I S S U E 1

he ubiquitous chop suey, for example, can’t be found anywhere in China. The same goes for Singapore noodles. The take-out menu favorite, which consists of stir-fried rice noodles, pork, shrimp, vegetables and egg in a spicy curry sauce, sounds like something that would come from Singapore -- but it’s not.

"Nobody cooks like this in Singapore," says free-lance journalist Mei Fong, who studied and worked in Singapore for the last eight years. "Like chop suey, this is a dish that caters mainly to Western tastes. The local Singaporeans don’t eat it, or know it, plus it tastes really awful!"

Despite the cultural inaccuracy, many restaurants, like China Place at 3141 Broadway, still carry the dish. Diners like it, and they want it.


Patrick Li chats with an employee.

"It’s very popular," says 29-year-old Patrick Li, manager and co-owner of the one-month old restaurant. "We always do a survey of what the customers like, and we set the menu accordingly."

Li admits that while most of the items on his menu are real Chinese dishes, they are modified to make them suitable to American tastes. Americans tend to find the taste of true, home-style Chinese cooking too strong, according to Li. His chefs use only half the spices they normally would to make kung pao chicken. He says Americans also prefer less sugar and salt, and some are uncomfortable with the use of MSG or fish sauce.

Li recognizes that recently Americans have become more willing to try the real thing.

"As more people go down to Chinatown, they come back here and wonder why the food doesn’t taste the same," says Li. "We try to introduce some new dishes up here too."


Roast duck, chicken and pork at China Place.

He includes lesser-known entrees on the chef’s specials menu. He also has roasted whole duck and pork hanging in the storefront, in true Cantonese fashion.

Fusion or Confusion?

Singapore noodles (upper right) can be found on menus as far away as Australia and Trinidad. Self-confessed foodie and home-chef Steve Sundberg of straitscafe.com says they "exist in the same universe as do English muffins and Danish pastries — foods named in honor of countries but that are unknown to citizens of those respective countries."

Canada-based food journalist Rhonda Parkinson, who is the About.com guide on Chinese cuisine, thinks Singapore noodles originated in Hong Kong or Guangzhou province.

"The name comes from the Malay, Indian and Chinese influences in the ingredients and cooking methods — the same ethnic groups that immigrated to Singapore in the 1880s."

The origins of chop suey (bottom left) are also fuzzy, at best. According to About.com, the dish was invented on August 29, 1895 by the chef oF visiting Chinese Ambassador Hung-chang Li in New York City .

Another version claims that the real name of the dish is "Lee Gone Chop Suey," after General Lee Hon Chung, who visited Japan 74 years ago. Legend has it that it was too late in the evening for the chef to serve a regular meal, so he combined his left-overs in a stir-fry concoction. The general liked the taste so much that the dish was named after him.

Common belief, however, is that chop suey is the English pronounciation of the Chinese words tsa-sui, meaning "mixed pieces," a dish created by the early Chinese immigrants, who were untrained cooks. It comprises bits of meat, bean sprouts, onions, mushrooms, etc. cooked in their own juices and served with rice.