But the miners demanded food, so he did the best he could to avoid trouble and get them out of the way as soon as possible. When they got to the restaurant the regular customers had finished their suppers, and the proprietor was ready to close his doors. They had been told that Chinese ate rats and they wanted to see whether or not it was true.

The white men had heard the usual sailor yarns about what these pigtailed yellow men ate, and one night a crowd of miners decided they would try this strange fare just to see what it was like. Soon after the discovery of gold the Chinese colony in the city was large enough to support a couple of restaurants conducted by Cantonese cooks, who catered only to their fellow-exiles from the Middle Kingdom.

It’s uncertain how long Asing’s restaurant lasted, or how it contributed to the appetite for Chinese food among non-Chinese diners, but Macao and Woosung is seen as the birthplace of Chinese restaurant in America.Īccording to Carl Crow, a writer for Harper’s, San Francisco in the midst of the Gold Rush was also the beginning of chop suey. In 1849, Norman Asing, the self-appointed spokesperson for Chinese Californians, opened an all-you-can-eat buffet called Macao and Woosung, on the corner of Kearny and Commercial streets in San Francisco. I’m traveling this week and in light of my destination, here’s a postcard.

Chinese food chop suey