chin

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.

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 Café Terrace, 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 mélange 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.”

gciampa@projo.com