 Orange chicken, egg-foo, young, and general so's. These aren't usually the dishes we talk about on our channel because only American Chinese restaurants serve them. These spots were crucial to so many families' livelihoods coming up in America, including a lot of our friends. But according to a recent New York Times article, a ton of these restaurants are closing down across the country. Why? And how could this actually be a good thing? This struck a chord with us, so we're gonna go visit two restaurants in our hometown to learn more because we gotta find out for ourselves. My name is Steven Chan, I'm from Hong Kong, and I've been working in a Chinese restaurant business over 40 years. During the mid-70s, my brother told me, get a skill wherever you go, you can get a job. First, I learned how to make barbecue duck, roast pork, and roast pig. 30, 40 years ago, if you cook traditional, real, real Chinese food, people might not be able to accept it because it's too greasy. I think Chinese restaurants like this always be around. What level of authenticity would you put your restaurant at? Out of one to 10? I'll say four or five so I can please the Chinese people and non-Chinese people. We have round one here at Sandwalk Express. Basically what we have here are all the American Chinese classics. I would say growing up at home, we probably did not eat any of these. Some of the dishes are actually rooted in certain real Chinese dishes but have changed over the years. I think that's the funny thing is a lot of people call this fake Chinese food. I just call it American Chinese food. First up, I've got the beef and broccoli. The breakdown of this dish is it was invented in the 1920s in America. It is based off a traditional Chinese dish. It's called the European Gieland. 1920s Italians brought broccoli over from Italy. Chinese broccoli, it looks completely different. Beef and broccoli. I remember the last time we ate Westernized takeout Chinese on camera, was with Jay Lin, Jeremy Lin. I was always a low-main guy over Fried Rice guy. No, the beef and broccoli's nice. I love how Steve back there could cook the broccoli perfectly. It's still crunchy but it's a little bit soft. Next up, Andrew. This dish I have never had before my entire life. We've got lemon chicken. This is a chicken filet that's fried. The history of lemon chicken is actually surprisingly based off a real dish. I'm wondering which came first. The lemon chicken or the katsu chicken. They look exactly the same. Sometimes it comes with a lemon sauce on it. We got lemon sauce on the side. Lemon chicken. Here's Steve's food, man. Whether it's orange chicken or lemon chicken, it really packs that citrus punch. He puts actual orange peels in the orange chicken and there is actual a lemon zest in this lemon chicken. I gotta see why people like that dish. For me, I thought this was a good version. I said that flavor is just not for me. The next Western Chinese takeout dish we've got is the shrimp with the lobster sauce. Originally, they used to cook lobsters in this sauce but then they just switched to replace the lobsters with shrimp but they kept the sauce the same so it's shrimp and lobster sauce. Do you think it's because at one time lobsters were a lot cheaper and it got more expensive so you replaced it with shrimp with shrimp and lobster sauce? Really light, eggy. I actually really liked that one. The flavor really came through. Shrimp and lobster sauce is fire. Wow, I'm like him. That's actually one of my favorite dishes we have so far. Here's the interesting thing about Mongolian beef hinder. A lot of people have hotly debated the origins of this dish. There was a chef from Beijing. Beijing at one time was ruled by Mongolians. He flees China during the revolution, goes to Taiwan, opens up a chain of Mongolian grills. Wow. Then he decides to expand to America and brings it called Mongolian beef. So it went from Mongolian soldiers down to Beijing, Beijing to Taiwan, Taiwan to the US. He had some Mongolian Chinese food in Beijing at the Hu Tong. Hu Tong is actually a Mongolian word. This actually does kind of look like it. This looks sort of authentic. Mongolian beef. A little spicy. There should be cumin and chili powder. If there's cumin in it, that seems pretty authentic to me. Here's the big debate. In Mongolia, Andrew, they don't actually barbecue meat. They either grill it or they put in there a gigantic like rock pot stew. But here's the thing. Easily, it could have been Mongolian soldiers occupying Beijing that ate a similar dish. Yeah? At the end of the day, it's inspired by something real. One of our last dishes here at San Joaquin's Best is the black pepper chicken. A lot of people don't really know. They were like saying based off a Hunan dish or a Hunan dish, but there's nothing fully to say what it where came from. All right. Actually, even within Chinese American dishes, there's actually a diversity of Chinese roots. Today, I would say the only two Cantonese dishes here that are Cantonese and root are the shrimp and the lobster sauce and the beef and rock. Black pepper chicken. Andrew, personally, for me, this might be my favorite American Chinese dish. This is actually really good. We've been here at San Joaquin before, but not many times. I do think that this is a little bit higher on the authenticity scale compared to your average Westernized takeout spot. I think the spot we ate at with Jeremy Lin might have even been a 5.5. The last thing I've got to see, I've got to see the shooters eat the food. So we're the one chicken. Sometimes you go to like a fast food type like Chinese place and it's just all batter and like little nugget. This is definitely a good mixture. Like, yeah. Lemon chicken. This is Japanese people, dude. Threw me off. All right, shrimp with the lobster sauce. I like it a lot. It looks slimy and I'm usually like not that guy at all, but that's super good. This is when mom says you need some vegetables. You can't go on chicken. You get this one. Yo, one thing I noticed, Andrew, is that these guys got a lot more experience with this food than we do. I didn't even have this many thoughts about it. That's crazy. Andrew, what I noticed about San Joaquin's express is it's at a really interesting point because it ranks 4.5 out of 10 on the authenticity scale. A lot of spots are either eight out of 10 or like two out of 10. I actually think it's a good place to start. If this is your first Chinese food, I am at it. The only exposure that people have to like your people or your culture is in a 499 like ultra cheap bargain bid way. Well, I think some people try to judge you and say, oh, you guys make cheap food. You guys must be cheap people. First of all, I don't think that's true. And second of all, it was just a certain generation. And I think that now they were changing. Yeah, and not only that, but they did what they need to do to survive. Steve and his partner that own San Joaquin Express both have kids that are now entering the professional workforce. They wear a suit and tie. They have 401K employee matching, whatever. And obviously their kids don't want to take over the restaurant. No, because they don't want to do what Steve does. Steve was back there looking like he had octopus arms. Like it was stated in the New York Times article, the fact that his kids have better opportunities almost means that Steve and his partner did their job. And I think that I will say this at the 4.5 authenticity level, Andrew, I think someone will want to buy this restaurant from Steve when he retires. However, in the article, the New York Times article, they were referencing a lot of stuff that's really in the middle of nowhere, a small town of 25,000, 30,000 people, 15,000 people. It's true that depending on the system that they have and the brand they've cultivated, there may not be anybody who wants to purchase it. And that's why there is actually over the past couple of years there's been a decrease in Chinese restaurant. But you know what? With the decrease of certain types of Chinese restaurants, there's an increase of other Chinese restaurants. Maybe the image of Chinese food over the next decade and a half is gonna change. All right, Andrew, we just finished up here with Steve at Sandwalk Express. Like we said, 4.5 out of 10 on authenticity, but I think we gotta go to a place that's more extreme on the Western takeout American spectrum. Guys, this next spot that we're going to is a Chinese restaurant that's been in our neighborhood for almost 30 years and we've never been there. Do you think it's interesting that the spot we're about to go to and shout out to Chopsticks almost was everybody else's opinion on our culture? So now we're going to eat there for the first time in 30 years on the Chopsticks. All right, David, we are here at our second spot, Chopsticks. Now, this is one of those restaurants that was open for many, many years. Recently, a mother and son combo actually just took over the shop. They serve a dish that is so old school. I believe that even nowadays, American Chinese food fanatics don't even eat it anymore. Dude, we're talking about poo poo platter. That's a Polynesian Chinese dish that made its way over, I believe, in 1952. And this is the stuff that Marilyn Monroe and Carrie Grant were eating in Beverly Hills in 1957. So let's go check out Chopsticks. My name is Ching and I was born in Malaysia. Before I bought this restaurant, I was actually working with them for three years, saw it on the market. Two years later, it was still on the market. No one wants to buy it. When the time was right, my mom and I kind of decided to get into buying the restaurant. I actually talked to the kid of the owner when he was teaching me how to do the deliveries and he told me that he does not want to be in the restaurant industry and he wants to finish his study and be a doctor. Because they grew up in this industry for that many years, and they've seen how hard it is to be in the kitchen and for the parents and to be able to open 365 days a year. And that's just a lot of hard work. I'm very grateful for this opportunity. My goal is to create a happy place, especially for the Chinese community, a place that where they can come in and work as a family and just create a good vibe energy for restaurants. All right, you guys, we have arrived here at Chopsticks. The food looks amazing. This might be the second or third time I've ever had almond chicken in my entire life. Almond chicken was developed for people in the Midwest who like chicken fried steak. Almond chicken. Yeah, almond chicken is delicious. It doesn't really taste like Chinese food. I would say 60% Salisbury country fried steak. Yeah. 40% Chinese. They think that it's super Asian about a crab rangoon. Obviously the filling's not. It's imitation crab, cream cheese, but guess what? It is a wonton wrapper. Ultimate original version of this dish could have been a Burmese Chinese dish. Crab rangoon, AKA cheese wonton. Sometimes when we make a bagel at home with cream cheese, we'll put jam on it. That's actually what it tasted like, except in a wonton shell. Andrew, continuing with the theme of westernized Chinese food that was invented in the 1950s at restaurants, egg fuyang. Yeah. Or a Mandarin furong. There's a dish called furong dan. This one's pretty interesting. I saw him make it. He fries it, and the egg puffs up. Egg fuyang. This is like the first time I'm having this dish in my entire life. Hey, it is bad. There's nothing not to like about that. It tastes like okonomiyaki. I like that better than the almond chicken. Andrew, next, we gotta talk about the poo poo platter. The poo poo platter, I think, is one of those Chinese dishes that I'm not gonna lie, I kind of cringe at the sound of it, but I haven't actually tried it. And you know the crazy thing is Andrew? That's not even Chinese. The poo poo platter comes from Hawaiian. All right, Andrew, I think we immediately have to address that the roast BBQ pork here does definitely not look like what we would call like tasiu. Chinese BBQ pork, American style. I'm almost saying it's like chicken. I gotta try this egg roll, man. I give this a six out of 10. No, there's- This is probably the most authentic thing here. David, there's a jack-in-the-box across the street, and those egg rolls are really not authentic. Sweet and sour chicken. Yo, this is the chicken that you drizzled the red sauce on. I heard that American Chinese food has actually gone through two major revolutions. One was in the 1950s, and the other one was in the 1980s. So Panda Express is actually more of the 1980s generation. When I'm looking out on here, I see some food that reminds me of the 1940s era, but I also see some that was more a result of the 1980s era. Actually, at some point, going to a Chinese restaurant was a nice night out. That was a dine in. And then at some point it got really cheap, and everybody was doing takeout, and then now it's kind of going back to being a sit-down restaurant. Fried shrimp. What do you think about the batter? It's kind of that bubbly batter. 1950s. Kind of fluffy. Chicken wings. That's good. Pretty good overall, man. I do think the wing in general is a little bit more Western, because when you go over to China, they tend to eat like gigantic chopped chickens more. Andrew, this was based off a northern Chinese dish, you know, swan la tang. There's bamboo shoots. There's wood ear mushrooms. This is actually based off a Sichuan dish. It's a lot more watery, and the egg is much in much bigger pieces. All right, guys. Sweet and sour soup and egg drop soup. Oh, see this one, to be honest, right now in the American format, it tastes more like a corn soup. So it's not bad. I mean, that tastes kind of similar to the authentic ones. All right, David, we are moving on to the general so's and orange chicken battles. These are the staples. So we are going to compare it to Sand Wok. Let's start with the orange chicken. I will tell you this. The orange chicken pieces are huge. Guys, the orange chicken. Way more orangey than Sand Wok's. Tastes way sweeter, a little bit more syrupy, almost more like candy. General so's here. I like the general so's at Sand Wok's better. And I actually kind of like the orange chicken here better. Wow. Okay, I see what you're saying. You know what I thought was really interesting is doing research for this video. First of all, not only has Chinese food changed, even American Chinese food as an entire genre has changed over the years. You know what I see as the third revolution of Chinese American food in 2020? I think that that's when you're starting to see almost this like Chinese bass casual style. It's more similar to a dig in. And her chop suey in Cantonese is just chop suey, which means just like whatever you got. Mostly hate about that. Light in flavor, tastes pretty clean. Nice light stir-fried cabbage. We're also looking at the house special chow mein. I'd say the flavor profile sweeter. Yeah. Anything that Americans want is sweeter. Sweet and fried. Boom Andrew, sweet and sour pork. I do believe this is based off maybe guobao rou from Dongdae. I'm gonna get a real saucy one. Sweet and sour pork. Sometimes the food in Hong Kong is already somewhat fusionized. You know, tatang, like French toast food. Maybe so many Hong Kong or like Cantonese chefs found it pretty easy because they were like, oh well, there's actually Hong Kong dishes that are kind of similar to the American ones that we eat, so. Yeah. This fried rice actually looks pretty good. It's actually not bad. Literally, this is a staple of Chinese American food. And I would say of the very Chinese American restaurants that I've been to, this fried rice ranks up there. The Mongolian beef. Tastes pretty different. I gotta go with San Juan. I'm just saying on this dish. It has so many green onions. It's way sweeter. Andrew, I can hit you with a beef from Brock. Whoa. A beef from Brock. It doesn't taste like panda. I like the beef at the other spot better. I like the broccoli here better. All right, you guys, I gotta grab Team Japan to come in real quick and give a speed round of opinions. Boom, almond chicken, guys. It's a little watery. Have you heard of egg poo, young? Not bad. My mom, I feel like, made something like this one. Crab rangoon, let's get it. Give me flashbacks. I love it. It's the best, like. Heinz's wife's side is being super positive. Too Americanized for me. Oh, one chicken. One chicken. Just coated too much with the sweet stuff. Chop suey? This is something I would get all the time. This is fire. You know what I'm saying? Just bomb. That's like, if it was orange chicken, but not super sweet and has a little bit of spice. Perfect. Andrew, I think it's always interesting when you feel compelled to do a video based off an article as the most famous newspaper in the world, The New York Times. We grew up with sometimes a negative connotation for American Chinese food, because it's used to tease us. But nowadays, I think it should be accepted and it's part of our history. You know, these restaurant trends, they are tied to cultural trends that are tried to immigration waves and immigration patterns. I always say this, there's always three levels of something. You're either dying, you're surviving, or you're thriving. I see that a lot of these places are surviving so their kids can live a life that's thriving. To be honest, that's why ABC shouldn't look down on it, because whether or not it's authentic, it's not trying to be, and these people are really trying to survive in a brand new country. You know, just talking to Ching, I know that he's thinking a lot about the business and has a lot of other plans in the future for it, as much as he wants to keep it kind of traditionally American Chinese. And as for Steve, Steve has kids, his partner has kids, and none of them want to take over Sandwalk Express, but I think at the quality that he runs his business and system, there will be somebody that will be gladly paying to take it off his hands when it's time to sell. All right, everybody, thank you so much for watching that video. Big shout out to that New York Times article. Obviously, Sandwalk Express, chopsticks. Man, shout out to these guys. In the comments below, let us know what your favorite American Chinese dish is. You know, I think people should be able to appreciate these kind of restaurants on a certain level. This is part of the story that's constantly evolving and new chapters are being written. We're in a hometown of Kent, and until next time, we out. Peace. Did you guys understand there was a dichotomy between like this style and then like, you know, the ultra-authentic style that they might eat in Hong Kong or China? I had no idea. Yeah, I don't know if I've run into like, super, super-authentic. I feel like all of it's been pretty much like, American Chinese food.