East Meets West: A Swedish Girl Falls in Love at Wong's Kitchen

My love affair with Asian food began on the East Side, of all places - in the mid '60s, mostly the domain of Swedes and Italians with a strong smattering of Poles thrown in for good measure. St. Casimir's Catholic church commanded at least as much attention as Gustavus Adolphus Swedish Lutheran (only recently relocated from Sims and Weide over to Arcade near Keller). The GA congregation sponsored a medical missionary family in Tanganyika (now called Tanzania), which made them a bit exotic. (That was my family's church; perhaps I am a bit nostalgic). I do suppose St. Casimir's got more points, though - they had a school, which many of my neighborhood pals went to.

But I digress.

The summer of 1962, my parents bought their first house - a modest one-and-a-half story stucco and brick home on the corner of Earl and Orange. (The six of us had been crowded into a two-bedroom in the lower level of a duplex on Bush near Johnson Parkway, so this was quite the move in more ways than just location.) That move gave me a new best friend - Debbie Speiss. Debbie and her two brothers, Steven and Jerry, lived across the alley from us, and our families (at least the kids) became fast friends. The new neighborhood quickly produced its share of adventures.

But that move also introduced me to a whole new cuisine: Chinese food. Up until that point my meals consisted mainly of 50s and 60s mainstays like tomato soup and grilled cheese, creamed chip beef on toasted Tastee and the fabled Minnesota "hot dish." (For those who don't know, a "hot dish" is elsewhere referred to as a casserole. But if you say "hot dish" to a Minnesotan, they will know exactly what you are talking about. The menu varies, but it always included some Campbell's cream-of-something soup, about a pound of meat (ground beef or tuna, usually), and a starch, like rice or elbow noodles. We ate a lot of those hot dish meals in various combinations.

We also ate Swanson chicken pot pies (when they were five for a dollar at Kroger or Country Club), Chef Boyardee pizza from a box mix (powdered cheese, no less), and fried balogna. The closest we got to any kind of ethnic food outside my Swedish and German upbringing was my mother's occasional forays into converting Spam into an international dish. Hence, "Spam Parmesan," or "Spam Hawaiian" (picture slices of Spam under the broiler with rings of pineapple, topped with a marshmallow and a maraschino cherry).

But not long after we moved, my dad discovered Wong's Kitchen. It was an exotic (to my child's mind) a hole-in-the-wall takeout place just around the corner from the drugstore on the corner of Maryland and Earl, just a few blocks from our house. There were a lot of mouths to feed on my dad's wages from three jobs, so we didn't eat out or get takeout food very often, but somehow a trip to Wong's for chow mein became a regular occurrence. I suspect it might have been on paydays.

Side note: It has been decades since I've had takeout from Wong's, but I was delighted to see that not only are they still there at the original location, but they have several other restaurants around the St. Paul area. I am sure the old man who dished out our food back then is long gone, but their reputation for great food continues.)

I can still remember the inside of that restaurant - enameled red and black decorations, tassles, paintings on rice paper, and brass knick knacks. And the overpowering aroma of incredibly wonderful food cooking. I usually got to go with my dad to pick up our order. Someone had to hold it on the way home, after all. I don't think any of my siblings ever got this honor. I loved going, because I always got a fortune cookie given to me while we waited. And after my mom dished up all the food, I often snuck a finger into one of those white boxes to grab whatever bits of sauce remained.

Wong's Kitchen didn't just serve food - they served up an Oriental experience. And for a kid from the East Side, that was about as adventuresome as you could get. These days that part of St. Paul has become a major melting pot, and no one would be amazed at the idea of a Chinese take-out place, but back then it was quite the oddity. I have no idea what prompted my dad to start getting food from there; I never thought to ask.

If I could have only one type of ethnic cuisine for the rest of my life, it would be Asian food - Chinese mostly, but plenty of Thai and sushi thrown in. I can't remember the last time I had a plate of chow mein; it's a little too American for me, but every once in awhile I'll got into an Asian restaurant that has a similiar aroma, and the old memories of standing at the Wong counter munching on my fortune cookie and holding onto those little black and white packets of soy sauce comes drifting through my mind.

I saw some recent online reviews claiming that Wong's produces some of the best Chinese food in the Twin Cities. I wouldn't be surprised. Back then, the take-out chow mein we got from them was about the most incredible thing I had ever eaten. I think the next time we are back in the Cities we may have to make a special trip to Wong's. I wonder if they deliver to Washington State....