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Panda Express' orange chicken, the quintessential American Chinese invention that helped bolster a nationwide craze for Chinese takeout, turns 35 on Friday.
It all started in Hawaii. In 1987, executive chef Andy Kao invented orange chicken on a business trip to open the state's first Panda Express restaurant. Inspired by the citrus on the island and the locals' love for meat dishes, Kao decided to coat an American classic, fried chicken, with a tangy, sweet and spicy sauce — a traditional flavor combination in the Chinese city of Yang Zhou.
Although some perceive the restaurant as "Americanized," it was founded by Asian immigrants. Husband-and-wife team Peggy Cherng, born in Burma, and Andrew Cherng, born in China, opened Panda Express in 1983. Andrew's first sit-down restaurant, Panda Inn, was named for President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, the panda serving as "a symbol of friendship." His father was the chef.
It now has more than 2,200 locations, making it the largest family-owned Chinese restaurant chain in the country.
Today, he said, orange chicken remains the store's best-seller. Last year, the restaurant chain sold more than 115 million pounds of orange chicken, roughly a third of all sales.
The company even partnered with Beyond Meat last summer to create a vegan version of orange chicken. In a limited launch in Los Angeles, Wang said, the product sold out in less than two weeks.
Among some Asian Americans, orange chicken has a more divisive reputation. A viral BuzzFeed video from 2015 shows young Chinese Americans deriding the dish as "white people's Chinese food." Some say an unspeakable shame is associated with eating, let alone enjoying, a dish so garishly designed for the American palate.
While Panda Express' offerings don't necessarily fit into the canon of "traditional" Chinese food, he said, they still embody "authentic" Chinese cooking.
"American Chinese cuisine is a separate cuisine from traditional Chinese food, but it is authentic to the immigrant experience, Asian American experience and the Chinese food experience in the U.S." he said.
