"Asian Dining Rules" -- Fat Guy's new book

[Fat Guy]

In 1981, when I was 12 years old, a restaurant called Empire Szechuan Columbus opened across the street from our apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (Columbus refers to Columbus Avenue). It changed the course of my diet forever. This was Chinese food like I’d never before tasted: fresh, vibrant, spicy. My father, whose friend the US table tennis champion (and hustler) Marty Reisman was an investor in the restaurant, and I spent years working our way through just about every dish on the exhaustive menu.

We even invented some dishes of our own, especially after my father had his heart attack and was placed on a low-fat, low-salt diet by his cardiologist and a lower-fat, lower-sodium diet by my mother. In those days, low-sodium soy sauce was a niche product that you couldn’t just find at the supermarket. My father would buy a bottle of it in Chinatown about once a year and the Empire Szechuan kitchen would store it for use in his dishes. Lobster Cantonese was prepared for him with egg-whites only, no pork. Another dish, which we named “Chicken with red spots,” used hot chilies to liven up otherwise bland chicken with snow peas.

Outside the view of my parents, I continued to sample dishes from the less virtuous reaches of the menu. Though I’m Jewish and from New York City, I’m sure I ate more Chinese pork dumplings in the 1980s than any Chinese person -- or perhaps any village -- in China. I ate so many pork spare ribs that, even today, pigs shudder when I approach.

What I ate the most of, however, was the Empire Szechuan egg roll, the finest specimen I’d ever tasted. Most days, on the way home from school after I got off the number 10 bus (or, later, the IRT subway), I’d stop by and, with the carefully collected loose change in my pocket, buy an egg roll. Mary, the diminutive co-owner (and wife of the chef), who took all the orders from behind the takeout counter/hostess station, knew not even to put my egg roll in a paper bag. She handed it to me, half-wrapped in a wax-paper sleeve, with a little plastic packet each of soy sauce and duck sauce. I’d bite off the top of the steaming egg roll, pour the soy sauce and duck sauce onto the exposed innards, and gleefully chomp the egg roll on my walk home -- I’d have it finished by the time I crossed the street and rode the elevator up to my apartment.

If Mary was the heart of the institution, and her husband the chef its soul, the brain of Empire Szechuan Columbus was surely Mr. Chu. A former professor of mathematics from Taiwan, Mr. Chu was in charge of coordinating the restaurant’s urban-planning-scale takeout and delivery operation. Mr. Chu had the preternatural ability not only to plan each delivery man’s route so as to maximize profit by minimizing time and efficiently sequencing multiple drop-offs per trip, but also to make unfailingly accurate predictions of future orders and the resources needed to accommodate them. Graph theory, the branch of mathematics used to evaluate complex networks, was Mr. Chu’s specialty. That guy on Numb3rs has nothing on Mr. Chu.

One night my father and I walked in on family meal (in the restaurant business, that’s what they call the staff dinner), and Mr. Chu beckoned us over. He held up a plate of thin, curved strips of gelatinous something -- maybe flesh, maybe a vegetable . . . or perhaps a dessert? It tasted like sweet, chewy bacon. “You like?” asked Mr. Chu. “What is it?” asked my father. “Pig ear!” exclaimed Mr. Chu. For the rest of my father’s life, we could always get a laugh out of one another by injecting the phrase “pig ear!” randomly and inappropriately into a conversation.

We became part of the restaurant’s family. By the time I went to college, my farewell dinner was like a sendoff of one of Mr. Chu’s own children. He inquired after me while I was away, and always had a smile and a math anecdote for me when I visited home over breaks. He surely knew more about my love life than my own family, since it was possible to go on a date without my parents observing but, since I took every girlfriend I ever had (all two of them) to Empire Szechuan repeatedly, Mr. Chu knew them well. At my engagement party, held in the upstairs room of the restaurant (it was only up four steps, but we called it upstairs), we needed to limit the head count to the room’s capacity so we decided to make the event only for our peers -- no parents allowed. Mr. Chu delegated the takeout operation to Mary for the night and observed the event, all the while furiously scribbling notes in Chinese on a waiter’s order pad.

Later that night, I caught my father and Mr. Chu huddled at a table by the window. Mr. Chu had transcribed and translated into Chinese every speech given at the engagement party and was, on the fly, translating them back into English in order to relay them to my father. “And then, best man says . . .” That was also the night that Mary, for the first time in my life, came out from behind the hostess station. Unbeknownst to me, she was only about four feet tall – all my life, I was stunned to learn, she had been sitting on a stool, making her look much taller (I had assumed she was standing).

Empire Szechuan is still there, though today it’s called Empire Szechuan Kyoto thanks to the addition of, as is now common at Chinese restaurants, a sushi bar. Mary is still there too, as is her husband the chef, though Mr. Chu departed long ago to open his own restaurant. My mother still lives across the street, and now we bring our two-year-old son in for dinner. They spoil him rotten. It drives my wife crazy. I don’t mind.

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The comedian Jackie Mason once asked: Jewish civilization is 6,000 years old, and Chinese civilization is 4,000 years old, so what did Jews eat for 2,000 years? He probably got the numbers wrong, and I probably got the quote wrong, and it’s probably the second-most hackneyed food writing metaphor (or whatever it is) after Proust's madeleines, but I certainly fit the stereotype of the American Jew for whom, growing up, Chinese food was a subset of Jewish cuisine.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a book, “Turning the Tables: Restaurants from the Inside Out.” For the paperback printing, it was retitled, “Turning the Tables: The Insider’s Guide to Eating Out.” The basic mission of the book was to help readers get the most out of restaurants. As opposed to restaurant reviews, which tell consumers where to eat, my project was to tell them how to dine.

One small section of the book dwelled on the matter of “guerilla sushi tactics,” in other words how someone from outside the Japanese culture and lacking a lot of sushi expertise can nonetheless get the insider’s, VIP, super-soigne experience at a sushi bar (first rule: sit at the sushi bar, not at a table in the dining room).

When I went on tour in late 2005 to promote the book, I spoke to live audiences in about ten cities and gave countless television and radio interviews. That little section on sushi elicited more inquiries and feedback than any other part of the book, and in general I was inundated with questions about ethnic restaurants: not just Japanese but Chinese, Korean, Indian and Southeast Asian; Spanish, Mexican, Brazilian and Cuban.

It’s a good book tour if you sell out the first printing, but it’s an even better book tour when you figure out the idea for the next book while you’re still on tour. I knew then what Turning the Tables part II would focus on: Asian and Latin restaurants. There were some delays and course corrections, however. First, I had another manuscript to finish (“The Fat Guy’s Manifatso,” which I believe is to be published before 2035). Then, my editor retired. Then, my new editor retired. The marketing team at HarperCollins thought the Asian-and-Latin book would be too big, so we decided to split it into two books, and Asian book followed by an option on a Latin book. We had a baby, and we both work at home, making me profoundly unproductive on the writing front. And finally, this year, I started working on the book.

The working title is “Turning the Tables on Asian Restaurants: The Insider's Guide to Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Korean and Southeast Asian Dining.” (Edited to add: the final title for publication is "Asian Dining Rules.") Because I thought you all might find it interesting, and also as a means of keeping myself connected, I’m going to spend the next few months reporting here on bits and pieces, strands and utterances, various stuff that might go into the book or might not. I’ll report on some of the research I’ve already done, like trailing at Sun Luck Garden in Cleveland and at Tabla in New York City, or visiting the Asian Corners Market in Charlotte or chronicling the opening of three restaurants by the Mehtani Restaurant Group, in Morristown, New Jersey. And I’ll keep you posted on research going forward: I’ve got some fun stuff planned for summer. Maybe I’ll even get the book written.

[Kouign Aman]

How wonderful to have someone like Mr Chu and Mary and her husband in your life. We also go to a Chinese restaurant that my husband's been eating at for >25 years. They also spoil our child, but in the best way - they are mock-strict. She calls the owner "Gramma", and Gramma makes sure the munchkin eats well: "If I you Gramma, you eat all your beef!". Its a gas.

There's a different Chinese restaurant which we can walk to. They've been spoiling the munchkin since they made room for us to park the pram with our 2-week-old in it.

I'm looking forward to reading the bits and pieces and the research threads that come up as you do this project.

[Peter Green]

This should be a really good trip. I'm looking forward to more.

Cheers,

Peter

[slo_ted]

Count me in, Steve. I'll be watching with interest. Love good Chinese food which is distressingly hard to find in my town.

[docsconz]

My wife and I practically lived on Empre Szechuan in the early to mid 80's when I was in Med School at Columbia. We tended to frequent the one on Broadway around 98th if I recall correctly. I always particularly enjoyed their dried string beans and cold sesame noodles amongst other dishes. It was all that!

This should be fun!

[Fat Guy]

And hey, if you all have any questions, suggestions, contacts (maybe you own an Asian restaurant in the Eastern US close enough for me to visit, maybe you're an Asian vegetable purveyor), tips and tricks for getting the most out of Asian restaurants (I may be able to quote you), expertise of any sort (you're an Asian-food historian and want to let me interview you), anything, please feel to bring that up.

[slkinsey]

Cool idea.

Here's one thing that I've been thinking about: Most so-called "ethnic" restaurants in America tend to fall into the "cheap eats" category. This is certainly true of most Asian cuisines (with some notable upscale counter-examples as well as the exception of things like sushi and kaiseki). What I've noticed is that most cheap eats places tend to have a number of dishes they're good at doing, but will also often have a substantial section of the menu that is mediocre at best (this seems to be less true of restaurants in the middlebrow-and-higher strata). Often, with more familiar cuisines, it's relatively easy to figure out what to order: don't get the brisket at an Eastern Carolina barbecue joint. With Asian foods, it's sometimes less clear.

A good example might be Grand Sichuan: They have a large number of outstanding (Sichuan) dishes on the menu, but also a shockingly large number of entirely mediocre (Chinese restaurt standard) dishes on the menu. Even that is a relatively easy one: order the Sichuan dishes (hey, its in the name stupid!). Sometimes it's less clear. For example, the dish you want to have at Great NY Noodletown is not the noodles, but rather the outstanding baby pig.

So, clearly one has to have some way of finding out what are the correct things to order. Sometimes, it works out fine to simply ask the waitstaff. This has introduced me to many interesting dishes at Grand Sichuan. But the staff there was friendly and knew me well. I can't say that I've found the staff at, e.g., New Green Bo (another place I've been dozens of times) similarly friendly and approachable. So that won't always work. Clearly one has to develop some strategies for determining what are the best things to order. If it's a fairly busy place that I don't know, I like to order only a little to start and then see what other people are eating. "I want an order of what those guys are having" has often been a successful strategy. If you notice that half the people are having one dish, that's almost always what you want to have.

Anyway, I hope and assume you'll offer ideas and strategies for making these kinds of decisions.

A couple of other things it would be interesting to hear about:

- When did it become commonplace to offer free sesame cold noodles with takeout orders? And, secondarily, is it true that Manhattan is linked with a secret network of subterranean pipes, pumping untold quantities of the exact same sesame cold noodles to all the Chinese restaurants on the island?

- What about other methods that Chinese restaurants use to entice customers? There are several mediocre UWS Chinese places that offer free box-o-wine white wine to customers who are waiting in line.

- Chinese/Cuban? Chinese/Peruvian? What's up with that?

- Why are so many Chinese places adding sushi, and would anyone really want to eat that sushi?

- Why don't fortune cookies give fortunes anymore?

[Fat Guy]

Most so-called "ethnic" restaurants in America tend to fall into the "cheap eats" category.

This is something that has at once been responsible for the success of ethnic restaurants (like you, I'm just going to use the term ethnic for now because it's handy shorthand -- more later on that), and been a limiting factor. To paraphrase W., I've been referring to this in my outline as "the soft bigotry of low price expectations." In New York we're seeing this issue with the ever-struggling haute-Chinese movement. Restaurants like Mainland, Chinatown Brasserie and 66 come on the scene and try to sell more of a fine-dining Chinese cuisine at a higher price point, and they really struggle. Not even the professional restaurant reviewing community is really equipped to evaluate these places. Needless to say, Mainland and 66 have closed, and Chinatown Brasserie went through some sort of chef upheaval -- let's hope it hangs in. Anyway, I went off track here . . .

What I've noticed is that most cheap eats places tend to have a number of dishes they're good at doing, but will also often have a substantial section of the menu that is mediocre at best (this seems to be less true of restaurants in the middlebrow-and-higher strata).

This is me getting off track again: the problem is that mediocrity sells. These places like Grand Sichuan and Wu Liang Ye, to speak again of the New York area (the book is emphatically not just about New York), would go out of business pretty quickly if they only served the good dishes on their menus. The demand for the mediocre dishes is such that they have to make them. I guess they could choose to make them better, but there doesn't seem to be any incentive to do that because the people who order those dishes don't care and the cooks in the kitchen are just making that stuff because they have to, like the token chicken dish at a seafood restaurant -- it's just that in this context it's the token 3/4 of the menu. Okay, back to what you're talking about . . .

Often, with more familiar cuisines, it's relatively easy to figure out what to order:  don't get the brisket at an Eastern Carolina barbecue joint.  With Asian foods, it's sometimes less clear.

.....

If it's a fairly busy place that I don't know, I like to order only a little to start and then see what other people are eating.  "I want an order of what those guys are having" has often been a successful strategy.  If you notice that half the people are having one dish, that's almost always what you want to have.

.....

Anyway, I hope and assume you'll offer ideas and strategies for making these kinds of decisions.

Yes, definitely. This sort of strategy advice is really the crux of the book. The book is broken down into a section for each ethnic grouping, and there will be tips for getting the most out of that kind of restaurant in each section. Some tips will be from me, some will be from chefs, restaurateurs and other experts I've interviewed and will interview, and maybe some will be from eGullet Society members who have or will come up with great tips.

After all, I'm not an Asian food expert. Far from it. I'm just a guy who eats a lot of Asian food. My expertise, if you can call it that, is in how to get the most out of restaurants. And it's not a restaurant guidebook or a cookbook: there are no recipes, no restaurant reviews. Everything in the book is calculated, in one way or another, to help enhance the customer experience. Sometimes that's overt, like a section of tips for "gaming the Chinese buffet." Other times it's more in the form of background: I hope that by understanding the history and culture of these restaurants a little better, people can identify with and operate within them better.

- When did it become commonplace to offer free sesame cold noodles with takeout orders?  And, secondarily, is it true that Manhattan is linked with a secret network of subterranean pipes, pumping untold quantities of the exact same sesame cold noodles to all the Chinese restaurants on the island?

- What about other methods that Chinese restaurants use to entice customers?  There are several mediocre UWS Chinese places that offer free box-o-wine white wine to customers who are waiting in line.

If anybody has those answers, please say so. I'm not sure that level of detail is going to be covered in the book, but who knows: 60,000 words is a lot.

- Chinese/Cuban?  Chinese/Peruvian?  What's up with that?

Si. These hyphenated Chinese cuisines are an interesting phenomenon and will probably get a page. In a way, they're emblematic of the way ethnic cuisines develop when they leave their places of origin. This all ties into the notion of "authenticity," which is probably one of the next mini-essays I'll post on this topic. I thought I had come up with a great title for it: "The Tyranny of Authenticity." But Google says 997 people have already use that phrase. Still, I might use it, because it's so good.

- Why are so many Chinese places adding sushi, and would anyone really want to eat that sushi?

When I was in grade school we had a history/social-studies/whatever book called "China" and in it was an aphorism, I'm not sure if this is the exact quote, something like "China is a river, into which all other streams flow and are absorbed." The business culture of Chinese Americans is just incredibly resourceful. They make what sells, and sushi sells. One Chinese restaurant owner told me sushi is the restaurant's greatest profit center. Not bad, given how mediocre most Chinese-restaurant sushi is.

I was at a seminar at the Japan Society awhile back, and the president of Kikkoman was one of the speakers. He was pretty concerned about the damage Chinese-restaurant sushi (as well as supermarket sushi and other mediocre sushi) is doing to the reputation of sushi. There was talk of a global standards organization, etc.

- Why don't fortune cookies give fortunes anymore?

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I haven't decided whether to cover the history of the fortune cookie. It has been written about a lot, and I'm trying to do something a little different. But maybe, because it is quite interesting. There are a whole mess of online sources on this (for example) and the 1983 mock trial over the origin of the fortune cookie drew a lot of press. I don't know that fortune cookies originally contained fortunes as such. They usually contained aphorisms from Confucius and the like. It does seem that in the 1970s and 1980s there were a lot of fortune cookies out there that offered predictions: "X will happen in your life." But it seems they're back to aphorisms now. The English, also, has gotten much better, which has kind of ruined the fun.

[dockhl]

- When did it become commonplace to offer free sesame cold noodles with takeout orders?  And, secondarily, is it true that Manhattan is linked with a secret network of subterranean pipes, pumping untold quantities of the exact same sesame cold noodles to all the Chinese restaurants on the island?

- What about other methods that Chinese restaurants use to entice customers?  There are several mediocre UWS Chinese places that offer free box-o-wine white wine to customers who are waiting in line.

- Chinese/Cuban?  Chinese/Peruvian?  What's up with that? 

- Why are so many Chinese places adding sushi, and would anyone really want to eat that sushi?

- Why don't fortune cookies give fortunes anymore?

Holy Moly.............

FG~

I cannot wait. I don't know if I've had any decent Chinese since I moved from the East Coast 27 years ago. Things obviously have changed since I was last there ! (Chinese sushi? ) Free sesame noodles? NO FORTUNES !?!

I've had very good Japanese here, good Thai. But Chinese

If you can tell me how to get the best they have to offer (still might not be good but...) from our mediocre Chinese restaurants here, SIGN ME UP !

[Fat Guy]

If you can tell me how to get the best they have to offer (still might not be good but...) from our mediocre Chinese restaurants here, SIGN ME UP ! 

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I think you may find that a lot of eGullet Society members have come up with strategies for extracting good meals from seemingly mediocre restaurants. In addition, it's worth noting that the Chinese and other Asian food in much of North America -- in a lot of the places where it used to be uniformly terrible -- has gotten a lot better. Yes there's still a lot of undifferentiated crap out there -- that's true of every kind of restaurant pretty much. But a lot of the smaller cities now have good Chinese restaurants and the infrastructure (markets, purveyors, population) to support them.

This reminds me of something I posted back in 2002, before most of you were probably members. It was called, "Farewell, Hunan K."

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Hunan K was our neighborhood Chinese restaurant, though to call it a restaurant is an exaggeration. You've seen this sort of place: A storefront the width of a locksmith's shop, a couple of tables (rarely used) awkwardly wedged into the vestibule, a series of photographs of surreal-looking Chinese-American dishes posted above the counter, and three generations of family working hard, 12 or more hours a day, in the totally exposed kitchen.

Hunan K was not a good Chinese restaurant, or even a mediocre Chinese restaurant. I would characterize it as a bad Chinese restaurant, though I don't mean that in a bad way. Having grown up with bad Chinese food, I find that certain perverse examples of it -- egg foo yung smothered in gelatinous brown gravy; day-glo red sweet-and-sour chicken -- bring me comfort. I'm gratified that Shanghai, Teochew, and other regional Chinese cuisines are now expressing themselves in America, but I'd be sorry to see the bad Chinese restaurant breed die out.

Hunan K opened almost on the same day we moved to Carnegie Hill, though any resident of Carnegie Hill would be quick to point out that Hunan K is not in the neighborhood, being on Third Avenue and all. We visited Hunan K, perhaps on opening day, or at least thereabouts, and dismissed it as generic and unfortunate.

Hunan K, it turns out, did not deserve such premature dismissal. Over time, we gradually made enemies with each of the six or seven other bad Chinese restaurants in the neighborhood. Eventually, each committed an unthinkable transgression either in cuisine or service, and we crossed it off the list. Eventually, Hunan K was the last bad Chinese restaurant standing. So we returned (I returned, actually, because I am the designated takeout-schlepper).

Hunan K, it became apparent, was a deeper operation that I had originally assumed. Because while the emphasis was on bad Chinese food, all the makings of good Chinese food were present as well. The primary cook had trained at one or another impressive-sounding Asian hotel. Right next to the gigantic cans of goopy industrial sauces were all the fresh vegetables and meats one would need to create a wedding banquet. The bad Chinese food orientation was purely an expression of supply and demand. Eventually, as I became a regular customer, I started making special requests. These requests were fulfilled with aplomb, and further suggestions were proffered. Eventually, good Chinese food emerged from Hunan K, although I confess my orders typically juxtaposed the good and the bad.

Hunan K was accommodating in the extreme. There were several dishes the chef and I concocted together to satisfy my wife's mostly vegetarian leanings, my favorite being mushroom and cabbage soup (pronounced "musroomcabbagesoup"). Amazingly, even when the head cook was not present (he took a day off every month or so), it was possible to get musroomcabbagesoup from the auxiliary cooks -- everybody knew all my special orders. The price arrived at for a quart of this elixir was an arbitrary $2.60, which never changed over the years.

Hunan K delivered, of course, but I preferred to visit the restaurant and witness the ballet in the kitchen. The efficiency and economy of movement of this family, as the members cooked multiple large and small takeout orders with flawless coordination, was preternatural. I did on occasion have food delivered, though, and the delivery guy always came up the stairs laughing. "Ha ha ha ha, hello how are you sir. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ten ninety five. Ha ha ha ha ha. Thank you very much have nice day. Ha ha ha ha ha." We came to refer to him as the guy with the maniac laugh. Once I was walking on Park Avenue and the guy with the maniac laugh rode past me on his bicycle. As soon as I registered in his consciousness, he slammed on his brakes. "Ha ha ha ha ha. Hello sir! Ha ha ha ha." And then he observed with existential flair, "You on the street! Ha ha ha ha ha."

Hunan K closed its doors forever sometime in the past two weeks. I headed there tonight to obtain musroomcabbagesoup. I had in my pocket exact change for two orders. But as I approached I failed to see the soft glow of the red and green neon light in the window, and more telling still I smelled nothing. Hunan K, it turns out, was at some point in the recent past shuttered by the marshals. A cryptic sign alluded to some sort of unsatisfied debt, and offered the name of the landlord. After more than a decade of Chinese food stability in my life, I am without bearings. Worse, I'm sure I'll never learn the fate of my friends.

Farewell, Hunan K.

[Pan]

My wife and I practically lived on Empre Szechuan in the early to mid 80's when I was in Med School at Columbia. We tended to frequent the one on Broadway around 98th if I recall correctly. I always particularly enjoyed their dried string beans and cold sesame noodles amongst other dishes. It was all that![...]

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It was on the southeast corner of 97th and Broadway. In the late 70s, my family ate there frequently, and it was in those days a very good restaurant, even revelatory. Even through the mid 90s, when much of the food there was mediocre or worse, their dim sum on weekends was surprisingly acceptable for not-in-Chinatown. It took some time for the food to become inedible there.

I knew Marty Reisman, by the way. He had a table tennis school and a bunch of tables on the south side of 96th St. between West End and Broadway.

And finally, on Great N.Y. Noodletown, some of their noodle items are well worth ordering, for example the Ginger-Scallion Lo Mein and some of the noodle soups, though I agree with Sam that barbecued items are a specialty.

Terrific writing as usual, Fat Guy. I look forward to watching the book develop and hope to give some useful suggestions.

[Fat Guy]

That raises a question that came up over dinner tonight. Most of us who eat a lot of Chinese food, and who have long experience with the Empire Szechuans, no longer think the restaurants are particularly good. How much of this is due to a decline in the quality of cooking, and how much of it is due to us now having higher standards?

It's still possible to get a good meal at Empire Szechuan, or at least at the Columbus Avenue shop, by the way. You just need to engage in very focused ordering. Empire Szechuan is one of the only places left that makes good cold noodles with sesame sauce. Also good is the hot variation, "hot noodle Szechuan style," as well as the tofu variation, "cold bean curd with hot sesame oil." Another of Docsconz's favorites, the dried sauteed string beans, is still a tasty dish. I also like two string bean variants: the "Empire ginger chicken," which is string beans with the addition of nice chunks of white meat chicken, and the "Empire ginger deluxe," which adds both chicken and shrimp. The spare ribs are quite good (ask for well done), as are the noodles Peking style. Empire Szechuan still makes an egg roll that's a cut above. One recent addition to the menu, in response to national tastes that favor it, is crab Rangoons. If you like crab Rangoons, I think you may find that Empire Szechuan's are exceptional for the genre. Peking duck is better at Empire Szechuan than at most places. And most of the dishes under "House Specialties" are worth trying, especially the "paradise chicken," which has nice pieces of white meat chicken stir-fried with watercress, red bell peppers and mushrooms, in a piquant sauce. Also, on the Japanese side of the menu, it's worth noting that Empire Szechuan Kyoto didn't just tack on a sushi bar. There's an entire Japanese menu, covering pretty much anything you'd find at a general-menu Japanese restaurant anywhere in the US. There are nine different Japanese salads and 13 different small Japanese appetizers. There's a sukiyaki and yosenabe section, and sections for noodle soups, teriyaki, tempura and katsu items. That's in addition to the sushi and sashimi. I don't order much from the Japanese menu, but see a lot of that food go by and some of it looks tasty.

[Pan]

That raises a question that came up over dinner tonight. Most of us who eat a lot of Chinese food, and who have long experience with the Empire Szechuans, no longer think the restaurants are particularly good. How much of this is due to a decline in the quality of cooking, and how much of it is due to us now having higher standards?[...]

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I thought of that, but since I was going to Empire Szechuan after I returned from two years of fantastic Chinese food eating in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, etc., I think that my opinion of its food as excellent in the early years (and my parents' view, also after all that great Chinese food eating in Malaysia, et al.) is probably accurate.

I'll take your word for it that it's possible to have a good meal at the Columbus Av. branch of Empire Szechuan, but I gave up on the 97th St. branch (which closed recently and I think was going to relocate and maybe did?) a long time ago, when their Sesame Chicken -- previously a family favorite -- finally began consistently sucking ass.

[Fat Guy]

Back in January I started a topic called "Gaming the Chinese Buffet." I posted some of my strategies, and several eGullet Society members posted theirs. I thought I'd post the revised version, incorporating quotes from a few folks, here.

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Gaming the Chinese Buffet

Like them or not, buffets are -- at least in much of North America -- a popular means of experiencing Chinese and other Asian cuisines. They certainly have their advantages in terms of economy and diversity: for usually less than $10, you get to try as many items as you like (and as much as you like). The drawbacks tend to be lack of freshness (stuff sitting on steam tables for too long) and, often, low quality. To a great extent, however, your fate is in your hands: you may never have an excellent meal at a buffet, but your strategy at the buffet can mean the difference between a bad meal and a good one.

As I did the research for this book, I ate at more of these buffets than ever before in my life. I started the journey believing that I'd simply exclude buffets from my research, but in town after town it became clear that this form was dominant, and that the real question isn't "buffet yes or no" but, rather, "how do I get the most out of a buffet?"

Here are a few of the strategies I've accumulated along the way, both from my own experience and from tips gathered from buffet die-hard acquaintances (especially those who post to the eG Forums at www.eGullet.org), with the aim of maximizing quality, value, and even nutrition.

Timing is key. At any buffet there's a life cycle to the meal. The best time to go is almost always right at the beginning of that cycle, because the food will be at its freshest. If the place opens at 11:30am for lunch or 5:00pm for dinner, that's your first choice of when to go. The best situation to be in is one where you arrive and the buffet is just in the process of being set up, so that over the next half hour or so you get to see all the new food come out. Another good time to go is at the peak of the meal service, because there will be the most turnover of food at that time. The worst time to go is towards the end of a meal service, when it's dregs all the way.

Seek the high ground vantage point. Where you sit can make a big difference to your success at the buffet. If you can, get a table that has a good view of the part of the buffet containing the hot foods. It's also helpful to be close, though for comfort's sake you want to be at least one row of tables away from the buffet corridor.

Let the kitchen guide your meal. Flexibility in the sequencing of your meal is essential. It's not about when you want dumplings. It's about when the fresh, new, hot dumplings come out from the kitchen. Sometimes you're going to get your dumplings at the beginning of the meal, sometimes at the end and sometimes you have to be willing to dispense with dumplings because the fresh ones just didn't become available while you were in the house. I have, on many occasions, gone back for a freshly replenished savory item even after I've had dessert. Fried foods are always the top priority -- they degrade rapidly on the buffet. Dishes of a soupy nature hold up the best -- that what you should be eating during the down time.

Many trips, small quantities. Loading up big plates with tons of food -- sometimes I see people two-fisting it -- is just a bad idea if you want the best of the buffet in the best possible condition. You've really got to commit to the idea of making a lot of trips to the buffet. I think of my first trip or three as mostly exploratory: I'm trying to determine what's good. (If you've been to a given buffet many times before, and the offerings are always the same, you can of course skip this step.) I may very well taste the smallest available portion of every item on the buffet that isn't self-evidently terrible. There are often surprises. Once I figure out where to focus my eating, I can start prioritizing based on freshness. In some extreme instances, where you find yourself at a buffet that only has two or three good items, take as much as you can of those when they're fresh -- and resist the temptation to eat anything else.

Press on to the way back. My friend Anne Crosby in Florida offers this advice: “The best food is the most relatively distant from the buffet line that it can get. Don't stumble and fill up on the cheap door stops, but rather walk to the farthest serving point, and work your way back to the table.”

Bigger is better. Ellen Terris Brenner, an online acquaintance in San Diego, advises “At buffets, size definitely does matter -- the size of the establishment as a whole, that is. My current favorite here in San Diego seats a huge number of people, and the staff is extremely efficient at replenishing all the food those people hoover up, resulting in high food turnover an a high degree of freshness during most of their hours of operation.” A related point: choose a popular restaurant; buffets need a critical mass of customers in order to be able to offer a wide variety of good, fresh stuff.)

Speak up. Of all my online contacts, the most supremely talented buffet eater is surely Mark in New Jersey. Mark is the Babe Ruth, the Bobby Fisher, and the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart of the buffet. Not only does he have a superhuman capacity for eating, but also he has the uncanny ability to turn any buffet into his own private Bacchanalia. His best piece of advice: “The best way to get the least-plentiful (i.e., premium) items is to ask. And I wouldn't wait a long time to do it either. I mean, if you assume that the lobster or the Peking duck will be coming soon, you may wind up waiting 30 minutes and then wishing you'd asked sooner. If I don't find what I came for, I ask immediately. And I find that asking the runners does no good whatsoever -- they merely carry out what the kitchen prepares. The only thing that helps is to identify a manager (at the larger operations), or the person who seems to be in charge at the smaller ones, and to ask them. I also find that at the first request, you may be told ‘it's coming,’ without them conveying any message to the kitchen at all. But I'd also tell you that if the item you requested doesn't come out within a very few minutes, to present yourself to that person and let him (or her) know that the item never appeared. This always works for me. I certainly don't wait more than five minutes before I ask again.”

Go with people who like to eat as much as you do. In the hierarchy of buffet indignities, nothing tops being rushed out by your friends who just don’t care about food, or are on diets, or have someplace they need to be. Getting the most out of the buffet requires the cooperation of the group, a shared sense of purpose, and a mutual understanding that there are no rules: for example, everyone at the table should feel free to get up at any time in order to snag a tasty morsel.

Use a garbage plate. An eG Forums participant who goes by the handle “friedclams” turned me on to this trick: “Eating strategy for hot or cold items which have reside of some kind (shells, bones, etc) must include taking an extra garbage plate back to the table.” This has really improved my enjoyment of buffets, because it allows me to maintain a tidy eating plate and segregate out the castoffs.

Don't eat a lot of rice, noodles or other carbs unless they're really good. Fried rice and lo mein are rarely all that good, and they fill you up when you could be eating different, better food. (Not to mention the restaurant is hoping you'll fill up on carbs, thus keeping the food cost down.)

Don't overlook fresh fruit for dessert. Most of these places have a decent selection of fresh fruit on the buffet. You have to select carefully -- often there's unripe melon or whatever -- but when it's good it's good. Most other dessert items are likely to be terrible.

At the Chinese buffet, good health and good value often go hand in hand. Everybody loves a bargain. Since everybody at a buffet pays the same price, the way you create a bargain is by getting the most for your money. It so happens that many of the most wholesome, nutritious items on the buffet are also the ones that carry the highest food cost: fish and shellfish, fresh vegetables, sushi (a fixture at most big Chinese buffets these days), simple grilled and made-to-order items. It’s a win-win situation, for you.

Finally, some buffets require special strategies because they're so elaborate. The really extensive places may have a half-dozen active cooking and carving stations, or special nights when they feature seafood. In such cases, the made-to-order and special items are often (though not always) the best.

Chinese buffets are not the only Asian buffets out there. Indian buffets are extremely popular, and we’re seeing more and more hybrid pan-Asian buffets offering dishes from Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and beyond. All the advice given here applies equally to these other types of buffets.

Remember, a buffet is a system in which the participants exercise a tremendous amount of self determination. The most facile person at the buffet is going to get the best meal. That person should be you.

[maggiethecat]

Steven, I love it when you show off your writing chops. Thanks.

I don't have a lot useful to add -- Chinese takeout is rotten where I live and a Scots/Canadian WASP and an Italian/American make better Chinese at home than we can order in. But: Hello? No fortune in the fortune cookie? What the heck is up with that? That's almost the end of civilization as I know it. Lots of folks here at work get Chinese takeout at lunch, with the free fortune cookies, and we all intone "in bed," of course.

Not to derail your fabulous topic and writing project, but someone say this isn't so. Good Lord, have we become such a litigeous society that restaurants are afraid of being sued if the fortunes in the cookies don't come true? Gee, I believed the last fortune I read about being creative, artistic and soon to be rich.

I don't think you've mentioned Vietnamese, which seems to be (to my untutored eyes) the fastest growing Asian restaurant cuisine -- kind of like Thai five years ago. Which brings up Asian food fashion: Korean is huge right now in LA and Chicago. Is Cambodian the next big thing?

[Peter Green]

I'm probably just suffering another bout of pre-emptive senility, so forgive me if you've seen this before....I'm certain I posted it somewhere in the threads, but a quick search didn't turn it up.

One way to get excellent service and food in many of the Asian restaurants is to show some knowledge of the culture. Not in a stuffy, erudite manner, but more of a "get them laughing" way. Certain phrases are always good to know, the keys being "thank you", "no problem", and "may I have another beer?". Politeness coupled with humour always work wonders.

Also, know how to do the little things, such as how to politely accept a glass or plate, or acknowledge a pour. It's not a big deal, and no one else at the table with you may notice, but the staff will.

As an aside - hardly an Asian restaurant, but I had great service at the Army & Navy Club in London last year. All the waitresses were Koreans - I have no idea why - and they were extremely happy to serve our table as a priority.

Anyways, this'll all help them to remember you when you return. Then they'll be looking at suggesting things for you to try after awhile.

I don't think you've  mentioned Vietnamese, which seems to be (to my untutored eyes) the fastest growing Asian restaurant cuisine -- kind of like Thai five years ago. Which brings up Asian food fashion: Korean is huge right now in LA and Chicago.  Is Cambodian the next big thing?

←

Are there many Cambodian places out there now? Every place I've tried in the West has always turned out to be Vietnamese run, and primarily serving Viet cuisine with maybe some lob lak tacked onto the menu and a fish amok. It's a shame, as the native Khmer food can be very good.

[annecros]

  I’d bite off the top of the steaming egg roll, pour the soy sauce and duck sauce onto the exposed innards, and gleefully chomp the egg roll on my walk home

Funny. I thought I was the only person who had ever done that. This is the very best bit, among some very good bits. It makes a universal connection. You should be proud.

In my opinion only.

[Fat Guy]

Peter, I think that's sage advice, but I'd add a caveat: there are a lot of pitfalls for the dabbler. For example, you really don't want to get into trying to bow to Japanese people, save for a simple nod of the head. The tradition of bowing in Japan is so subtle and involved that you can commit all sorts of faux pas. Not to mention, you could spend all day stuck in an endless loop of bowing if you don't get it right -- or maybe you'll just be written off as a poseur. You also want to be careful, in all these languages, that you don't try to say "Good morning!" but actually wind up saying "Go fuck yourself!" But I think you're right: attitude is key. If you don't take yourself too seriously, people won't take your mistakes too seriously either.

Maggie, I'm going to say no on Cambodian. I know predicting restaurant trends is a fool's errand, but there are a few factors we can look at to understand why some Asian cuisines are popular in the United States and other aren't.

The most important issue is, of course, population. There are actually three sets of population statistics that are important to look at. First, you have the raw number of people who are actually of a given ethnicity. That's important because it represents customers, restaurant workers and supply lines. Second, you have the number of people who are partly from that ethnicity -- groups that have been here longer, or or otherwise culturally predisposed to intermarriage, are going to have a higher percentage of mixed population. That sort of assimilation helps to promote culinary culture to some extent. Finally, there's the foreign-born population. Ethnic restaurants are largely run by first-generation families. The life-span of restaurants is not long -- most restaurants don't last the adult lifetime of a human. And the second-generation Asian-Americans just aren't as interested in being in the restaurant business, or if they are in the restaurant business they're attending the Culinary Institute of America and working at Daniel.

Population figures are so fundamental to the popularity of Asian cuisines in America that you find for the most part that restaurant popularity and population rankings are in lock step. The most interesting situations are where they aren't. So, for example, five of the top six Asian populations in the United States are:

1. Chinese 2,734,841 (this number goes up a bit if you also add Taiwanese)

3. Indian 1,899,599

4. Korean 1,228,427

5. Vietnamese 1,223,736

6. Japanese 1,148,932

Those are the numbers if you add all the people who are both mixed and not mixed, in other words if you include in the figure for Japanese-Americans anybody who is any part Japanese. There are no other groups that come anywhere close. If you go to number 7 on the list, you fall off by a factor of five and get 206,052 (that’s Cambodian, by the way) and it’s downhill from there.

If you look around at Asian restaurants in America, you’ll not be surprised by that list. Chinese cuisine, at least the standard Chinese-American menu that you see most everywhere, is so mainstream and established that, according to a recent National Restaurant Association study, it’s viewed similarly to the other two most popular ethnic cuisines: Italian and Mexican. “Italian, Mexican and Chinese (Cantonese) cuisines have joined the mainstream . . . . those three cuisines have become so ingrained in American culture that they are no longer considered ethnic.” There are, according to the Chinese Restaurant News trade journal, 43,139 Chinese restaurants in America right now (by contrast there are 12,804 McDonald’s).

There are really only two big surprises as far as I’m concerned. The first is, you may have notice that I left off number 2. Do you want to guess what number 2 is -- the second most populous Asian group in America? Quick. Try.

It’s Filipino. There are 2,364,815 Filipino-Americans, so on a strict population formula there should be more Filipino restaurants than Indian restaurants, more than Japanese . . . yet there are very, very few Filipino restaurants in America. So that’s a situation where we have to start looking beyond population statistics in order to understand what’s going on.

A lot of people have tried to explain the lack of Filipino restaurants in America, and there doesn’t seem to be one authoritative explanation. There are a few factors we can point to, though. Perhaps the most prominent Filipino chef in the country is Cristeta Comerford, the White House Executive Chef. Only about a week ago, there was a story in the Philippine News about an exhibition dinner she prepared in Washington, D.C.:

As the attendees of the exclusive event savored the sublime paella, a voice arose from the back, asking Comerford why, given the deliciousness of Filipino food – and the robust Filipino demographic in the United States — Filipino food isn’t more popular. Comerford offered that Filipinos aren’t really restaurant-going people; moreover, Filipinos have always preferred homemade Filipino food as opposed to outside Filipino food.

“Even in the Philippines,” Comerford explained, “there aren’t many Filipino restaurants.” We abide by the belief that no one can make our favorite adobo quite like mom can. Comerford later told me that cooking simply wasn’t looked at as a legitimate career for a while, and she herself didn’t consider it one. However, with the proliferation of food in the media – via the Food Network, Rachel Ray and Martha Stewart – Comerford believes that more people have accepted and embraced the possibility of a culinary career.

So those are a few factors: not a major restaurant culture back in the Philippines, cooking not widely considered a legit career in that community, the group as a whole prefers home cooking. But I think there are other issues as well. One is marketing. We don’t like to think of ethnic cuisines as being the result of marketing – it flies in the face of our notions of realness. But you can be sure that Japanese cuisine would not be where it is today were it not for concerted marketing efforts at many levels, from both corporate and government sources, both formal and informal. I can’t even imagine how much money Kikkoman has spent promoting Japanese cuisine each year for the past several decades. Nobody is doing anything like that for the Philippines, and Comerford is not going to accomplish that alone. Also, for cuisines to settle into the mainstream, there need to be a few dishes for tastes to coalesce around. There doesn’t yet seem to be a Filipino equivalent of Pad Thai, though there are some legitimate candidates – delicious dishes that should be more popular but just aren’t.

Speaking of Pad Thai, Thai cuisine is the other major outlier on the list. There isn’t a particularly significant Thai population in the US. The Thai population number is just 150,293. Yet Thai cuisine is quite popular here. So, again, we have to look beyond the simple population numbers to try to understand why. One issue is that Thai restaurants aren’t necessarily Thai. When you add the Laotian (198,203) and even Hmong (186,310) populations to the Thai population the numbers are more significant. American involvement in Vietnam is also a significant factor, because so many Americans became exposed to Thai and Laotian culture during that time. Moreover, Thai cuisine is quite popular worldwide, so that trend may have some impact in the US. And I also think, in part, that Thai cuisine has been the right cuisine at the right time. It’s perceived as healthier, lighter, more vibrant than the standard Cantonese-influenced Chinese-American cuisine that’s dominant here. So it’s no surprise that Thai items have found their way onto a lot of Chinese restaurant menus in America, the same way sushi has.

If you look at the foreign-born population numbers, they confirm the China, India, Korea, Philippines, Vietnam numbers, whereas the exception there is Japanese. There are not as many foreign-born Japanese still coming over. I actually think the story of Japanese cuisine is a little different than the others, because so many of the key restaurants here were developed, for example, to feed the high-end business traveler. But the Japanese have been in the US in significant numbers for a very long time, so even though there are not as many new immigrants from Japan the cuisine is entrenched. I’ve heard it’s quite difficult for Japanese restaurants to find Japanese employees, which is probably why you now see many other Asians and even Mexicans working in Japanese restaurants, and you see the rising demand for Japanese food being met not by Japanese restaurants but by Chinese restaurants and even Western supermarkets.

Certainly if one had to make a mathematical prediction it would be that, some day, some way, Filipino cuisine has to reach critical mass here. It feels like a long shot, but the numbers don't lie. If someone cracks the code to creating Filipino restaurants with mass appeal, it could happen.

Cambodian, well, despite a couple of hundred thousand Cambodians in America, the cuisine just hasn’t been gaining much traction. In a major Asian restaurant market like New York City, we have only 1.5 Cambodian restaurants right now. The .5 I give to a place called Cambodian Cuisine. It’s currently closed, in the process of relocating from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and maybe that will actually happen (if so, it’s good news for me because the new location is supposed to be right near my house). The other one is called Kampuchea Noodle Bar, a new-ish place on the Lower East Side. I’m actually supposed to be spending a little time with the chef, Ratha Chau, later this month, so I’ll try to report back on that. But even the most ardent fans of Kampuchea Noodle Bar aren’t really calling it a Cambodian restaurant. It’s more “inspired by Cambodia.”

[Peter Green]

Steven,

A good piece. One factor you touched upon was the Vietnam experience. I'd go a little beyond this, and posit that you can track a lot of foreign food trends based upon where the US military has been (within certain cultural limits), particularly during the 60's through early 90's.

There are a number of factors in this.

One, there's the obvious, "been there, ate that" sort of thing. This gives a little advertising, but it's not really the major factor. Most of the troops try one or two bits of foreign food, but then stick to the base facilities (I've spent time inside Yongsan and Bahrain), or their "locals".

Cross-cultural marriages make up a bigger part, as a fair number of the troops have come back from Asian postings with wives (and husbands). This is not happening (for certain reasons wew won't go into here) to the same extent with the SouthWest Asian and Horn of Africa operations. And, in parallel with this is a little discussed matter; the fastest, surest way to gain US citizenship is by joining the US military and doing your time. I know a lot of Philippinos with family currently serving with the US Army (and even Canadians who have taken this route).

What this has done is create core areas, clustered around the domestic bases, where foreign communities gather together for company. And when Asians gather together, they eat. And they eat out.

On the side: I remember driving down to Fort Lewis from Vancouver back in the '70s because the Korean restaurants and stores clustered around the base were the only ones serving kop chang to be found (it was a long drive, but I was young, and Yoonhi was with me).

This is an interesting phenomenon, as it is an effective way of disseminating good Asian food across the United States, rather than directly importing it into the main cities. It also introduces it at a lower income point, which is part of the "cheap eats" element that we've seen.

I'd hold that this isn't as big a factor now, as the we hit a critical point back in the 80's when we started seeing Asian restaurants really moving into the main-stream, outside of their community support. This happened as the new immigrants started feeling more comfortable with their chances of making it in the bigger market (unfortunately, a lot were wrong about this). Plus, they'd been around long enough to amass enough capital for the shift (or convince a bank to front them).

I'd bracket this with the 90's as a close out point. At that point we saw a major change in the type of people coming to the West. There was a lot of money. The Yacht People of Hong Kong, the extemely wealthy new crowd of Koreans, bubble-economy Japanese enclaves, and baht-wealthy Thai were all over the place, and they created their own market for their cuisines (1997 is another matter). I've wondered about a rewrite of Disraeli's Two Nations with respect to some of these communities, but I digress (as usual).

As a separate item for the discussion, I'd like to raise a concern I touched upon before. Often, when you go to a Thai restaurant nowadays, it's Chinese run. For many places with names like Kyoto, New Tokyo, and so forth, if you listen to the chef and owners, you'll hear Vietnamese. I can deal with Koreans doing Japanese cuisine (after decades of colonization, the older generation had it down, and have a genuine appreciation for the cuisine), but many of the places now have recognized a popular trend, and have jumped on the bandwagon (I'll forgive the Vietnamese doing Cambodian restaurants, as I've talked to a number of them, and they've either fled Vietnam, or were there with the Vietnamese military fighting the KR).

And, on a completely separate note, flimsily connected; the most popular Western food in Asia? Italian, of course.

Anyways, an excellent piece. I'm really enjoying this.

[Shinboners]

And hey, if you all have any questions, suggestions, contacts (maybe you own an Asian restaurant in the Eastern US close enough for me to visit, maybe you're an Asian vegetable purveyor), tips and tricks for getting the most out of Asian restaurants (I may be able to quote you), expertise of any sort (you're an Asian-food historian and want to let me interview you), anything, please feel to bring that up.

←

You should find some way to get to Australia. For a couple of years, it seemed that the best Chinese restaurant in the world was the Flower Drum....located in Melbourne. You could probably do a search on google and get in touch with the founder of the Flower Drum, Gilbert Lau. There was a story of how in the early days, Lau once used black vinegar in water as a "soy sauce"

Then there's the influence of Tetsuya Wakuda (Tetsuya's) and Cheong Liew (The Grange) at the top end, whilst you have places like BBQ King (Sydney and one of Neil Perry's favourites), Supper Inn (Melbourne) that sit on the opposite end of the dining spectrum (but wonderful with what they do).

There's also the quirk that the current and last head chef at one of Sydney's finest French restaurants, Claudes, both have Asian backgrounds.

[Fat Guy]

You should find some way to get to Australia. 

←

I'd love to! It wouldn't be part of this book project, though. This one is limited to the Asian restaurant culture of North America.

[PandoraLost]

I don't know if you consider South Florida a fair traveling distance, but I have a beautiful suggestion for you: Masa's Sagami, a Japanese hibachi/sushi restaurant with sake bar. It is one of my favorite hangouts, and for more than just the three-times-weekly karaoke nights.

Masa's Sagami has two locations: Abacoa (Jupiter, FL) and Boca Raton. Since I live in Jupiter/Palm Beach Gardens through the school year (and now semi-permanently), I favor the Jupiter/Abacoa location. The food is amazing: they have a great selection of sushi which I'm gradually working my way through, including a la carte selections. They also have great hibachi chefs. The seafood is always excellent (which you'd expect of a sushi restaurant), the service is great. My personal favorites include the Alaska Roll, the Abacoa Roll, and the Rockstar Roll. The prices are also fairly reasonable. The bar has a great atmosphere.

All in all, just a great place to go, which awesome food.

[Fat Guy]

Thanks for the tip. The jury is still out on Florida. I was supposed to go down there in the fall, but the panel discussion I was to be going for got canceled so I lost my free ride. We'll see what happens. If I make it to the area, I'll see if the owners of Masa's Sagami are willing to talk to me.

[Fat Guy]

Any statistics geeks out there have any leads on where I can find a breakdown of Asian restaurants in America (or US and Canada) by type (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, etc.)? I spoke to the top statistics people at the National Restaurant Association and at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and neither of those organizations collects the information in that way. I've been able to find numbers for some types of restaurants (e.g., Chinese, Thai) but since those numbers come from different sources it's not clear they're comparable methodologically. Any ideas?

Also, thought you all might be interested in some additional statistical tidbits on the Asian-American population. This all comes from the US Census Bureau. These are public documents so I'm quoting at length:

As a New Yorker, it doesn't feel this way to me, but Asian-Americans are 4.2 percent of the US population. (At my high school, by contrast, it was probably more like 30 percent):

Census 2000 showed that the United States population was 281.4 million on April 1, 2000. Of the total, 11.9 million, or 4.2 percent, reported Asian. This number included 10.2 million people, or 3.6 percent, who reported only Asian and 1.7 million people, or 0.6 percent, who reported Asian as well as one or more other races.

A few other tidbits regarding the Asian-American population . . .

First, the largest numbers -- almost half -- live in the West:

According to Census 2000, of all respondents who reported Asian, 49 percent lived in the West, 20 percent lived in the Northeast, 19 percent lived in the South, and 12 percent lived in the Midwest.

The West had the highest proportion of Asians in its total population as well as the largest total Asian population: 9.3 percent of all respondents in the West reported Asian, compared with 4.4 percent in the Northeast, 2.3 percent in the South, and 2.2 percent in the Midwest.

Second, more than half the Asian-American population lives in three states:

Over half (51 percent) of the Asian population lived in just three states: California, New York, and Hawaii, which accounted for 19 percent of the total population. California, by far, had the largest Asian population (4.2 million), followed by New York (1.2 million), and Hawaii (0.7 million).

Third, these are some breakdowns of Asian-American population by state, by city and by metro area. It's kind of interesting how the numbers shift around. For example, New York City has the largest Asian-American population of any city, but when you look at metropolitan areas Los Angeles pulls way out front. Also, the last of the three quotes below, the metro area breakdown, does not come from the US Census Bureau and includes Canadian cities.

State breakdown:

The ten states with the largest Asian populations in 2000 were: California, New York, Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Virginia, and Massachusetts (see Table 2). Combined, these states represented 75 percent of the Asian population, but only 47 percent of the total population in the United States.

The Asian population exceeded the U.S. level of 4.2 percent of the total population in nine states. Five states were in the West — Hawaii (58 percent), California (12 percent), Washington (6.7 percent), Nevada (5.6 percent), and Alaska (5.2 percent); two states were in the Northeast — New Jersey and New York (both 6.2 percent); and two states were in the South — Maryland (4.5 percent), and Virginia (4.3 percent). No states in the Midwest had Asian populations greater than the U.S. national average of 4.2 percent.

In nine states, Asians represented less than 1 percent of the total population. Four of those states were located in the South: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and West Virginia. Two were in the Midwest: North Dakota and South Dakota. Two were in the West: Montana and Wyoming. Maine was the only state in the Northeast with an Asian population less than 1 percent.

City breakdown:

Cities with largest Asian populations

1. New York, NY 872,777

2. Los Angeles, CA 407,444

3. San Jose, CA 257,571

4. San Francisco, CA 253,477

5. Honolulu, HI 251,686

6. San Diego, CA 189,413

7. Chicago, IL 140,517

8. Houston, TX 114,140

9. Seattle, WA 84,649

10. Fremont, CA 80,979

It occurs to me that I don't even know where Fremont, CA is. I better look on a map.

Metro area breakdown:

Metropolitan areas by total Asian population

Los Angeles – 1,886,481

New York – 1,587,782

San Francisco – 1,432,025

Toronto – 1,130,625

Vancouver – 645,390

Honolulu -- 539,384

Washington/Baltimore – 452,726

Chicago – 423,521

Seattle – 339,371

San Diego – 295,346

Houston – 252,137

Boston – 241,848

Dallas -- 219,260

Sacramento -- 193,395

Montreal – 173,560

Philadelphia – 152,098

Atlanta -- 152,247

Detroit -- 149,538

Calgary -- 125,380

Metropolitan areas by Asian population percentage

Honolulu -- 61.6%

Vancouver – 32.8%

Toronto – 24.3%

San Francisco – 20.3%

Calgary -- 13.2%

Los Angeles – 11.5%

Sacramento -- 10.8%

San Diego – 10.5%

Seattle – 9.5%

New York – 7.5%

Washington/Baltimore – 6.0%

Houston – 5.4%

Montreal – 5.1%

Chicago – 5.1%

Boston – 4.8%

Dallas -- 4.2%

Philadelphia – 4.0%

Atlanta -- 3.7%

Detroit -- 2.7%

Fourth, regarding mixed-ethnicity Asian-American population:

Of the six largest specified Asian groups, Japanese were most likely to report one or more other races or Asian groups. Of all respondents who reported Japanese, either alone or in combination, 31 percent reported one or more other races or Asian groups (see Figure 5). This included 4.8 percent who reported Japanese with one or more other Asian groups, 21 percent who reported Japanese with one or more other races, and 4.8 percent who reported Japanese in addition to one or more other races and Asian groups (see Table 4). Vietnamese were least likely to be in combination with one or more other races or Asian groups. Of all respondents who reported Vietnamese, 8.3 percent reported one or more other races or Asian groups.

[philadining]

It occurs to me that I don't even know where Fremont, CA is. I better look on a map.

Bay area (east bay) south of San Francisco.

from http://www.city-data.com/city/Fremont-Cali...California.html

Races in Fremont:

White Non-Hispanic (41.4%)

Chinese (14.4%)

Hispanic (13.5%)

Asian Indian (10.2%)

Two or more races (5.8%)

Filipino (5.8%)

Other race (5.5%)

Black (3.1%)

Vietnamese (2.0%)

Other Asian (2.0%)

Korean (1.6%)

American Indian (1.3%)

Japanese (1.0%)

(Total can be greater than 100% because Hispanics could be counted in other races)

That looks like 37% Asian without counting "other race" or "two or more races" which puts it ahead of all cites except Honolulu, if they're all counting the same way.

Edited June 5, 2007 by philadining (log)