1984: The Pinafored Chinese Twins in Little Italy

Chinese Twins in Little Italy, Gourmet, 1984

     The pair graced the cover of Gourmet in January, 1984.  In fact, the feature article was on New York's Little Italy, not neighboring Chinatown.  And that was that for Asia in America that first month of the year.
     Back in New York, and back in Chinatown, Jay Jacobs reviewed Say Eng Look, notable for its Shanghai style food, not its decor. In November, Jacobs found Szechuan Village Inn, at 1st Avenue and 89th Street.  Not very far from   
     Jacobs found Darbar, housed in a duplex at 44 West 56th Street.  The interior of the restaurant incorporated sandalwood screens, tiles, carpets, paintings and sculpture, all commissioned in India and installed in the restaurant.  Its Mogul, or northern Indian style of cooking was excellent.        
     Continuing in the magazine's traditions of explaining the Spice Route and the nostalgic memoires of early issues of  Gourmet,  Julie Sahni wrote "An Indian Spice Sampler" a recollection of the cooking of her childhood in Kanpur in north central India.  This piece, part memoir, part ethnography, indoctrinated the reader into the power of spices, and was followed by over a dozen recipes.    
      Meanwhile, Jay Jacobs travelled to China.   In 1984, with the re-unification of Hong Kong with the People's Republic still more than a decade away, the restaurants of Hong Kong were far superior to those in Beijing or Chengdu, the markets filled with edibles and in-edibles that lured Jacobs in ways that jade jewelry did not.  His piece, "The Lone Marketeer: Hong Kong," was also written with a very personal slant.  Before arriving in Hong Kong, Jacobs had stayed three days in poor village in outlying Anhui province.  The contrast to sleek, free-wheeling Hong Kong almost unhinged him.  He investigated the Kowloon market.   The term "Foodie" had not yet been coined. He called himself a "fooder."
      Fred Ferretti offered an alternative, grand hotel dining.  In "Hong Kong, Sans Chopsticks."  Ferretti opined that in decades prior, alternatives to the outstanding Chinese food of Hong Kong were few.  By the early eighties, the enormous wealth of the city brought with it a demand for grand cuisine of other places: France, Malaysia, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, Germany. Ingredients were flown in from everywhere.  You can see the international economy eating.
       "Foodnik" was still the coinage to describe a dedicated gastronomer like Nobuyoshi Kuraoka of Hyotan Nippon, at 109 East 59th Street in New York.  Beautifully equipped with a sushi bar and decorated with Kyoto tiles, the menu was extensive, the food unusual and good.
      Jacobs was not so jaded as not to appreciate his discovery in New York of China Garden, and its proprieter, Tam Choi Lam.  Jacob's observed, not for the first or last time,  the difficulties an "Englished Chinese menu" create.
      The Big Island of Hawaii, was historically a stepping stone to California in Asian immigration.  Carolyn Bates didn't dwell on the history of contract laborers imported tom Hawaii to work the sugar and pineapple plantations, but many of the establishments she visits are the creation of Japanese Americans.  She described The Akatsuka Orchid Gardens, Restaurant Fuji, the Yamaguchi Family's Kalapana Store and Drive-Inn and Susuma Nakagowa, a retired government scientist who raises mullet in ancient fish-ponds for the Seaside Restaurant.  On their website, I learned that the Nakagowa family has long-standing tie to Hawaii.  Susuma's parents, Seiichi and Matsuno opened the restaurant in 1921.  The fishpond was destroyed by the 1946 tsunami and rebuilt twice since.  Tellingly, Susumu served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and his fellow veterans helped rebuild the pond in the early 1980s.  In focusing on Hawaii's volcanic geology and on the remnants of the original Hawaiians, Bates obscured Hawaii's troubling 20th Century history.
    Given Hawaii as a melting pot of all manner of Asian peoples and foods, and its relative proximity to San Francisco, it's not surprising to find innovative mixes there.   The fusion phenomena of Japanese-French appeared in San Francisco with Masa's.  Masaka Kobayoshi learned his arts and skills in Tokyo and France.  He had cooked French food in New York and the Napa Valley.  The food served to Carolyn Bates seemed to have been Japanese in its visual aesthetic and in the purity of falvors, yet French in its sauces.  
     Caroline Bates opined that San Francisco has cornered the market on Vietnamese cooking in California, with Garden House, the newest addition, at 133 Clement Street.  Southeast Asia was also represented by Prakas Yenbamroong's Talesai, at 9043 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, where his mother, Vilai, was chef.  

New York:
China Garden, in 2012, is a pizza parlor.
Hyontan Nippon is gone now, replace by a convenience café.
     
Hawaii:
The Seaside is still owned and operated by the Nakagawa family.
   
San Francisco:
In 2012, Masa's is still a destination restaurant, albeit many chefs later;  and now the food is called California French.  I note that the pastry chef is Hong Kong born, California educated Maggie Leung.
Talesai is  still there, run by the third generation, Kris Yenbamroong, who was born in LA, but returned to Thailand to complete his education. He returned to take over management of the restaurant and still relies on his grandmother's recipes.
Garden House, with a different chef and now Le Soleil Authentic Vietnamese , it re-opened in February, 2012 after redecoration.