#chopsui

[timserafin]

Perfectly tarned in the tall grass waits the huntress. Some delicious things gotta get chopped!! - #illustration #character #characterdesign #penandink #pen #ink #photoshop #digitalillustration #digital #artistoninstagram #comic #hunter #fantasy #choo #chopsui

[photochannyc]

Old school Chinatown sign. Isn’t Wo Fat one of villain in Hawaii Five 0 ? I don’t think you will find a Chop Sui place anywhere else. #honoluluchinatown #chopsui #chopshui #oldschoolsign (at Honolulu's Chinatown)

[groovemusiconly]

Chop sui - Donny

[celebrateall-blog]

August 29: National Chop Suey Day

Today I am in San Francisco, which by most accounts is the birthplace of chop suey, a dish that is Chinese the way pizza is Italian, the way corned beef and cabbage is Irish. It’s Chinese the way I am Chinese: it has the appearance of possibly being Chinese, but its origins are in America. Like pizza and corned beef, it was the invention of immigrants.

Its origins beyond that cannot be definitively verified, but many believe it dates back to the California Gold Rush of 1849. One of the most popular accounts tells of some hangry miners going into a Chinese restaurant as it was about to close, and hangrily demanding to be fed. Not wanting to go through too much trouble cooking, but also not wanting to get killed, the cooks whipped up a meal of leftovers stir-fried in soy sauce and served over rice to appease the miner diners.

While it can never be verified, this particular version of chop suey’s history appeals to me. I grew up in Hawaii with a Chinese father who never let us order the fried rice at Chinese restaurants, telling us that it was just old rice and leftover vegetables tossed around in a pan with soy sauce, and that we should order the fresh steamed rice. So there you have it, chop suey rice.

While I didn’t order the fried rice, Hawaii does have a number of chop suey restaurants, where I ordered the chop suey. I have fond memories of late night meals at McCully Chop Sui (since closed in 2006) following evenings watching University of Hawaii volleyball or basketball games.

But for an entire decade and a half of living in San Francisco, I cannot think of a single time I ate chop suey.

I no longer live in this wonderful city, but feel fortunate to have called it home for as long as I did. I have many friends here, and visit frequently.

So it is that coincidentally I find myself in San Francisco on National Chop Suey Day, and I set about doing an Internet search to locate the best chop suey. Unlike in Hawaii, they don’t just put the words “chop suey” in the names of the restaurants here.

My search leads me to New Woey Loy Goey Restaurant, a restaurant I have walked by on multiple occasions without going in, jokingly calling it the New Huey Louie Dewey Restaurant.

The restaurant is below street level on Jackson Street in Chinatown. I’d always felt self-conscious in San Francisco’s Chinatown, self-conscious of my inability to speak a language I look like I should know, distraught when people began speaking to me in Cantonese and I couldn’t understand them. So I suppose you could say I avoided going to Chinatown.

Specials written in Chinese are posted on the walls. I’ve always suspected I would get better dishes at Chinese restaurants if only I could read those signs, but today it doesn’t matter, as I know exactly what I want. I order the Tung Lok Special Chop Suey, the deluxe version of their chop suey, a mix of shrimp, scallops, cuttlefish, chicken, and char siu pork stir-fried with bean sprouts, carrots, snow peas, green onions, and mushrooms. It reminds me of my late-night meals at McCully Chop Sui.

[m00nlightcrystal]

#ChopSui #SystemofaDown #windmill

[adingintheuniverse-blog]

[adingintheuniverse-blog]

[bodega-beats]