Publication Date : 18-03-2013
Whipping up orange beef takes me back to my student days in the US and Chinese take-outs
This article is inspired, as many things are these days, by a posting on Facebook. My friend B took to social media when he had a sudden hankering.
"I have to say I miss ordering American-Chinese delivery," he wrote. "Beef Lo Mein and Five Spice Shrimp."
It started a long discussion thread, which I contributed to. With authentic regional Chinese food available everywhere here, I was amazed there were people who hankered after American-Chinese food. After all, this is food created for Caucasians.
Until I went to university in the United States, I had only read about chop suey, lo mein, chow mein, General Tso's chicken and orange beef. They seemed exotic and nothing like the Chinese food I grew up on.
Once there, however, that sort of food became weekly or twice-weekly treats when we were too lazy to cook, too sick of greasy slices of pizza or too poor to afford anything more chi-chi.
In restaurants with names like Hunan Palace, Little Hunan, Mandarin Garden, Tsing Tao and the snigger-inducing King Dong, which was Vietnamese but served the same sort of food, we tucked into Lunch Specials.
Depending on what you ordered, the specials were anything from US$5.90 to US$9.90 at the time. They came with watery egg drop soup or insipid hot and sour soup we would have to doctor with lots of black vinegar; the main dish with rice, a wedge of orange and a fortune cookie.
One restaurant, I wish I could remember which, had an edge over the others because it served a small spring roll as an appetiser. That meant a lot to someone living on a budget.
After Saturday night capers, my friends and I would head to Sun Hong Kong, where I would always order something I had never encountered until I went to the US: Singapore Noodles.
What connection bee hoon or rice vermicelli fried with curry powder has with Singapore is still a mystery to me.
A few weeks ago, over late-night dim sum with an American friend, I brought up the dish.
I could see the memories swirling around his head like thought bubbles in a cartoon strip.
"Have you ever had Crab Rangoon?" he asked, referring to the deep-fried wontons filled with a mixture of cream cheese and canned crab meat.
Of course. I listened in wonder as he talked about ordering take-out, about how that food fitted into his life.
Naturally, some canny restaurateur here would cotton on and open a place where people can satisfy this sort of longing.
Chopsuey Cafe is its name. There is no trace of Chinese restaurant red in the new eatery in Dempsey Road. In elegant surroundings, people can order General Tso's Chicken Drumlets (S$21), Sticky Lemon Pork Schnitzel (S$22) and Crispy Orange Beef (S$24), spiffed up with better ingredients and with prices to match.
The food is not half bad, but it is not the same.
So I tried to recreate in my kitchen the robust, unsubtle flavours of orange beef, one of the dishes I used to order.
As the aroma of dried chilli, garlic, orange and soy sauce came together in a pan, I finally understood why my friends crave this sort of food.
"Because of the good memories attached to them," B had written sagely.
Yes. I remember cloudless skies, enjoying the company of friends, a time when dreams of changing the world did not seem laughable, when, fuelled by orange beef, anything and everything was possible.
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