Chinese cuisine Archives - Good Food St. Louis

A Springfield Legend

Back in the 60s, whenever our family travelled to Springfield, MO, we always stopped at Leong’s Tea House. Each time, we ordered the same dish: Cashew Chicken. It was the best!

The flavorful Asian mash up was the brain child of Chinese immigrant David Leong, trying to devise a dish that appealed to Americans. Noting that southwest Missourians liked their chicken fried, Leong came up with a flavorful oyster sauce, that he put atop chunks of Southern fried chicken.

In Search of the Real Thing

I later found a recipe in a food magazine. It was submitted by a Springfield woman, so I figured it was likely to be authentic. Sure enough, the dish was much like the one served in the restaurant.

During the nineties, I took that Cashew Chicken recipe with me to the Governor’s Mansion, when I was First Lady. Guests loved it! It became one of our favorite luncheon items. When I wrote the cookbook Christmas at the Mansion: It’s Memories and Menus, I included this wonderful recipe.

I’ve found a number of restaurants in St. Louis that serve the stir fried version, but haven’t come onto one that cooks the Springfield-style Cashew Chicken. Still looking.

Soup dumplings in a bamboo steamer basket

Soup Dumpling, the offspring of Private Kitchen and its chef-owner Lawrence Chen and his wife Emily, is showing growing pains already. The tidy little shop on Olive, just two doors from its mom and pop, had a steady stream of customer, when I was there on Sunday evening.

New on the Block

There are no bells and whistles on this menu; you can commit it to memory in seconds. It’s Shanghai dumplings and broth only. That’s it. People fell in love with Chef Chen’s dumplings at Private Kitchen, the tranquil, white table-clothed Chinese restaurant, that requires not just a reservation, but pre-ordering. To satisfy customer demand, Soup Dumpling was born.

Keeping it simple.

Having been open only 10 days, the fledgling operation is overwhelmed by the volume of customers. So here’s what you need to know. You order and pay first (no credit cards for amounts under $25); select from a brief menu on the wall (my favorite was the pork); hold onto the scrap of paper with your order number and, if thirsty, buy a bottle of drinking water or soda—no tap water offered. Knowing all that ahead will expedite your order.

Now Back to the Dumplings

These little flavor bombs are handmade and delivered to the table in a bamboo steamer basket. According to the wall menu they come in beef, pork, crab and pork, and chicken. Russ and I shared two orders, one pork and one chicken, with six pieces to the basket. Each tender bite came with a small gush of tasty soup that surrounded the meaty contents. Heavenly! Chen also throws in a bowl of superb chicken broth, that should be canned and marketed for head colds, emotional discomforts, and chilly evenings.

Being without fruits, vegetables or greens, it wasn’t a particularly balanced meal, but it was quick and satisfying. Soup Dumpling has a tasty product, so I’m willing to cut them some slack as they work out the service wrinkles. As a fortune cookie once reminded me: “Practice makes perfect”—or was that my grandmother?