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the first
Asian food was introduced to the United States in the mid-1800's when Chinese immigrants from Canton began settling in California. At that time the food was consumed primarily by the Chinese community. Chinese food became popular with young cosmopolitans in the 1920s because it was considered exotic. It wasn't until after World War II that Asian cuisines (notably Chinese, Japanese and Polynesian) piqued the interest of mainstream America. Sylvia Lovegren's Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food -
first Chinese immigrants
in 1847, the first Chinese immigrants settled in San Francisco and were followed by thousands who helped to build the transcontinental railways. The meals of hundreds of California families were influenced by cooks who were Chinese and had been hired as housemen in middle-class homes. They seldom were permitted to prepare Oriental meals, but they held to their art of serving vegetables that do to lose their crispness or color...Other Chinese were cooks for the work gangs...In the early Californi -
london
As one of the practical illustrations of food...a 'Nippon Rioriya,' or Japanese restaurant, has been opened by Mr. Matsusawa, of Tokyo. With Japanese chefs, chopsticks, and the small dinner service peculiar ot Japan, there is left little doubt as to the authenticity of the viands; they posses an aromatic flavor so totally different from that to which one is accustomed. Here is a specified bill of fare, for which a dollar is charged, including tea and sake, or Japanese wine, while paper napkin an -
first resturant
"...The Bangkok Restaurant on Bute Street, oldest Thai restaurant in London...still has some chic."
---"Bangkok on the Thames," Charles Perry, Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1982 (p. K87) -
los angels
The menu here is crammed with noodles: Thai rice noodles, Chinese egg noodles, Vietnamese rice stick noodle soup, even stir-fried spaghetti. "My whole life I've been involved in restaurants," says John Mekpongsatorn, the 23-year-old restaurateur who created Noodle World, an Alhambra eatery that combines a Denny's-style fast food atmosphere with what amounts to a global tour of noodles. "My favorite thing to eat, of course, was noodles." Mekpongsatorn is the latest heir to a family dynasty of Asi -
san fransisco
Ambassador Wright cabled information obtained through Japanese channels that Japanese restaurant and a Japanese bathhouse in San Francisco had been demolished by a mob."
---"Japan Complains of Fresh Assaults: Details of Rioting in San Francisco," New York Times, May 26, 1907 (p. 5)