REMEMBER: ASIAN TAKEOUT IN HARLEM

Harlem Bespoke: It is the first day of the Chinese New Year and we wanted to take a look back at the history of Asian food in Harlem.  Even back in old photos of the Renaissance years in the 1920s, one can find Chop Suey or Chow Mein signage up along Lenox and 7th Avenue.  These generic terms were used to describe Chinese food and the former Chop Suey was basically (to over simplify) the stir fried vegetable and meat served with a side of rice or noodles.  Chow Mein was then an actual noodle dish with the sauce-mixed ingredients all incorporated during the stir-fry preparation. 

The second photo was taken at the old Renaissance Ballroom about a decade ago when we first started reporting on local landmarks for the blog and shows that even the great historic black venues could not get enough of Asian cuisine. Everything was pretty much just Chinese food for decades and even a generic english "chopstick" brush font was invented by Americans to convey the Asian languages.  Restaurant proprietors quickly picked it up because they thought this was a way to communicate to english speakers.  This in modern days is now considered archaic to the point of being offensive and a new generations of restaurants have now turned things around.

Uptowners are now getting very savvy with Asian cuisine and quite a few different types of restaurants can be found in Harlem.  Great sushi at Yuzu on Lenox,  Japanese ramen at Jin on Broadway, Vietnamese at The Expat on Tiemann, Thai favorites at River Thai on Amsterdam, Korean at The Mill by Columbia and more authentic Chinese at The Handpulled Noodle in Hamilton Heights or The Noodle in Central Harlem.  Asia also includes India and one of our favorite spots include contemporary presentations at Chaiwali or the more classic at Mumbai Massala in Hamilton Heights. 

HarlemBespoke.com 2021