General Tso; Happy/Lucky Family; and more Chinese

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GENERAL TSO (continued)

   "The Real General Tso Was No Chicken," by Anthony Ramirez, is in the City section, NEW YORK TIMES, 24 May 1998, pg. 6, col. 1.  The web sites given are:
http://recipes.wenzel.net/
http://www.echonyc.com/~jkarpf/home/tso.htm
   Both Peng's and Uncle Tai's are mentioned.
   MYRA WALDO'S RESTAURANT GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY AND VICINITY (Second Revised Edition, Collier Books, NY, 1976), pg. 190:

***Hunan Yuan, Uncle Tai's
1059 Third Avenue (between 62nd and 63rd Streets)
(...)  For dessert I couldn't resist ordering something listed on the menu as Screw Rolls; it's a sort of steamed, sweetened noodle dough.
(No "General Tso's chicken"--ed.)

(FWIW:  On September 6, 1998, also in the TIMES City section, the same Anthony Ramirez would write that "Big Apple" comes from New Orleans--without that story ever having appeared in the newspaper, then or now.)

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HAPPY/LUCKY FAMILY

   Again from WORD OF MOUTH (Mixed Media, 1972) by Jim Quinn, pg. 64 (Flower Drum Restaurant, 856 2nd Avenue, near 45th Street):

   Happy family ($4.75), a big disorderly pile of vegetables, lobster, chicken and pork with a slightly more spicy sauce than usual, is extremely good--and one of the few recommended entrees.

   Pg. 70 (name of restaurant is on page 69, which I forgot to copy):

   Happy family ($4.25) gets its name because it is supposed to feed a mob, and in most Chinese restaurants it does.  Here it is barely enough for one, though part of the difference is that it is completely without chopped vegetables to make up lots of quickly digested bulk.  A combination of shrimp balls, meat balls, chicken, abalone and mushrooms, with or without snowpeas, depending on your luck, it is tasty but not worth the money.  Besides, the shrimp balls taste like gefilte fish.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES
GUIDE TO DINING OUT IN NEW YORK
NEW 1976 EDITION
by John Canaday
Atheneum, NY
1975

   No "General Tso."  A few other Chinese items:

Pg. 68 (Bruce Ho's Four Seasons, 116 East 57th Street):  ...the Po-Hai gimlet, a cocktail "Confucius couldn't resist."

Pg. 116 (Hunan in the Village, 163 Bleecker Street, at Sullivan Street):  The most expensive dish on the menu (at this writing) is a chef's specialty, Dragon and Phoenix, which, at $6.95, is also plenty for two--the dragon being spicy lobster, and the phoneix bland chicken sauteed with snow peas, bamboo shoots, and Chinese mushrooms.

Pg. 177 (Mandarin House, 133 West 13th Street):  Mandarin House has a garden that is available to fairly large parties in fall and winter for a kind of cook-out called Mongolian barbecue, where food is prepared on the spot on an outdoor Chinese stove, with an array of Chinese sauces as accompaniment.

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CANTONESE, SHANGHAI AND PEKING RESTAURANT DISHES
Published and written by Chan Sow Lin
Kuala Lumpur, Malaya
June 1960

Pg. 9:  HUNDRED BIRDS IN NEST (Shanghai Dish)
        "Pak Liew Kwai Chow"
Pg. 12:  BEGGAR'S CHICKEN (Shanghai Dish)
        "Kew Far Kai" or "Hut Yee Kai"
Pg. 13:  CHESTNUT CHICKEN (Cantonese Dish)
        "Lut Chee Mun Kai"
Pg. 16:  ORANGE CHICKEN (Cantonese Dish)
        "Heong Chang Kook Fei Kai"
Pg. 18:  CHILLY CHICKEN (Shanghai Dish)
        "Lart Chee Kai Ting"
Pg. 47:  PRAWN CUTLET "PHOENIX"
        "Char Foong Mei Har" or "Hai Kim Chow Yip"

(No "General Tso's Chicken"--ed.)