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(A Book Adventure through the Mysteries of Chinese Food) By Jennifer 8. Lee
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Chinese restaurants are decreasing in number, maybe. 20 Dec 2019 6:35 AM (5 years ago)

Front-page article in The New York Times by Amelia Nierenberg and Quoctrung Bui about how Chinese restaurants are declining both in relative and absolute number in major metropolitan areas (based on Yelp data).

The hypothesis is basically that the children don’t want to take over the restaurants and there aren’t an additional way of Chinese immigrants (e.g. the Fujianese) who can take over. As I said restauranteurs told me, “We cook so our children don’t have to.” And the children don’t have to.

Also fun fact about this article, there are two Jennifer Lees interviewed in the piece. One is me. The other is Jennifer Lee, a professor of sociology at Columbia University and co-author of “The Asian American Achievement Paradox.” As the Times put it, “She is not related to Jennifer 8. Lee.”

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Chef Peng, creator of General Tso’s chicken, passes away 2 Dec 2016 8:41 AM (8 years ago)

I knew this day was going to come. And in fact as surprised how long he lasted, since we rushed to film him for our documentary when he was 91.

But Chef Peng, our famed creator of General Tso’s chicken passed away at age 97. I was in the middle of the Nieman Foundation board meeting when I started getting bombarded by emails and phone calls for interviews.

The best obit was by Washington Post’s Emily Langer. I was a bit disappointed that The New York Times had to cite the Associated Press for his death

 

 

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Harley Spiller’s Giant Chinese Menu Collection Going to University of Toronto 3 Feb 2016 3:19 PM (9 years ago)

Big news in menu world. Harley Spiller’s immense Chinese menu collection (and an indirect inspiration for my book) is going to the University of Toronto. He sold it for $40,000, which may sound like a lot. But actually isn’t if you consider there are 10,000 items in it.

I thought it might go to the NYPL. But alas.

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Chinese food emoji proposed by me and Yiying Lu 30 Jan 2016 6:31 PM (9 years ago)

Yiying Lu and I proposed a slate of Chinese food-related emoji, including takeout box, dumpling, fortune cookie and chopsticks. To be sure, the fortune cookie and takeout box emoji are actually more American in symbols than Chinese.

This all started when Yiying Lu and I were puzzled by lack of a dumpling emoji, decided to do something about it — then others kind of rolled in. Lots of coverage, including Eater, Mic, Buzzfeed.

If I am honest, I don’t think fortune cookie would have made it on its own merits, but it can ride the coat-tails of the others.

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Fortune Cookies on 99% Invisible 24 Sep 2015 7:54 PM (10 years ago)

A fun episode about fortune cookies featured on 99% Invisible, produced by Avery Trufelman. So much fun to be interviewed for this.

Really important how they focused on the Japanese internment during World War II.

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The Search for General Tso. In Theaters January 2, 2015! 4 Dec 2014 3:16 PM (10 years ago)

Happy to say that The Search for General Tso has been acquired by IFC/Sundance for distribution and will be in theaters (and VOD) on January 2, 2015.

Director Ian Cheney did a great job of shepherding through the film, which was repped by Cinetic Media, of indie film fame.

Here is the trailer below.

Plus the official movie poster!

GeneralTsoPoster_eg_09.9_lo_rez_rgb (1)

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“The Search for General Tso” Will Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival 24 Mar 2014 12:28 PM (11 years ago)

 

I’m excited to announce that “The Search for General Tso”, a documentary that I have been working on with director Ian Cheney, is going to be premiering at The Tribeca Film Festival.  This is a long project in the making. It’s been four years since I first met Ian Cheney and Cur

“Search” has three showings: April 19 at 3:30 p.m., April 20 at 3 p.m. and April 24 at 9 p.m.

As Ian Hollander writes in the official film guide:

From New York City to the farmlands of the Midwest, there are around 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S. While there can be quite a range of Chinese-American dishes, one in particular seems to have conquered the American culinary landscape with a force befitting its military moniker—“General Tso’s Chicken.” Walk into any Chinese restaurant in the country and you can be fairly certain you’ll be rewarded with a plate of this sweet and sticky fried chicken—seemingly just spicy enough for the American palate. But how did this dish reach such levels of ubiquity and who was General Tso in the first place? This delightfully insightful documentary seeks to uncover the origins of a dish that Americans have warmly adopted as their own. As director Ian Cheney journeys to Shanghai and Hunan, it becomes increasingly clear that the answers lie much closer to home, as the story of General Tso’s Chicken becomes inextricably linked to the story of Chinese Americans’ own search to define their identity. 

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Authentic Indian “Schezwan” Dishes 30 Apr 2013 7:20 AM (12 years ago)

schezwan

 

Narayan Venkatasubramanyan (that’s an awesome last name) sent me a link to a popular Indian company called Ching’s Secret, which sells Chinese dishes to prepare at home, including Schezwan dishes.

In English we spelled ?? as Szechwan or Szechuan, now Sichuan in pingyin. But in Indian the spelling went a bit awry. As he explains it,

When the taste of that province was introduced in India, some Indian decided that it was silly to add a “z” after an “s”, decided it was some horrible misspelling, and “corrected” the spelling to the more logical-looking “Schezwan.” and then proceeded to pronounce it as it was written. these days, India is full of restaurants with menus with “Schezwan sauce” and diners who loudly demand the “authentic” shay-zwan flavour.

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This Guy Has Eaten in More Chinese Restaurants Than I Have! 23 Apr 2013 7:05 AM (12 years ago)

la-david-chan-art-main

The Los Angeles Times has a feature on David Chan  (@chandavkl)who has eaten in over 6,000 Chinese restaurants, and has a ginormous Excel spreadsheet to prove it. Though his list starts in 1955, which is decades before spreadsheets were even invented.

The coolest part is the time-step map over the years, which plots all the restaurants in the Los Angeles area he has eaten at. It which is made possible because he has kept such meticulous records (including the addresses). Data visualization + Chinese restaurants. One of my favorites.

I’m going to guess I might have eaten in Chinese restaurants in more countries than he has, but he certainly wins on the sheer numbers.

 

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An $888 dish at Hakkasan, New York 4 Apr 2012 9:50 AM (13 years ago)

Hakkasan, the London-based luxury Chinese chain I went to for my book, opened up a New York City location.

It’s high end. The New York space is 11,000 square feet and seats 200.

Most entrees are $22 to $88. But one dish is $888  for Japanese abalone with black truffle.

It’s located in Times Square, 311 West 43rd Street, (212) 776-1818.

 

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