Wow!! Did you run into her from time to time?

Yay, thank you so much!

I didn't know about it at all. It would be interesting to do an episode that talks about "famous" folks that love Chinese food.

@@AmericanChineseFoodShow Also Donn The Beachcomber's was a very early Tiki bar. [The Original]. Donn had been a bootlegger during Prohibition. so his Hollywood liquor license required he serve food. To go with his tropical drinks, he served ''Chinese'' Food. Also celebrity patrons could keep their personalized chopsticks in laquer boxes in a rack behind the bar, for when ever they ate in the club. The names figuring prominently.

Haha, unfortunately, you can't change the thumbnail once the video is made public. I DO REGRET spending zero time on the thumbnails in my early videos. Usually it's late at night, I had already spent hours editing, but I still needed to make a thumbnail and I went MEH

Wow, you have to tell us more what the dining experience was like. Did you try the buffet dinner? Did you meet her in person?

@@AmericanChineseFoodShow Visits to Joyce Chen's Alewife restaurant were a very important part of my childhood -- in fact, my brother and I reminisced about this recently in email. The Alewife restaurant was very spacious. We began to visit in 1977 or 1978 and it became a ritual. We would go for the buffet lunch and add dishes from the menu. I was enthralled with the Peking Ravioli and the moo-shi. I also remember egg rolls, spring rolls, a spicy tofu dish (it must have been ma-po tofu), a crispy fried tofu dish., and multiple types of fried rice. This was all very exciting to me because we had moved from multi-ethnic Los Angeles to suburban Massachusetts where people were content with pizza. Visits to Joyce Chen's restaurant were an opportunity to thwart the monotony of the small-town Massachusetts diet. I am crazy about Chinese food to this day. Joyce did come out from the kitchen area and interact with customers, but I don't remember speaking with her myself. There were striking examples of Chinese art in the restaurant. I remember a bust of Confucius, and an incredible dragon that appeared to have been carved out of ivory.

@@norbertk9595 I am so jealous a food legend was a big part of your childhood memories and influenced your relationship with Chinese food. We really should talk about Joyce Chen more often. I have content for another episode on Joyce.

@@AmericanChineseFoodShow I look forward to that episode! Do you have a copy of Joyce Chen's cookbook? There was a time when I thought it would be an interesting project to write a book about the history of Chinese restaurants in Boston, but I realized that my inability to speak in Mandarin or Cantonese would be too great a handicap.

I really should've made two separate episodes for each of them :p