At the China Gorge, according to Grace Su, the three most popular dishes are Hot & Sour Soup, Dry Style Green Beans, and Gen. Tso’s Chicken.“They’re neck and neck,” Grace says, smiling at the thought of three dishes from her menu, racing like horses to the finish line.A few months back, we saw a great little documentary film that left us with a few earth-shaking facts.
There was a General Tso. He was a military man, not a cook.
Gen. Tso never made a flavorful dish called Gen. Tso’s Chicken.
In fact, nobody in China has heard of the dish. Why? Because it was invented in New York City, after which it spread to every corner of the United States.
The Search for General Tso - Official Trailer I HD I Sundance Selects
If you subscribe to the Netflix video service, you can check out the film. We think you should, because it celebrates our most popular dish, and also provides a great look at the history of the discriminatory attitudes in the United States toward the Chinese immigrant population.
One consequence of laws that limited business activity by Chinese immigrants was to push those immigrants out of cities like San Francisco and into small towns everywhere.
That’s how America ended up with one or more Chinese restaurants in nearly every town of any size.
Later, after a creative chef in New York created his version of Gen. Tso’s chicken, the dish spread like wildfire throughout the land. Every chef in every kitchen put his or her spin on the recipe, so it doesn’t always taste the same.
But it always taste good.
Grace says the version at China Gorge is totally unique, the creation of ChefWeixiong “a Hong” Wu.