghai’s Fudan University on Wednesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg observed that there are 2,500 Chinese restaurants in New York City and “I think I’ve been to most of them.”
Well, he is Jewish.
Chinese food, Chinese restaurants, Fudan University, Jews, Michael R. Bloomberg
What do they serve for dessert in Istanbul Chinese restaurants — fried gelato
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007This is what they serve instead of fortune cookies in Istanbul Chinese restaurants: fried gelato (which is also apparently what all Chinese restaurants in Italy serve for dessert, according to my Italian downstairs neighbor).
Because there are not a lot of Chinese immigrants in Turkey, Chinese food tends to be a bit upscale since you don’t […]
Maybe she really really liked their crispy shredded beef?
Thursday, November 29th, 2007A British millionaireness who died and left her $20 million fortune to her favorite Chinese restaurant owners is now having her will challenged in court by her surviving relatives.
Golda “Goldie” Bechal died aged 89 in January 2004, leaving the bulk of her estate to her friends Kim Sing Man and his wife Bee Lian […]
Think Valentines’s Day is most romantic day in Chinatown? Try Thanksgiving
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
The most romantic day in Chinatown is not Valentine’s (because of cupids) or Christmas (because of the mistletoe), it is Thanksgiving. Why?
On the fourth Thursday in November, hundreds of white bridal gowns rustle in the streets of Chinatown.
More weddings take place in Chinatown on that one single day for one simple reason: it’s the only […]
No justice! No noodles! Restaurant workers stand up for their rights
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007I did a blog post on City Room on Wednesday about Chinese restaurant workers organizing for City Room. With chants of “No Justice! No Noodles!” (you got to love that) Chinese restaurant workers called for a boycott of Ollie’s Noodle Shop and Grill restaurants yesterday, claiming that the president of the popular restaurant chain […]
Found in Translation: How does Asian ethnic food become American
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007I went to the packed NYU/James Beard Foundation event last night — Found in Translation: An Exploration of How Asian Cuisines Become Part of the American Culinary Landscape. Event was totally full. Wait list galore. People (luckily for me) are absolutely fascinated by food talks. And to its credit, it was a pretty diverse […]
There really are two menus in Chinese restaurants? Is this dog or “lamb”
Friday, November 2nd, 2007The Moscow Times reports the police are investigating a Chinese restaurant for killing dogs and serving them.
A Chinese restaurant in southwest Moscow is being investigated on suspicion of rounding up dogs on the street, killing them and passing their cooked meat off to customers as lamb, city police said Monday.
Two residents went to police after […]
They’ve Starbucked the Kong!
Saturday, October 6th, 2007I went back to Harvard yesterday with my friend Chris and stepped into the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant and was shocked. They’ve renovated the venerable half-century old Hong Kong Chinese restaurant (which until now basically looked like something from Happy Days, vinyl booths, cracked linoleum and all) and made it look like Starbucks on the […]


