Anyone who’s been to a typical Chinese buffet knows the kind of food to be found there – General Tso’s chicken, sesame chicken, chop suey, chow mein, crab rangoon, fortune cookies, and so on. Much of it is sweet, greasy, or both, and you leave so full that you feel you need to be rolled out.
But authentic Chinese food is as varied as the country is large. Like the United States, different parts of the country, with their different histories and traditions, also have different kinds of food. For example, while in Beijing last summer, I was struck by how salty the food was and how much Beijing ren – Beijing people – like to put sauces on food. It was unlike anything I’d encountered in Chinese restaurants in the U.S.
Lao Beijing Restaurant in Chicago’s Chinatown tries to create as authentic an experience for customers as if they were back in Beijing. Ryan Hu, a server at Lao Beijing and nephew of the restaurant’s owner, Tony Hu, described some differences between Americanized and authentic Chinese food. First, a Chinese buffet in the U.S. mass-produces certain basic, typical Chinese dishes, like broccoli, beef, fried noodles and fried rice. Lao Beijing and Chinese restaurants in China serve individual portions of food.
Examples of authentic Mandarin or Beijing food are pork with sour cabbage soup, tofu skins stir-fried with pork and chili peppers, stewed pork belly with vermicelli, rice noodles, and the famous Peking duck.
But within Beijing, there is still great variety in the food. The Chinese capital draws people from all over China that bring their own cuisine. As a result, Beijing food has been influenced by all the regional differences.
Lao Beijing, part of Tony Gourmet Group, six restaurants owned by Tony Hu, opened in 2008. The other restaurants, three of which are also in Chinatown, each offer foods from different parts of China. Lao Sze Chuan serves food from southwestern China. Lao Shanghai, naturally, serves food from Shanghai, which is in eastern China. Lao You Ju, the newest of the restaurants, offers something from all the regions of China in a more upscale setting. There are also Lao Sze Chuans in Downers Grove and in Milford, Conn.
None of Tony Hu’s restaurants specializes in the fourth kind of Chinese food, Cantonese, because many other places in Chinatown serve Cantonese food. However, there are still Cantonese influences in what they serve.
Lao means old or authentic in Chinese. Hu’s goal with all his restaurants is to create as authentic an experience as possible for American customers who have never been to China and for Chinese customers who miss their home country, and to promote Chinatown. But he doesn’t mind if he makes some friends along the way. For example, Lao You Ju means old friends get together. “Because I’m in Chinatown doing business for many years, I don’t make much money,†said Hu with a laugh. “But I do make a lot of friends.â€
Tony Gourmet Group has had a presence in the United States for over a decade.