The Asia Grille's contributions to the community are extremely generous and, they are given without fanfare. There are very few events for which Asia Grille gift certificates are not donated. With a special interest in youth and the cultural arts, the banquet room and food are gratis for fund-raising activities that support these interests. The restaurant has donated portable defibrillators to the Fire Department, offers employees a l/2 day off a month with pay for community service. Charles Chin, himself, is on the board of directors of the RI Association of Chinese Americans where he works to support his heritage, including collecting books in Chinese for the Chinese Library in Pawtucket, providing sponsorships for Chinese people to come to the USA and offering employees a l/2 day off a month with pay for community service.

China Earthquake Relief Committee formed to help victims

KINGSTON, R.I. - The Confucius Institute and Chinese Students and Scholars Association at the University of Rhode Island have partnered with the China Earthquake Relief Committee of Rhode Island in a statewide effort to aid earthquake victims in Sichuan, China.

Many Rhode Islanders are watching this devastating tragedy unfold on television and would like to know how to help the earthquake victims, says Louis Yip, a community leader of Chinese Americans in Rhode Island and chair of the relief fund.

In an agreement with Sovereign Bank, all 31 branches in Rhode Island will accept donations. Checks should be payable to China Earthquake Relief Fund. In addition, donation jars have been placed at the Asia Grille Restaurant in Lincoln; the American Chinese Mini Market, the Hong Kong Buffet and the Royal Buffet, all located in Cranston.

People can also mail checks to the China Earthquake Relief Fund, 48 Blackstone Ave., Pawtucket, R.I. 02860. All funds collected will be sent to the Chinese Red Cross. URI President Robert L. Carothers has agreed to serve as an honorary chairman of the relief committee that includes Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis, Attorney General Patrick Lynch, Congressman James Langevin, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; and Bernard LaFayette, distinguished scholar-in-residence and director of URIs Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies.

Names of other elected officials are being confirmed. The magnitude 7.9 earthquake, the worst to hit China in 30 years, struck the southwestern province of Sichuan Monday, May 12. According to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, the death toll is expected to exceed 50,000.

The confirmed death toll in the Sichuan province as of May 18 was 32,476. More than 80 students from China are studying at URI, according to Yaning Chen, a doctoral student who is president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association.

In addition, there are more than 50 Chinese faculty members and professionals at the University. Fortunately, no families of the students, faculty, or staff have been personally affected by the earthquake. URI has the largest number of Chinese students and faculty than any other higher education institute in the state, says Yan Ma, URI professor of library and information studies who directs the Universitys Confucius Institute.

Ma is vice chair of the relief committee. Many students, staff, and faculty have already reached out and have generously contributed to the relief fund recognizing the urgency for help and to show their concern.

We are happy to join the statewide effort to get more help to victims.

For more information, visit the China Earthquake Relief Committee of Rhode Island's website:
http://www.riforchinaquakerelief.org/

Smithfield High School

The Asia Grille sponsored a Cabaret Fundraiser to benefit the Smithfield High School production of "Hello Dolly". Attendees enjoyed an Asian buffet and cabaret performances by members of the "Hello Dolly" cast.

Journal Food Editor

For many of us, Chinese food was our first taste of international cuisine, of something exotic.

There are memories, whether of a pu pu platter or a chow mein sandwich, which still give us a warm and fuzzy feeling. It might have been delivered or picked up or enjoyed in a restaurant with a tropical theme, but it was special every time you had it. Whether we are second generation Italian or first generation from Hong Kong, Chinese was another version of comfort food right up there with Mom's chicken soup.

It was fast; it was affordable; it was delicious.

America's love affair with Asian food is the focus of an upcoming two-day conference, "Eating Chinese: Global and Local Perspectives on Food and Memory," which is jointly sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and the John Nicolas Brown Center Public Humanities Program, both of Brown University; and the Culinary Arts Museum of Johnson & Wales University.

There will be panel discussions, film screenings, interviews, a cooking demonstration and two museum exhibitions unveiled. Chow mein sandwiches will be served at one session and tea and almond cookies at another. The events Friday and Saturday are open to the public but some by reservation only. See Page E4 for details.

We've taken our own short trip down memory lane and tried to peer into the future for the next wave of delicious food that makes us feel good, too.

Ask those in the know about Chinese cuisine's future and they point to an unlikely spot - Providence's Federal Hill neighborhood.

Sophia Ling Cuyegkeng's upscale MuMu Cuisine, 220 Atwells Ave., with its emphasis on tradition and fine dining is widely considered to represent the next wave of Chinese food in America.

Cuyegkeng was born in Taiwan and owns some 10 restaurants, from New York and New Jersey to Taipei, Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Her son Henry Mu opened up Lot 401 in Providence and she moved here because she wanted to expand the local palate for Chinese food.

"We think of fast food as the fashion for Chinese food," she said adding, "That's not what we do here."

As with French cooking, the techniques and the sauces elevate dishes.

"We probably have 14 to 16 different sauces," she said. "We match each dish with a different sauce."

They are her recipes and her ingredients and include a light but hot sauce served on fish or her XO sauce, based with garlic and ginger, that pairs with shrimp and scallop.

Beijing-style dining includes lots of small snacks and those are her appetizers which include dumplings but in different shapes and flavors.

More fine dining and gourmet food is also identified as the next wave by John Eng-Wong the Brown researcher studying the globalization of Chinese food.

"Singapore is one of the epicenters of new Chinese food, and a place where new cooks are in training, for example the cook for Hakkasan an upscale London restaurant is Singaporean," he said. "But economic growth in China has enabled a renaissance of Chinese cuisine. Though I've not eaten in more than a few places, there is marvelous food and new directions."

This direction is also visible in Hong Kong and in Taiwan, he said.

When the "Eating Chinese" event ends this weekend it's not the end of the dialogue, Eng-Wong said. A second conference is set for October with events including a cooking demonstration by a chef and instructor visiting from Singapore, Eng-Wong said.

Charles Chin, owner of Lincoln's Asia Grille, just returned from a trip to Malaysia (where his wife Ceci is from) and Singapore. He sees a fusion of Asian dining on the horizon with vegetables from Malaysia, Indian spices and Chinese bean spices and their methods converging eventually in American restaurant kitchens. He also noted that with so much American business being done in China, people return to the United States looking for the food they had while in Asia.

He also said the refined dining of Singapore will have an impact on the cuisine, and perhaps the price.

"People have a perception about Chinese food being affordable," he said.

No matter how bad the economy might have gotten, pizza shops and Chinese restaurants continued to thrive in America because of their affordability, Chin said.

That pricing concept may well be challenged as the next wave of cuisine is served up across America.

As a boy in the '60s, Charles Chin attended Beneficent Congregational Church on Weybosset Street in Providence. After choir rehearsal, he would go off to one of the city's landmark Chinese restaurants to help in the kitchen. He'd cut up vegetables or do whatever needed to be done for a few hours and a few bucks. It replaced having a paper route, he said. It also prepared him for his future as the owner of the Islander, a Chinese food institution in Warwick, and now the Asia Grille in Lincoln Mall Plaza.

Chin
In those days, Providence's five restaurants stood in close proximity, he said. There was Mee Hong on Westminster Street, Chen's (on the second floor on Mathewson Street), and Hon Hong, all owned by the Chin family; Luke's on Eddy Street behind City Hall, owned by the Luke family; and Ming Garden on Kennedy Plaza, which was owned by the Tow family. The Tow family also ran the Port Arthur which was among the first Chinese restaurants, opened in 1926, said John Eng-Wong, a visiting scholar at Brown's Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America where he is researching the globalization of Chinese food.

Chin learned something different from each of the head chefs. They all worked differently, Chin said.

He also recalled how each restaurant back then had its own personality. Mee Hong with its art deco style had no liquor license. Ming Garden was designed by Morris Nathanson and had clean, modern lines and their menu was designed by RISD students. The owners were the most progressive and aggressive businessmen, he said. Luke's had a tropical setting and the bar was downstairs, away from the restaurant.

Later, when he worked at Ming Garden, he would deliver a legendary chicken appetizer to the Tow family's other restaurant which was nearby but too small to have a full kitchen. It was called the Kubla Khan, and as he delivered the food, he'd hear patrons there saying they just weren't as good as Ming's Wings.

Taste perceptions play a role in culinary appreciation, he believes. At one time, Chinese spareribs almost had to glow in the dark for people to believe they were the recipe they liked, he recalled. And coleslaw and pickled beets had to be served with their Chinese food as did bread.

Changes in taste, and lots of urban renewal, spelled the demise of all those downtown spots. People were going to their suburban restaurants for dinner and takeout. Chin named Lee's Caféerrace, run by five brothers, across from the airport where Legal Seafood stands now, as one of those places.

Before the '70s, all the early chefs came from Canton and brought their fried rice and blended meat dishes. Chow mein came from Canton, as did many of the early Chinese immigrants in the 19th century, said Eng-Wong. They also introduced chop suey which was more of a ménge of ingredients, much like an Italian antipasto, he said. The dishes were an adaptation using ingredients they would find here.

Chinese food was written about as far back as 1860 with "Americans saying how tasty it is and it established a hold with its flavor," Eng-Wong said. Woolworth's even served chow mein at their lunch counters.

Only later did the spicier Szechuan-Hunan change the landscape of what was thought of as Chinese food, Chin said.


Eng-Wong named Louis Yip, the former longtime proprietor of the China Inn in Pawtucket, as the man who revolutionized Chinese cuisine during that era. Yip introduced things like dumplings and scallion pancakes to Rhode Island, he said.

"That style of cooking was not here in the U.S. for more than five or six years when he brought it here," he said, adding that Joyce Chen was among those who introduced them to Boston.

Through all the evolution, diner's appreciation of Chinese food is very provincial with tastes varying from region to region, said Chin. "Because you were restricted to use what is locally available, ingredients and flavors could differ greatly."

Eng-Wong agreed and said "Chinese food in Cuba is different than Chinese food in America."

>The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy