My Interview With Hong Kong Apple Daily News.

My Interview With Hong Kong Apple Daily News - October 7, 2020.  Apple News was one of Hong Kong's leading daily newspapers, but it was closed in a crackdown by the Hong Kong government in 2022 and the original article is now unavailable.  It begins with a video that was essentially a copycat of my 2019 interview with Clarissa Wei which has been viewed over a million times on Facebook and another 300,000 times on YouTube, but this time in Chinese (obviously my part is in English), with a different venue but similar format.  It is then followed by a short written article.

 

新冠肺炎在美國大爆發，餐館不是轉攻外賣、戶外用餐，就是捱不過封城而倒閉。美國美食"KOL"鼻祖、走遍全美中餐廳的華人David Chan坦言，這是他開始食評工作40年以來"最差的時代"，高峰期每年訪問200家新餐廳的他，今年隻試食了20家。而疫情沒有離開跡象，他隻寄望餐飲業能夠適應外賣、戶外用餐等"新常態"後，能夠浴火重生。

71歲的洛杉磯第三代華裔移民David R.Chan，40年前機緣巧合下，開始記錄自己到訪過的中餐廳。在他整理資料的電腦試算表內，足足收錄了全美超過7,600家中餐廳，最遠可追溯至1951年。這些資料除了記錄他的"搵食"足跡，也見證美國中餐文化變遷。

疫情下，全美大部份城市停止餐廳堂食，David Chan說，餐飲業情況是他開始撰寫食評以來"最差的時代"。由於病毒來自中國，很多人對中餐廳避之則吉，連華人也早於農曆新年期間，已停止外出用餐，大量餐廳在3月起停業，"真的很恐怖，要有一個心理準備，可能永遠回不去你最喜愛的中餐廳了，因為全部都倒閉了。"


 不少餐館在疫情下捱不住而結業，但也有餐館轉換經營模式，在逆市開業。(張紫茵攝)

隨住一些標誌性餐廳，如洛杉磯亞凱迪亞市（Arcadia）全美首間鼎泰豐、亞罕布拉市（Alhambra）的老牌酒樓京華永久關門，美國華人漸漸擔心，會否有更多中餐廳捱不下來。David Chan說，華人近月開始接受在疫情下的用餐"新常態"，例如光顧外賣、戶外用餐等，餐飲業界總算有點起色，也慢慢有些新店開業，情況令人鼓舞。

疫情發生前，David Chan接受《蘋果》專訪，這位老人身形瘦削，一張嘴卻嚐遍美國超過7,600間中餐館。退休前當稅務律師及註冊會計師的他，祖父於上世紀由廣東台山來到美國，父母在美國出生；David Chan年幼時，洛杉磯華人人口不多，他沒有學中文，也沒有中文名字，甚至不會用筷子。


 過去40年吃盡全美中餐廳，David Chan見證美國中餐文化變遷。(張紫茵攝)

直至70年代初，開始有台灣人和香港人移民洛杉磯。剛從大學畢業的David Chan，與來自香港的同事結成朋友，二人光顧當時興起的港式茶餐廳，讓David Chan首次接觸到真正中餐，"你要知道在當時，洛杉磯的廣東菜是怎樣的，他們有咕嚕肉、雲吞湯及四款點心；叉燒包，台山包（蒸雞包加水煮蛋），蝦餃及燒賣，這就是我們僅有的點心了。"

因工作關係，David Chan經常穿州過省，於是他萌起念頭，把自己到訪過、位於不同州分的中餐館通通記低。他把自己的信用卡帳單、家庭照、菜單等，由年份、餐館名字、地址、 城市、州分等整理好；時至今日，記下來的中餐館已超過7,600家，最遠可追溯到1951年，他還收集餐館卡片或菜單，儲起的卡片超過6,000張，還有 過千張菜單。

在7,600多間餐館中，最遠可追溯至1951年。(受訪者提供)

在這些中餐廳資料內，除了可看到David Chan過去40年來、走遍大江南北的足跡，也是一本華人移民史，"過去十年，在聖蓋博穀（San Gabriel Valley）、洛杉磯，甚至整個美國，中餐業都變了天。"David Chan說，隨著中國移民在2000年起湧入，中菜菜式由過去集中粵菜，到現在變得百花齊放，如四川菜、湖南菜、東北菜等。以華人人口高達60萬的洛杉磯 為例，中餐館版圖隨華裔移民拓展，"如果你看看在聖蓋博穀新開的餐廳，隻有10％是廣東菜，其他都是火鍋、串燒、四川菜。"


 David Chan的電腦試算表內，記綠了過去40年來，他到訪過的7,600多間美國中餐館。(張紫茵攝)

約十年前，David Chan開始在Twitter記錄其美食之旅，後來獲美國主流媒體發掘，從此聲名大噪。現在，他在專欄上評論美國中餐趨勢及文化，最近還趕上潮流開設Instagram帳號。


除了為媒體譔寫文章，David Chan也趕上潮流開設Instagram及個人網誌。(網上截圖)

David Chan說，他時常被問到"哪裏有好吃的中餐"。整體而言，他認為洛杉磯中餐最出色，三藩市的點心則比較優勝。事實上，他曾列出"十家最好吃的中餐館"，但全部位於加州，使紐約食評家很不滿，更寫了一篇文章指責David Chan不懂中菜。從此，他隻在專欄評論中餐文化，減少評論個別餐館。


 食遍全美中餐館，讓他有機會見到不少名廚。(受訪者提供)

對於新派中菜，食遍全美的David Chan坦言食不慣，因為新派菜式味道更重、更辣，"辣度由『0至6』，我和太太隻能夠吃到『1』，最低的辣度，限製了我們可以吃的東西。"另一方麵，新開的中餐館大多隻聘請不諳英語的新移民，或隻提供中文菜單，增加了點餐難度。

受疫情影響，今年他訪問了20家新餐廳，連平日為媒體寫的文章亦苦無題材，由每月一篇"減產"至半年兩篇。經過40年實測，試算表內的餐廳數量，距離一萬間大關還有一段不遠不近的距離，David Chan坦言，自己年紀漸大，可以去的地方沒有以前多，所以不會給自己設一個"終極目標"。

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Thoughts On the 3.5 Yelp Star Rule For Chinese Restaurants

Image
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that there would be an internet meme about Yelp Chinese restaurant ratings.  But that's exactly what happened when my son's friend, filmmaker Freddie Wong, posted on Tik Tok the highly inventive proposition that only Chinese restaurants with 3.5 Yelp stars are worth eating at, garnering almost 20 million views.  His premise is that more highly rated Chinese restaurants are those patronized by too many non-Chinese diners, whose opinions are counter productive.  When Wong asked me for my assessment of the 3.5 star rule, I told him indeed that many great, authentic Chinese restaurants have 3.5 star ratings.  However the overhanging fact which prevents the rule from being the gospel truth is that Yelp ratings of Chinese restaurants are categorically unreliable (though not to say individual ratings may well be on point), as I explained in my article from L A Weekly. Why Yelp's Chinese Restaurant Ratings Don't Compute - L. A.
Read more

After 170 Years, Taishan Style Chinese Restaurants Are Opening Up In The United States

Image
  As I have often said, few among the American public realize that from the time of the arrival of the first Chinese in America during the gold rush, well into the mid-20th century, nearly the entirety of the Chinese population in the United States was rooted in the villages in or near the rural agricultural area of south China called Toisan, also known as Hoisan, and now referred to in the 21st century as Taishan.    (Note that in this article I will switch between references to Toisan and Taishan, depending on the time period being discussed.) So with Toisanese migrants being in California since the Gold Rush, how can the first Taishanese restaurants be just be opening now, some 170 years later?   Weren't there Toisanese style restaurants all over the United States in 1800s and the 1900s, since most of the Chinese were Toisanese and they opened restaurants to serve both their compatriots and outsiders?    Not really.  Historically there were never any restaurants in the U
Read more

How The San Gabriel Valley Became A Mecca For Chinese Dining

Image
As far as the younger generation and more recent immigrants are concerned, the gigantic Chinatown that is the San Gabriel Valley is something that has always existed.   I remember a comment on one of my interviews about the San Gabriel Valley was along the lines of "I always thought that my family used to live in East Los Angeles because they couldn't afford to live in Monterey Park at the time."  But indeed, I remember a time when there were very few Chinese or other Asians living in the San Gabriel Valley, and in fact at one time that the San Gabriel Valley was the most racist, lily white areas in Los Angeles County. So naturally, the subject which intrigued me over the years is how such a gigantic Chinese dining mecca and Chinese community in terms of both population and geographic area could have developed in the San Gabriel Valley, and not anywhere else in the Los Angeles area or somewhere else in the United States.   Now it’s not that I didn’t have a clue, as some o
Read more