5 ms·

Cecilia Chiang, SF chef who brought authentic Chinese food to US, dies at 100

85 points by wallflower 6y ago

howlgarnish 6y ago
Somewhat less authentically, the "Chang" of PF Chang is her son Philip Chiang, who had to change even his own name to better suit American palates. Mongolian Beef, California rolls and a Great Wall of Chocolate, anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._F._Chang%27s_China_Bistro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._F._Chang%27s_China_Bistro
- smabie 6y ago
  nothing wrong with that, seems to have done very well for himself.
  - rmason 6y ago
    His daughter, Siena, cited in the article is product manager of PillPack, the online pharmacy that sold to Amazon in 2018.
  - PrinceKropotkin 6y ago
    Nothing wrong with judging such behavior, either!
- Larrikin 6y ago
  Its a shame what happened to PF Changs. They had perfected American Chinese food, which really seems to be under appreciated as its own type of food. The typical place might have good Mongolian beef but then just buy the cheapest worst chicken so General Tso's is garbage. Another place might actually care about properly frying their chicken and have incredible Orange chicken but just not care at all about their lo mein. PF Changs used to have one of the best versions of everything you could find at a typical American Chinese restaurant. But at some point they were bought out by a company that was intent on squeezing every penny out of the place and didn't care about quality. The sauces changed for the lettuce wraps to obviously cheaper ingredients, then the waiters stopped even making the sauces. Prices of the all the dishes went up as the serving sizes shrunk. Then the quality just went to shit. When I lived in Asia, I could obviously get amazing authentic Chinese food. But, whenever I visited home I would always get a turkey sub first (turkey is harder to find than a good sub sandwich in general) and then American Chinese food. PF Changs used to easily fill that niche and was ruined by a bunch of terrible people who I'm sure got promotions and now are ruining some other restaurant while increasing profits for the owners.
asiachick 6y ago
Maybe "The Mandarin" was authentic, I don't think I went there, but having lived in SF for 11 years I never found any authentic asian food in SF. I found some in Fremont. There's plenty in San Gabriel, Alhambra, and other places on the north east side of LA but SF, nothing. No authentic Japanese, no authentic Chinese, no authentic Vietnamese, no authentic Korean, no authentic Taiwanese, no authentic Malay/Singapore/Indonesian.
- vmception 6y ago
  SF is big on sauces and spices and has a wide variety of cuisine in general and it might have become a very localized taste to stay competitive on the flavor explosion people look for and compare experiences with. I’ve had a variety of cuisine from chefs that had the same restaurant in their home country, I also went to their home country and tried the same dish at the same restaurant and found it comparatively bland. Off the top of my head I can only think of a ramen spot in Japan.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- irjustin 6y ago
  What? This statement is so hyperbolic. - Pho in general in the US is pretty close to Pho in Ho Chi Minh. i.e. Turtle Tower doing Chicken Pho is pretty good and close. - Dim sum is dim sum. The places in Chinatown serve a Ha Gau or Siu Mai and largely the same in Hong Kong... how is it not authentic? - Japanese... Nigiri, sashimi is.... authentic? To say there's zero authentic Japanese seems too. Seriously, sashimi how is it not authentic? It's "just" a piece of cut fish. If you're speaking about quality then 100% I agree. The quality/etc... is not nearly as amazing as the origin locations, but the flavors aren't drastically different. Come to Singapore where all foods have sugar added which considerably changes the flavor profile. To claim zero authentic in SF... [EDIT] To qualify my side - authenticity should be a very low bar, which should be ingredients, quantity and process should match to generally create a similar flavor profile. It shouldn't matter who, where, what the place looks like.
globalguy 6y ago
To people who enjoys food: you never know what you've missed if you never been to Sichuan or Chongqing.
- seanmcdirmid 6y ago
  The weird thing about Chengdu is that they don’t have kungpao chicken, which is actually just Beijing-style Sichuan food. You can have inauthentic Chinese food even China.
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    https://youtu.be/-AZ87qyHQ88 https://youtu.be/-AZ87qyHQ88 The video is a Sichuan master chef showing the cooking procedure. He speaking of Sichuan accented mandarin. Gongbao jiding is traditional Sichuan dish. You might simply did not see that on menu at chengdu. Sichuan has 80million people, chengdu 16million, it’s expected to see highly clustered food style even in a city.
    - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
      宫保鸡丁 was invented by a Beijjng chef serving a mandarin on assignment in Sichuan, they had some visitors but didn’t have much time to prepare something, so they came up with that at the last minute, which impressed the visitors and became popular “back home.” Truly the definition of transplanted food (like how lemon chicken is popular in the states as canonical hunan food but is not anything of the sort). There are dishes that resemble it that are authentic Sichuan (eg laziji), so you are more likely to find something similar with a different name. I’ve been through much of Sichuan province, though much of that (Eg Daocheng) was actually Tibetan where Sichuan food was considered transplanted by default.
      - justicezyx 6y ago
        So you are saying a dish should be named after the chef who cooked it? A beijing chef cook in Sichuan, using the local cooking style and technique, are still considered a Beijing dish, that's what you implied here. I am not saying it's wrong. But that's not how Chinese people think about the dish...

85 points by wallflower 6y ago

Somewhat less authentically, the "Chang" of PF Chang is her son Philip Chiang, who had to change even his own name to better suit American palates. Mongolian Beef, California rolls and a Great Wall of Chocolate, anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._F._Chang%27s_China_Bistro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._F._Chang%27s_China_Bistro

smabie 6y ago
nothing wrong with that, seems to have done very well for himself.
- rmason 6y ago
  His daughter, Siena, cited in the article is product manager of PillPack, the online pharmacy that sold to Amazon in 2018.
- PrinceKropotkin 6y ago
  Nothing wrong with judging such behavior, either!
Larrikin 6y ago
Its a shame what happened to PF Changs. They had perfected American Chinese food, which really seems to be under appreciated as its own type of food. The typical place might have good Mongolian beef but then just buy the cheapest worst chicken so General Tso's is garbage. Another place might actually care about properly frying their chicken and have incredible Orange chicken but just not care at all about their lo mein. PF Changs used to have one of the best versions of everything you could find at a typical American Chinese restaurant. But at some point they were bought out by a company that was intent on squeezing every penny out of the place and didn't care about quality. The sauces changed for the lettuce wraps to obviously cheaper ingredients, then the waiters stopped even making the sauces. Prices of the all the dishes went up as the serving sizes shrunk. Then the quality just went to shit. When I lived in Asia, I could obviously get amazing authentic Chinese food. But, whenever I visited home I would always get a turkey sub first (turkey is harder to find than a good sub sandwich in general) and then American Chinese food. PF Changs used to easily fill that niche and was ruined by a bunch of terrible people who I'm sure got promotions and now are ruining some other restaurant while increasing profits for the owners.

asiachick 6y ago

Maybe "The Mandarin" was authentic, I don't think I went there, but having lived in SF for 11 years I never found any authentic asian food in SF. I found some in Fremont. There's plenty in San Gabriel, Alhambra, and other places on the north east side of LA but SF, nothing. No authentic Japanese, no authentic Chinese, no authentic Vietnamese, no authentic Korean, no authentic Taiwanese, no authentic Malay/Singapore/Indonesian.

vmception 6y ago
SF is big on sauces and spices and has a wide variety of cuisine in general and it might have become a very localized taste to stay competitive on the flavor explosion people look for and compare experiences with. I’ve had a variety of cuisine from chefs that had the same restaurant in their home country, I also went to their home country and tried the same dish at the same restaurant and found it comparatively bland. Off the top of my head I can only think of a ramen spot in Japan.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
irjustin 6y ago
What? This statement is so hyperbolic. - Pho in general in the US is pretty close to Pho in Ho Chi Minh. i.e. Turtle Tower doing Chicken Pho is pretty good and close. - Dim sum is dim sum. The places in Chinatown serve a Ha Gau or Siu Mai and largely the same in Hong Kong... how is it not authentic? - Japanese... Nigiri, sashimi is.... authentic? To say there's zero authentic Japanese seems too. Seriously, sashimi how is it not authentic? It's "just" a piece of cut fish. If you're speaking about quality then 100% I agree. The quality/etc... is not nearly as amazing as the origin locations, but the flavors aren't drastically different. Come to Singapore where all foods have sugar added which considerably changes the flavor profile. To claim zero authentic in SF... [EDIT] To qualify my side - authenticity should be a very low bar, which should be ingredients, quantity and process should match to generally create a similar flavor profile. It shouldn't matter who, where, what the place looks like.

globalguy 6y ago

To people who enjoys food: you never know what you've missed if you never been to Sichuan or Chongqing.

seanmcdirmid 6y ago
The weird thing about Chengdu is that they don’t have kungpao chicken, which is actually just Beijing-style Sichuan food. You can have inauthentic Chinese food even China.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  https://youtu.be/-AZ87qyHQ88 https://youtu.be/-AZ87qyHQ88 The video is a Sichuan master chef showing the cooking procedure. He speaking of Sichuan accented mandarin. Gongbao jiding is traditional Sichuan dish. You might simply did not see that on menu at chengdu. Sichuan has 80million people, chengdu 16million, it’s expected to see highly clustered food style even in a city.
  - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
    宫保鸡丁 was invented by a Beijjng chef serving a mandarin on assignment in Sichuan, they had some visitors but didn’t have much time to prepare something, so they came up with that at the last minute, which impressed the visitors and became popular “back home.” Truly the definition of transplanted food (like how lemon chicken is popular in the states as canonical hunan food but is not anything of the sort). There are dishes that resemble it that are authentic Sichuan (eg laziji), so you are more likely to find something similar with a different name. I’ve been through much of Sichuan province, though much of that (Eg Daocheng) was actually Tibetan where Sichuan food was considered transplanted by default.
    - justicezyx 6y ago
      So you are saying a dish should be named after the chef who cooked it? A beijing chef cook in Sichuan, using the local cooking style and technique, are still considered a Beijing dish, that's what you implied here. I am not saying it's wrong. But that's not how Chinese people think about the dish...