
Chop Suey Nation: Road trip uncovers the lives behind Chinese-Canadian food - DiabloD3
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/chop-suey-nation/article30539419/
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jrehor
In that vein, I recommend "The Search for General Ts'o", a documentary about
Chinese food in America. It's quite funny and launched me on a quest for the
best General Ts'o recipe. I won't spoil the joy of the hunt for you but I
assure you, it's out of this world.

[http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com](http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com)

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koolba
What's the best recipe?

I'm a huge fan of General Ts'o chicken so always on the look out for a good
one!

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kobeya
Chef Peng's is the original, and vastly different from what they serve in the
USA...

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santaclaus
It has come full circle. My coworker from Shanghai was telling me how the last
time he went home, one of the hottest restaurants on the scene's signature
dish was (American style) General Tso's. I kind of love the cultural
apparatuses that have resulted in a dish traveling from Taiwan to NYC to the
greater United States to mainland China.

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vinay427
This reminds me of how Americano coffee (IIRC an Italian innovation to imitate
American-style coffee) is now served in some coffeeshops in the US, in
addition to the original American-style filter coffee.

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hackuser
For those interested in more, here is a revealing, hard-to-put-down story in
the New Yorker on a similar topic:

 _The Kitchen Network: America 's underground Chinese restaurant workers._

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/cooka%C2%80%C2%...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/cooka%C2%80%C2%99s-tale)

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helloworld
What an extraordinary work ethic:

 _Like any other day, she said, she’d work [on her 55th birthday]. In 15
years, the restaurant has only been closed five times: Once when she was sick
and the other times to visit her children. Otherwise, it’s open 365 days a
year. Like any other day, she’d close around midnight, prepare her own dinner,
watch some television and go to bed._

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contingencies
Here in Sydney (Australia) I've heard there are quite a few online WeChat-
based food delivery businesses catering to Chinese urbanites. Once you have
their WeChat you can order stuff, they deliver, and you pay via WeChat or in
cash. No need for expensive local government licensing, good food, longer
hours, cheaper prices.

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wluu
Interesting, and not altogether a big surprise given how much WeChat allows
you to do the same over in China (in addition to a ton of other things). It's
no big surprise that tech moves with the movement of people who use it.

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devoply
Funny. Live in Alberta, and am now going to go to all of these places in the
summer. Sounds like a great adventure.

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hluska
Oddly, I live in Saskatchewan and was just seriously considering doing the
same thing. Have a happy New Year!

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PappaPatat
Being from Amsterdam (Where the Chinese formed one of the largest overseas
Chinese populations in continental Europe) I grew up with Chinese food on
Friday. Every Friday, and even on particular festive days. For my job I travel
a lot and in every place I get to stay longer then a day or two I search for a
Chinese food place. What it has thought me, is that 1: there is Chinese food
-everywhere- 2: Every country has its "own Chinese food". Besides the names
there is often very little the same. Since I did a stint for a large Chinese
tech company that has no stock market listing, I think I have seen the
entrepreneurial spirit makes all these restaurants possible as hinted by in
the article with the "Restaurants are just a vehicle for the family". Back to
the food: not McDonalds represents a global food chain for me, it's the "Huang
Feng Zhu" group that does. And an impressively creative job to boot.

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spatten
If you'd like to hear more on this, they had a long talk with the author of
this piece in episode 7 (titled "The Only One") of Colour Code, a podcast also
from the Globe and Mail:

[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/colour-code-
pod...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/colour-code-podcast-race-
in-canada/article31494658/)

