Luxi Xu
Where the Soup Still Simmers
I.Silicon Valley, Stirred
Growing up, whether our family dined out or hosted guests, authenticity was sacred. A dish had to be prepared in the precise, time-honored way. If a restaurant deviated, even slightly, from ancestral methods, no matter how tasty, its rating plummeted. Braised pork belly had to use skin-on pork belly, alternating fat and lean. Without the skin, no matter how identical the later steps, it could never be called hong shao rou. The caramelized sugar step was nonnegotiable; the cook had to patiently melt rock sugar over low heat until the meat gleamed with a ruby glaze. Skip it, and the dish was downgraded to mere soy-braised pork. Passing it off as hong shao rou would be culinary fraud. White-cut chicken was even stricter: only the right breed of bird would do, and the simmering had to be coaxed at a bare tremor of a boil. Done well, a chopstick would slip easily into the thigh, releasing clear juices. Too long, and the chicken turned tough, a failed dish.
But after crossing the ocean to Silicon Valley, clinging to “authenticity” at restaurants would mean starvation. Apart from a handful of venerable Cantonese places still replicating century-old recipes with precision, most others fare poorly under that measure.
Here you’ll find clay pot rice without clay pots, Guilin rice noodles made with Vietnamese pho noodles, and suan cai yu (pickled fish stew) simmered in ketchup. A Guizhou rice noodle shop might be run by a chef speaking fluent northeastern Mandarin. A sushi master slicing fish with nimble hands might chat in Korean with the waitstaff. In an American Chinese joint, a Mexican chef wields twin ladles to stir-fry General Tso’s chicken while shouting in Spanish: “Ya casi, enseguida estará listo!” Though most Chinese people have never even heard of General Tso’s chicken.
At tech company cafeterias, the “Asian station” was often manned by Mexican-American chefs with inventive takes on Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese dishes. Char siu eggplant, citrus chicken, ginger beef, labeled as Chinese, were all novelties to me, despite growing up in Guangzhou. Once, when the menu listed Bulgogi, I excitedly invited my Korean colleague, who adored traditional dishes. She frowned at the sweet-sour meat on her tray. “This is NOT bulgogi!” she snapped, while I insisted it tasted fine. Days later, “Char Siu” appeared. My heart leapt—char siu was my childhood love. But when I saw thick slabs hacked with a paring knife, pale meat soaked in syrupy red glaze, I felt a chill. True Cantonese char siu is marinated to the core, basted repeatedly with honey, carved with a cleaver into thin slices, then plated like polished jade. I pushed the tray toward her. She smirked: “So, how’s your char siu?” I glared: “This. Is. Not. Char. Siu.”
Some restaurants, conceding that “authenticity” abroad is nearly impossible, lean into the opposite extreme -- fusion. Here, fusion cuisine sprouts like mushrooms after rain. Think California rolls, with avocado slices and crab sticks, seaweed tucked inside-out. Korean tacos -- bulgogi wrapped in tortillas, spiked with kimchi, mayo, and chili sauce. Thai curry pizza, replacing tomato sauce with yellow curry, topped with chicken, peanuts, and cilantro. Dishes that might scandalize both Thai and Italians, yet in Silicon Valley, they make perfect sense.
At home, fusion happens too, driven by scarcity. Crave roujiamo but lack the right bread? Flatten a pizza base, bake it, and voilà. No fa gao flour? Use cake mix with half glutinous rice flour, add an egg and milk, steam, and you’ll get strawberry, vanilla, matcha, or chocolate versions. On social media, search “North American version” of any dish, and you’ll find diaspora cooks inventing endless variations: char siu sushi rolls, roast duck pizza, salt-and-pepper turkey, matcha yam cake, chocolate rice cakes… the list never ends.
We revere authenticity because we believe time-honored recipes embody cultural wisdom. We crave “the real thing” because behind it lies identity and belonging. Yet innovation thrives too, born from missing ingredients, cross-cultural collisions, and creative sparks. Fusion breaks the mold, shocking the eye, delighting the palate. Perhaps one day, from this fertile ground, new classics will emerge, Silicon Valley’s very own “Peking Chicken Wrap.”
II. My Daughter’s Lunchbox
When Crazy Rich Asians premiered in 2018, the first Hollywood film in 25 years with an all-Asian cast, our whole team went to see it, even those who’d already watched. The film’s success catapulted Asian actors, singers, writers, and comedians into sudden stardom. Social media brimmed with their faces and stories. Among them, one post struck me: a Chinese American writer recalled being mocked at school for the “weird” food her mother lovingly packed in her lunchbox.
Reading it, I froze. I had grown up in Guangzhou, nourished by delicacies like steamed ribs with black beans, chicken feet in soy sauce, fried pork intestines, and beef offal stew. To me, they were comfort and love, so naturally, I packed them into my children’s lunchboxes. But I pictured the scene: while classmates unwrapped sandwiches, my kids gnawed happily on pig’s trotters. Would the others shriek: “Ew! Why are you eating feet?!” Would my kids, ashamed, toss the food away in secret, too afraid to tell me?
Yet when they came home, their lunchboxes were spotless. “Did you finish?” I asked.
“Yes,” my younger one said. “But you gave me the lean part of the pig’s trotter. I like the skin better.”
“Did anyone say anything about your food?”
“They said it looked delicious, asked if I’d share. But I didn’t. Teacher says no sharing because of allergies.”
“What did they eat?”
“School lunch. Hot dogs, sandwiches, pizza slices.”
“Do you want to trade?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sandwiches are cold. They upset my stomach.”
I laughed quietly. My mother’s lifelong health advice had seeped into my daughter too. Even in a country where cold food is normal, she resisted.
I felt relieved that the “lunchbox shame” haunting so many stories hadn’t touched my children. But why, then, did so many Asian American artists recount it? Later, I stumbled on a comment that rang true: classmates’ attitudes toward a child’s lunchbox often mirrored perceptions of that family’s social status. If the family was poor, even the prettiest lunchbox drew scorn. If wealthy, even plain bread seemed dignified. Scaled to an entire ethnicity, reactions to Chinese food reflected perceptions of China’s power.
For that, we owe gratitude to a rising homeland. Those who now arrive in America are not destitute refugees but often well-educated, financially secure, working in prestigious firms. They bring traditional food proudly, refusing to dilute their culture. Even if others wrinkle their noses, they continue, sometimes explaining their dishes with pride. Their confidence has allowed Chinese restaurants with menus written only in Chinese to thrive across Silicon Valley.
III. The Fried Rice
More than a decade ago, my husband and I traveled to Puerto Rico for our honeymoon. The island, tucked between the Atlantic and Caribbean seas, is the smallest of the Greater Antilles and speaks Spanish as its main language. Back then, Puerto Rico had not yet become a popular tourist destination. Most visitors stayed in San Juan, the capital, and few ventured further. But we had a different plan: to visit a friend and explore the Arecibo Observatory. So we set out on a journey around the island, moving counterclockwise from San Juan.
At first, we still saw fellow tourists. But the deeper we went into the rainforest, the fewer travelers we met. Locals stared at us curiously from a distance, as though we were zoo animals. English became useless. At hotels and restaurants, we stumbled through halting Spanish, fumbling to order food or explain ourselves.
I had prepared to enjoy mofongo, fried plantains mashed with garlic and pork, along with roast pork shoulder and pastel. But within two days, my “Chinese stomach” began to ache for home. This hunger was not in my belly but in my bones, a slow ache spreading through my chest and limbs. Suddenly, I was scanning the roadside for the red characters of a Chinese restaurant sign. The highly rated Puerto Rican stews began to taste like sawdust. My soul craved soup that had simmered for hours, my tired legs longed for the simple comfort of fried rice.
One afternoon, as we drove along a jungle road, a flash caught my eye.
“Stop!” I shouted.
“What?” My husband looked alarmed.
“There! A Chinese restaurant.”
We reversed. Sure enough, wedged between wooden shacks, a fading sign declared “Chinese Restaurant” in old-fashioned lettering. Inside, the décor bore no trace of China: yellow walls, greasy yellow tiles, maroon tables. Only a few watercolor landscapes hinted at its identity. The menu was entirely in Spanish, and with our limited vocabulary, we could barely make out words like “sopa,” “pollo,” “bola.”
Then, from the kitchen, a woman’s voice: “Chinese?” spoken in Mandarin.
We turned, wide-eyed, to see an Asian woman walking toward us.
“Yes!” we replied eagerly.
“What are you doing here? Hardly any Chinese ever come through.”
Her question startled me. Weren’t we the strange ones? But wasn’t it stranger still that she, a Chinese woman, had opened a restaurant in a Spanish-speaking rainforest town, far from any tourist hub?
We ordered fried rice and noodles, safe choices, unlikely to shock. Overseas Chinese restaurants often mix local flavors into their dishes, sometimes creating delightful surprises, sometimes disasters. But when our food arrived, there was also a small plate of char siu.
“We didn’t order this,” I said.
The woman waved us off: “It’s on the house. You’re fellow countrymen.”
In China, “laoxiang” (people from the same hometown) usually meant the same city or province. Abroad, especially in remote corners, it expands to mean anyone from the same country. We smiled and accepted her gift: kindness from a stranger, flavored with soy and nostalgia.
Over the years, I’ve stumbled upon such restaurants in the most unlikely places: in Los Alamos, New Mexico, near the birthplace of the atomic bomb; on the lonely highway to Death Valley; on the desert edge of Joshua Tree National Park.
A friend who once worked in such a restaurant told me the history. Many of the early owners were undocumented immigrants. They toiled for meager wages, paying off debts to smugglers, saving little by little until they could open their own place. To avoid competition, they chose towns with no other Chinese restaurants, often in the middle of nowhere. Once settled, they worked tirelessly, building steady lives from sizzling woks and sticky counters.
Today, the story has shifted. As China prospered, the wave of undocumented laborers dwindled. Many of the new restaurant owners are students who stayed on, or entrepreneurs who once had thriving businesses back home.
When I first studied in America, a tiny restaurant called Beijing Café stood next to campus. It quickly became our canteen, with meals cheap enough for poor students. The owner’s wife even sold us special meal tickets: rice, vegetables, and one meat dish per plate. After long days in the lab, I would walk there instead of eating at the school cafeteria, then carry my box of food back to my rented room, where I ate while watching Chinese variety shows online.
One winter night, nearly nine o’clock, I arrived starving, only to find the café closed. Peering through the glass, I saw just one lamp left on. Under it, the owner’s family sat around a round table, laughing, eating braised pork knuckles. My stomach growled. I turned to leave.
“Lu Xi!” someone called.
It was Xiao Wen, the owners’ son, holding the door open.
“Have you eaten? Come join us.”
“But you’re closed.”
“Doesn’t matter. Sit down. Just pay the student meal price.”
They set out an extra bowl and chopsticks. That night, I ate the most delicious meal of my student years, not because of the food, but because it was a family meal—and for an hour, they made me part of theirs.
The more I travel, the more I marvel at these little restaurants. They are like dandelions, scattering on the wind, landing wherever chance carries them, desert, jungle, roadside, and putting down roots. In small towns especially, they open their arms widest, welcoming weary travelers with the greatest warmth. Because they know: in a faraway land, nothing soothes the soul like a bowl of hot soup that tastes of home.
Growing up, whether our family dined out or hosted guests, authenticity was sacred. A dish had to be prepared in the precise, time-honored way. If a restaurant deviated, even slightly, from ancestral methods, no matter how tasty, its rating plummeted. Braised pork belly had to use skin-on pork belly, alternating fat and lean. Without the skin, no matter how identical the later steps, it could never be called hong shao rou. The caramelized sugar step was nonnegotiable; the cook had to patiently melt rock sugar over low heat until the meat gleamed with a ruby glaze. Skip it, and the dish was downgraded to mere soy-braised pork. Passing it off as hong shao rou would be culinary fraud. White-cut chicken was even stricter: only the right breed of bird would do, and the simmering had to be coaxed at a bare tremor of a boil. Done well, a chopstick would slip easily into the thigh, releasing clear juices. Too long, and the chicken turned tough, a failed dish.
But after crossing the ocean to Silicon Valley, clinging to “authenticity” at restaurants would mean starvation. Apart from a handful of venerable Cantonese places still replicating century-old recipes with precision, most others fare poorly under that measure.
Here you’ll find clay pot rice without clay pots, Guilin rice noodles made with Vietnamese pho noodles, and suan cai yu (pickled fish stew) simmered in ketchup. A Guizhou rice noodle shop might be run by a chef speaking fluent northeastern Mandarin. A sushi master slicing fish with nimble hands might chat in Korean with the waitstaff. In an American Chinese joint, a Mexican chef wields twin ladles to stir-fry General Tso’s chicken while shouting in Spanish: “Ya casi, enseguida estará listo!” Though most Chinese people have never even heard of General Tso’s chicken.
At tech company cafeterias, the “Asian station” was often manned by Mexican-American chefs with inventive takes on Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese dishes. Char siu eggplant, citrus chicken, ginger beef, labeled as Chinese, were all novelties to me, despite growing up in Guangzhou. Once, when the menu listed Bulgogi, I excitedly invited my Korean colleague, who adored traditional dishes. She frowned at the sweet-sour meat on her tray. “This is NOT bulgogi!” she snapped, while I insisted it tasted fine. Days later, “Char Siu” appeared. My heart leapt—char siu was my childhood love. But when I saw thick slabs hacked with a paring knife, pale meat soaked in syrupy red glaze, I felt a chill. True Cantonese char siu is marinated to the core, basted repeatedly with honey, carved with a cleaver into thin slices, then plated like polished jade. I pushed the tray toward her. She smirked: “So, how’s your char siu?” I glared: “This. Is. Not. Char. Siu.”
Some restaurants, conceding that “authenticity” abroad is nearly impossible, lean into the opposite extreme -- fusion. Here, fusion cuisine sprouts like mushrooms after rain. Think California rolls, with avocado slices and crab sticks, seaweed tucked inside-out. Korean tacos -- bulgogi wrapped in tortillas, spiked with kimchi, mayo, and chili sauce. Thai curry pizza, replacing tomato sauce with yellow curry, topped with chicken, peanuts, and cilantro. Dishes that might scandalize both Thai and Italians, yet in Silicon Valley, they make perfect sense.
At home, fusion happens too, driven by scarcity. Crave roujiamo but lack the right bread? Flatten a pizza base, bake it, and voilà. No fa gao flour? Use cake mix with half glutinous rice flour, add an egg and milk, steam, and you’ll get strawberry, vanilla, matcha, or chocolate versions. On social media, search “North American version” of any dish, and you’ll find diaspora cooks inventing endless variations: char siu sushi rolls, roast duck pizza, salt-and-pepper turkey, matcha yam cake, chocolate rice cakes… the list never ends.
We revere authenticity because we believe time-honored recipes embody cultural wisdom. We crave “the real thing” because behind it lies identity and belonging. Yet innovation thrives too, born from missing ingredients, cross-cultural collisions, and creative sparks. Fusion breaks the mold, shocking the eye, delighting the palate. Perhaps one day, from this fertile ground, new classics will emerge, Silicon Valley’s very own “Peking Chicken Wrap.”
II. My Daughter’s Lunchbox
When Crazy Rich Asians premiered in 2018, the first Hollywood film in 25 years with an all-Asian cast, our whole team went to see it, even those who’d already watched. The film’s success catapulted Asian actors, singers, writers, and comedians into sudden stardom. Social media brimmed with their faces and stories. Among them, one post struck me: a Chinese American writer recalled being mocked at school for the “weird” food her mother lovingly packed in her lunchbox.
Reading it, I froze. I had grown up in Guangzhou, nourished by delicacies like steamed ribs with black beans, chicken feet in soy sauce, fried pork intestines, and beef offal stew. To me, they were comfort and love, so naturally, I packed them into my children’s lunchboxes. But I pictured the scene: while classmates unwrapped sandwiches, my kids gnawed happily on pig’s trotters. Would the others shriek: “Ew! Why are you eating feet?!” Would my kids, ashamed, toss the food away in secret, too afraid to tell me?
Yet when they came home, their lunchboxes were spotless. “Did you finish?” I asked.
“Yes,” my younger one said. “But you gave me the lean part of the pig’s trotter. I like the skin better.”
“Did anyone say anything about your food?”
“They said it looked delicious, asked if I’d share. But I didn’t. Teacher says no sharing because of allergies.”
“What did they eat?”
“School lunch. Hot dogs, sandwiches, pizza slices.”
“Do you want to trade?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sandwiches are cold. They upset my stomach.”
I laughed quietly. My mother’s lifelong health advice had seeped into my daughter too. Even in a country where cold food is normal, she resisted.
I felt relieved that the “lunchbox shame” haunting so many stories hadn’t touched my children. But why, then, did so many Asian American artists recount it? Later, I stumbled on a comment that rang true: classmates’ attitudes toward a child’s lunchbox often mirrored perceptions of that family’s social status. If the family was poor, even the prettiest lunchbox drew scorn. If wealthy, even plain bread seemed dignified. Scaled to an entire ethnicity, reactions to Chinese food reflected perceptions of China’s power.
For that, we owe gratitude to a rising homeland. Those who now arrive in America are not destitute refugees but often well-educated, financially secure, working in prestigious firms. They bring traditional food proudly, refusing to dilute their culture. Even if others wrinkle their noses, they continue, sometimes explaining their dishes with pride. Their confidence has allowed Chinese restaurants with menus written only in Chinese to thrive across Silicon Valley.
III. The Fried Rice
More than a decade ago, my husband and I traveled to Puerto Rico for our honeymoon. The island, tucked between the Atlantic and Caribbean seas, is the smallest of the Greater Antilles and speaks Spanish as its main language. Back then, Puerto Rico had not yet become a popular tourist destination. Most visitors stayed in San Juan, the capital, and few ventured further. But we had a different plan: to visit a friend and explore the Arecibo Observatory. So we set out on a journey around the island, moving counterclockwise from San Juan.
At first, we still saw fellow tourists. But the deeper we went into the rainforest, the fewer travelers we met. Locals stared at us curiously from a distance, as though we were zoo animals. English became useless. At hotels and restaurants, we stumbled through halting Spanish, fumbling to order food or explain ourselves.
I had prepared to enjoy mofongo, fried plantains mashed with garlic and pork, along with roast pork shoulder and pastel. But within two days, my “Chinese stomach” began to ache for home. This hunger was not in my belly but in my bones, a slow ache spreading through my chest and limbs. Suddenly, I was scanning the roadside for the red characters of a Chinese restaurant sign. The highly rated Puerto Rican stews began to taste like sawdust. My soul craved soup that had simmered for hours, my tired legs longed for the simple comfort of fried rice.
One afternoon, as we drove along a jungle road, a flash caught my eye.
“Stop!” I shouted.
“What?” My husband looked alarmed.
“There! A Chinese restaurant.”
We reversed. Sure enough, wedged between wooden shacks, a fading sign declared “Chinese Restaurant” in old-fashioned lettering. Inside, the décor bore no trace of China: yellow walls, greasy yellow tiles, maroon tables. Only a few watercolor landscapes hinted at its identity. The menu was entirely in Spanish, and with our limited vocabulary, we could barely make out words like “sopa,” “pollo,” “bola.”
Then, from the kitchen, a woman’s voice: “Chinese?” spoken in Mandarin.
We turned, wide-eyed, to see an Asian woman walking toward us.
“Yes!” we replied eagerly.
“What are you doing here? Hardly any Chinese ever come through.”
Her question startled me. Weren’t we the strange ones? But wasn’t it stranger still that she, a Chinese woman, had opened a restaurant in a Spanish-speaking rainforest town, far from any tourist hub?
We ordered fried rice and noodles, safe choices, unlikely to shock. Overseas Chinese restaurants often mix local flavors into their dishes, sometimes creating delightful surprises, sometimes disasters. But when our food arrived, there was also a small plate of char siu.
“We didn’t order this,” I said.
The woman waved us off: “It’s on the house. You’re fellow countrymen.”
In China, “laoxiang” (people from the same hometown) usually meant the same city or province. Abroad, especially in remote corners, it expands to mean anyone from the same country. We smiled and accepted her gift: kindness from a stranger, flavored with soy and nostalgia.
Over the years, I’ve stumbled upon such restaurants in the most unlikely places: in Los Alamos, New Mexico, near the birthplace of the atomic bomb; on the lonely highway to Death Valley; on the desert edge of Joshua Tree National Park.
A friend who once worked in such a restaurant told me the history. Many of the early owners were undocumented immigrants. They toiled for meager wages, paying off debts to smugglers, saving little by little until they could open their own place. To avoid competition, they chose towns with no other Chinese restaurants, often in the middle of nowhere. Once settled, they worked tirelessly, building steady lives from sizzling woks and sticky counters.
Today, the story has shifted. As China prospered, the wave of undocumented laborers dwindled. Many of the new restaurant owners are students who stayed on, or entrepreneurs who once had thriving businesses back home.
When I first studied in America, a tiny restaurant called Beijing Café stood next to campus. It quickly became our canteen, with meals cheap enough for poor students. The owner’s wife even sold us special meal tickets: rice, vegetables, and one meat dish per plate. After long days in the lab, I would walk there instead of eating at the school cafeteria, then carry my box of food back to my rented room, where I ate while watching Chinese variety shows online.
One winter night, nearly nine o’clock, I arrived starving, only to find the café closed. Peering through the glass, I saw just one lamp left on. Under it, the owner’s family sat around a round table, laughing, eating braised pork knuckles. My stomach growled. I turned to leave.
“Lu Xi!” someone called.
It was Xiao Wen, the owners’ son, holding the door open.
“Have you eaten? Come join us.”
“But you’re closed.”
“Doesn’t matter. Sit down. Just pay the student meal price.”
They set out an extra bowl and chopsticks. That night, I ate the most delicious meal of my student years, not because of the food, but because it was a family meal—and for an hour, they made me part of theirs.
The more I travel, the more I marvel at these little restaurants. They are like dandelions, scattering on the wind, landing wherever chance carries them, desert, jungle, roadside, and putting down roots. In small towns especially, they open their arms widest, welcoming weary travelers with the greatest warmth. Because they know: in a faraway land, nothing soothes the soul like a bowl of hot soup that tastes of home.
--
Luxi Xu has worked in the tech industry in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade. Her creative nonfiction explores themes of migration, memory, and belonging across cultures. Her essays have appeared in World Journal and other Chinese-language publications.
Luxi Xu has worked in the tech industry in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade. Her creative nonfiction explores themes of migration, memory, and belonging across cultures. Her essays have appeared in World Journal and other Chinese-language publications.