[Sca-cooks] Cuban Chinese Restaurants

[Philip & Susan Troy]

>Adamantius said:
>>   and I would say their
>>  general focus is on Dominican and Colombian food (I don't know what,
>>  if any, significance is to be found in this combination, unlike, say,
>>  Cuban/Chinese restaurants, a phenom for which there is a very logical
>>  reason).
>
>Ok, so what is the logical reason for seeing a Cuban/Chinese
>resturant?
>
>Some Chinese started hijacking planes to Cuba? :-)
>
>Some Cubans returned from China with a taste for Chinese food after
>making the world safe for Socialism? :-)

Har har _HAR_ de har har...

Close, though, if somewhat reversed, in that last one. A lot of
Chinese essentially either left China before WWII or escaped during
the Cultural Revolution, fearing the onset of a Communist regime.
Many of them ended up in Canada and Brazil (mostly having to do with
prevailing immigration laws before and during 1949), but a lot of
them ended up in Cuba, which, at the time, was a republic.

Many of those worked in restaurants (the hospitality industry in such
a country being what it was, as I'm sure Misha, starring in "Guys and
Dolls" can probably attest, even if he's not in that scene).

Imagine their surprise when, after having crossed half the world to
escape Communism, they found themselves in the middle of a
revolution, with a man named Castro suddenly taking charge.

A lot of these Chinese-born Cubans ended up in places like Union
City, New Jersey (along with a lot of other Cubans), Miami, and New
York. All these locations (although my personal experience is only
with Union City and New York) now have Cuban Chinese restaurants,
generally serving Latino/Caribbean dishes in addition to Chinese
food. You haven't lived until you've read through a Chinese menu (in
Spanish) of Chinese dishes as they probably were in the 1950's
(mostly very basic egg foo young, chow mein with those weird extruded
fried noodles that come out of a can, very thick egg-drop soups, that
sort of thing; not very cutting edge but an interesting time-travel
experience). It's not so much that the quality is bad (mostly very
much the opposite) but that people's expectations of a Chinese
restaurant in the real world of 2002 are generally a little
different. And their Cuban food is generally impeccable.

We go to one now and again. I generally order something Chinese and
wax poetic about the time-travel experience [some of you may have
noticed a particular bee in my bonnet, over the years, about
restaurants and the romance frequently fed for many people by
travel], while my wife raises one eyebrow like Mr. Spock, says
something non-commital like, "That's wonderful, dear," and returns to
her asopao de mariscos...

Adamantius