Fried Chicken
Michael Vu Former Diner
When I was a kid, we heard about the place by word of mouth, from my Filipino friend’s parents. The best fried chicken fried rice. At a good price, with generous portions.
My parents were sold, so they took us to Dragon Centre’s food court. There were 3 units in the small food court, with minimal decorations. 3 open kitchens, with hand written menus taped on the walls, all in Chinese, so our family could not read anything. We went to the last stall. If we didn’t have prior instructions, we would not have been able to find the place.
The chef guessed that we wanted the fried chicken fried rice, their most popular dish. We waited ten minutes under the dim lights. When it finally came, it was delicious: crispy, savoury, and bursting from its styrofoam container. There was enough for two meals. We went back again and again. Others loved it too, there was usually a steady flow of customers. Sometimes we would order a party tray and bring it to gatherings. Over the years businesses would come and go in the mall, but the fried chicken fried rice stall always stayed open in that spot in the corner of the food court. If you are of a certain age and from Scarborough, there is only one place you grew up getting fried chicken fried rice from.
No nonsense. Quality. Price. Speed. This is what I learned to value in food when eating out. Chefs are not here to flatter you, or to make you feel special, or to give you an “experience”. They are here to serve you food for a price, and if they are good at it, their customers will come back again and again. This is the lens through which I view eat out, even today. To me, if a place looks too fancy, it is suspicious. Can’t they draw in customers with their food? Why the tablecloths? It must not be a good place.
A new restaurant on Queen Street or somewhere else downtown might be lucky to last two years. But I always knew there was a place in Scarborough that had been serving food for decades, and they didn’t need hype or elaborate interior decor to do it. Maybe the chefs in the Dragon Centre food court would not mind tablecloths on their tables, or the chance to sell their food at a higher price, which they certainly deserved to. But then the customers would have been a different slice of local residents.
Growing up, I always thought that the way my family lived was because we were Vietnamese. Living modestly, within our means, careful not to be ripped off, eyes open for a good deal, valuing substance over flashiness. I thought we had brought that over from Vietnam.
Later in my life when I visited Vietnam, I saw that Vietnamese people could be as flashy and materialistic as anyone in America. I now think that the humble, loyal, simple world that I grew up in was because were we among immigrants in Scarborough, families new to the country, eager to work, eager to save, with big dreams cast out beyond the horizon. No time for frivolous things. Only good food, good fuel.
Looking back I think that Dragon Centre was able to show me an expression of immigrant community and immigrant values, through fried chicken.