New England Chinese Food

~ MaryG
Daily writing prompt
What do you love now, that you hated when you were younger?
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I’m changing this prompt. I’m answering this question instead:

What do you love now, that you hated loved when you were younger, but didn’t realize was unique to your area and is slowly disappearing?

Answer: New England Chinese Food

I spent the weekend with a couple of fellow GenX/Baby Boomers and learned something new.

The Chinese food we grew up loving is not the same elsewhere in the country. It’s unique and when people move away from New England (especially Massachusetts and Rhode Island), they can’t find it and they miss it.

In a nutshell, here’s why and how ours is different:

Most New England Chinese restaurants were established by Chinese immigrant families who adapted recipes to local American tastes in the mid-20th century. Restaurants tended to influence one another, creating a regional style that became its own tradition. The result is a cuisine that’s generally:

  • Sweeter
  • More heavily fried
  • More focused on appetizers
  • Less spicy than many restaurants in places like California, New York City’s Chinatown, or areas with larger recent Chinese immigrant communities.

One of my Boomer friends, who is Jewish, grew up in Massachusetts going out for Chinese food on Christmas, so he was especially sad when his lifelong favorite Chinese restaurant closed recently. He brought me up to speed on what everyone else apparently knows already.

You can’t get this stuff everywhere!

From Scorpion Bowls to PuPu platters filled with fried delights, you will not find any of it in modern pan-Asian restaurants with bright lights and sushi chefs.

We had an absolutely delightful meal at Jade Garden in New Bedford, MA which was about as Old School as you can get.

Our PuPu platter. Pass the Duck Sauce.

Everything, especially the chicken fingers, were delicious and absolutely glistening in their fried batter. I did not manage to grab one of those classic New England-style Chinese egg rolls fast enough, so will need to return. Barely visible are the sweet, boneless park spare ribs which, according to all reports, are hard to find outside New England.

Here’s my chicken lo mein, hold the MSG. Yummy!

I am now a member of a very large Facebook group dedicated to the love of New England Style Chinese Food—“a regional Americanization of Chinese Food, which features such things as lobster sauce, pupu platters, and chow mein. This group serves as a place to share favorite restaurants, photos, and memories.”

Clearly Jewish families have many Christmas memories associated with this cuisine, and it’s sad when those restaurants inevitably close. For me, it was the Yangtze River in Lexington, Massachusetts. That was the go to place for my family, but also for the “music nerds” in my high school. We went there after all our musical performances. We could excitedly relive that evening’s performance of The Music Man or Annie Get Your Gun over a pile of fried apps as big as the snare drum from the pit orchestra.

Who knows, maybe the football team went to Yangtze River too, but they weren’t at my table. I was with the band, music and theater kids.

21 thoughts on “New England Chinese Food”

  1. I don’t know where “A Christmas Story” takes place, but I was also thinking about when the Bumpus hounds eat the Turkey so the family has to have duck and other fan fare on Christmas. Glad that you had a staple!

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    1. I was thinking of that movie too! I think it was set in the Midwest, but it was great how the Chinese restaurant was there for them….when everything else was closed for Christmas. A reliable staple of the community.

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      3. I did when my son was young. He’s 20. My ex-wife was kinda an earth-centered girl.

        I would do whatever loved ones want to do. Just don’t like being solo on holidays. People are so busy and it makes me emo.

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  2. I hear you. Most of our local New England places shuttered their doors during Covid and never reopened. When I was a teenager the Hu Ke Lau beside the Maine Mall was the end all be all for Polynesian themed Chinese food. Their Pu Pus were huge… and legendary.
    And now I want one.
    Damn you.
    😩

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  4. I’ve never heard of pupu’s until today! We have really good Chinese food here in the Chicago suburbs, and now I’m wondering what foods are on our menus that you don’t have. This was such a fun post to read.

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    1. Thanks for commenting Kari! I had no idea “New England Chinese” was a thing until last weekend. A Boomer in mourning over the closing of his old favorite restaurant had to explain it to me.

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  5. I love the image of you and your “music nerd” friends going to a favorite Chinese restaurant after a musical production. Lots of energy and sass, I bet. Fun to think about. However, I never considered that Chinese food would have a New England slant, but the way you describe it, sounds exactly like Chinese food in Maine. And I guess there is a Facebook group for everything.

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    1. Thanks for commenting Laurie. Apparently you can’t easily find Chinese food exactly like ours elsewhere— especially in Florida (where there are a lot of New England snowbirds). It’s a HUGE FB group, lol.

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  7. Chinese food is absolutely very different place to place! I didn’t consider that maybe the restaurants in Miami might have been more New English.

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  8. I’ll start by saying that your Chinese food has both similarities and differences to what I’m used to here in the UK. I tend to think Chinese food can be like that having eaten in various cities on our travels.

    I, however, truly sympathise with you about how times are changing. We used to visit a wonderful Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of East London before I moved back to the Cotswolds and I’ve never been able to find anything similar in the 21 years I’ve now lived in this area. It was really authentic Chinese food back then with a revolving table in the middle to make it easier for everyone to share.

    The Chinese restaurants in our current locality and we’ve searched probably a 25 mile radius are all based on takeaway Chinese food. This type of fair is not authentic Chinese it is a different style and menu that has taken the authentic and adapted it to meet English taste.I don’t want to sit in a restaurant eating chop suey, chicken chow mein, chips as a side and deep fried spring rolls. I want to eat fresh fried seaweed, crispy fried duck and sizzling hot beef or prawns, beef in black bean sauce or sweet n sour pork. My mouth is watering just thinking about it ……..

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    1. That does sound good! The cocktails are a big thing in old school New England Chinese restaurants too (Mai Tais, etc)…and you can’t get those to go 😉

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  9. What a cool perspective. I’m Taiwanese-American and generally look down upon Chinese-American food. It is SO different from the “real thing”. Your eye opening post makes me rethink the idea of the real thing. Perhaps New England Chinese Food is its own real thing, not necessarily an inferior version of food you find in Taiwan (or China).

    Please keep writing!

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    1. Thank you so much for your very kind comment! It was really my friend who is Jewish in his late 60s and grew up eating in Chinese restaurants on Christmas (because nothing else in New England was ever open on Christmas!) that explained to me that NE Chinese is most definitely its own thing…sweeter, more brown sauces, more fried. When people from here can’t get it, they miss it!

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