What's Cantonese for Mazel Tov?

           Many Jews love Chinese food and don’t keep kosher. Offer them “Kosher Chinese Food” and they think, “Death Row Cuisine in a Poorly Funded Prison”. I didn’t grow up in a kosher home, and while my wife’s family kept kosher, they also kept the workarounds. Cover the table with newspaper, use disposable plates and utensils, and you can get spareribs into the house without a transgression noted on your permanent record.

            So, neither of us ever had the pleasure of General Tso’s Talmud-approved Chow Fun.

            It’s an issue now because Grandson Benjamin is allergic to shellfish. He pukes at a hint of crustacean. He can’t even eat food prepared where there’s shrimp or lobster (both not kosher) in the kitchen. So, standard restaurant Chinese food is out for him and any grandparent who takes him to dinner.

            “I’ve been craving Chinese food all this time. I found a kosher Chinese place near you. Can we...?” He was getting ready for three months away on a post-high school gap year educational program. How could we say no?

            A kosher restaurant would stick with beef, chicken, noodles, and vegetables. There’s even plant-based “shrimp” on offer. Just nothing that might creep around at the bottom of the ocean, or have a cousin named Porky. So, this miraculous Chinese food would be a safe treat for the departing teen.

            We pulled up to “Kosher Chinese Experience”. With Covid running wild, no dining in. You encountered the front man through a wooden flap improvised into the glass door. The front man, who looked age eighty, wore a skullcap (yarmulke), a full hoary beard, and a rumpled white shirt with fringes (tzitzit) hanging out of black pants. Behind him was the kitchen with three young Chinese guys (no yarmulkes) cooking and packing the food orders.

            We sent Ben for the takeout menu and called in the order, even though we’d parked at the door. We watched several Orthodox Jewish women make pickups. You can tell they’re Orthodox: long sleeves, ankle-length skirts, and wigs (sheitels), in eighty-degree weather. Also, some young men with contemporary clothes and nothing on their heads bought bags of the Shawshank / Alcatraz fare. Business looked decent for a summer Tuesday evening.

            After the expected twenty minutes, I sent Ben to the door. The old man rounded the tab down to the nearest dollar, tossed my fifty into a cardboard box on the floor, and gave him four bucks change. Ben’s grown-up watching teenagers punch pictures of dishes on a computer screen while an adult paid Mickey D’s with a credit card. He was fascinated by how paper money got collected.

            I explained why a restaurant or other shop MIGHT require cash payment and have no register. (My parents and grandparents were small business owners). It’s a POSSIBLE tax avoidance strategy for a small business, whereas a major corporation would bribe Congress to change the tax law, case closed.

            I figure Ben grasped none of this, but he asked an insightful question: “Who owns this place?”

            Who indeed?

            The old Jew at the door flap was the safe bet. He keeps the dietary laws. All he had to do was hire a Chinese kitchen crew, teach them the rules, amend the recipes, and collect pictures of dead gentile men for the box on the floor.

            Wouldn’t it be similar for Chinese owners? Between strip mall takeout shops, popular Cantonese restaurants, and upscale “fusion” places, there are Asian food businesses everywhere. And in this Jersey town, more than the usual proportion of Jews. Maybe an Asian entrepreneur saw those Hebrews and figured some wanted their Chinese food kosher and didn’t want to shlep to Lakewood, Highland Park, or Teaneck for it.

            The strategy: Let’s get our own Kosher kitchen supervisor (mashgiach) and make him a partner. He’ll be the face of the franchise everyone sees when they show up. We’ll prepare the food following his rules. And since the place MUST close on the Jewish Sabbath-Friday night and Saturday-we can work at our regular restaurants when they’re busiest.

            It’s a brilliant plan. I don’t know if it’s the truth, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
            As for the food, I ordered the sesame chicken, figuring the recipe and taste would be the same, kosher or not. Lesson: no. But Benjamin loved whatever he ate, and that made the Kosher Chinese Experience wonderful.