Kung-Pao Chicken From Yan Yan, Haifa

It is well known that Jews love Asian food. From the jokes about American Jewish families making pilgrimages to Chinese restaurants on Christmas Eve to the predominance of dishes like Sushi, Pepper Steak, and Sweet & Sour chicken found in most Kosher grocery and prepared food stores, Jews do indeed love the flavors of the Orient.

Israel has some of the world's best Asian cuisine outside Eastern Asia. And while one Israeli chef loves to take credit for the influx of the cuisine, the truth could not be further from the truth.  That chef, Yisrael Aharoni, one of the country's most famous chefs, impacted the genre, but the only true claim to fame in Asian food that he can take is that he was the first Jewish Israeli to open an Asian restaurant.

In the late 1970s, Aharoni returned from the Far East and opened one of the first Jewish-owned Asian restaurants in Israel called Yin-Ying restaurant on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. He followed this up with the short-lived Chinese restaurant in the Gan Ha'ir neighborhood of 'The White City' called Tai-Chi.   Next to his restaurant in Gan Ha'ir, Aharoni opened a Chinese grocery store, where one could get the rare raw materials often found outside of China, only in cities with prominent Chinatowns. Today, these products are as ubiquitous in most Israeli-based Asian grocery stores. But, while Aharoni credits himself as the founder of all the far-east Asian cuisine in Israel, the truth is far from that claim.

In the early 1980s, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese suspected by the Communist Chinese Party of collaborating with the West and especially with the United States were sent to camps and, based on the evidence, were brainwashed and tortured.
Some tried to escape to other countries, hoping to get refugee status and humanitarian aid. Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the head of Israel's government at the time, agreed to grant asylum to dozens of refugees picked up by an Israeli cargo ship called Sidney, owned by the shipping titan, Zim corporation after no other country agreed to accept them.

The operation was so successful that Israel later became a humanitarian receiver of about 200 families who fled the communist country. The statement that the Jewish people who went through the hardships of the Holocaust cannot remain indifferent to their suffering was a strong one. They were transferred to absorption centers in Ofakim, Sderot, and Afula in Israel and later granted Israeli citizenship.  The fact that hundreds of Vietnamese and some Chinese asylum seekers were granted full citizenship counters the narrative many have of Israel as an apartheid state, as many of these citizens went on to flourish in the Jewish State. 

Many new immigrants were foreigners in many aspects, such as language and culture, but little did they know that the Jewish palate craved Asian flavors.  One of the first restaurants a Chinese-Vietnamese family opened in Israel is the Yan Yan restaurant ( formerly named Sin Sin), which opened in the southern part of the port city Haifa over 40 years ago.

Si Fong, the owner of the place, continues in the footsteps of her parents, Kin and Fong Wong, who founded the restaurant. Along with her in the restaurant is her husband, Win Phong, who was also a refugee on the same ship on which they escaped from Vietnam.

The family arrived in Israel after a long wandering journey that spanned many days, and when they arrived, they looked for a way to acclimatize to the Levantine landscape so that they could make a living and settle down. In the absence of language and culture, the solution was to make Asian food accessible to the curious Israeli public.

Today, there is not one Israeli household that is not familiar with Asian flavors, such as soy sauce and sweet and sour sauce. It has become such a big cuisine in Israel, splitting up into many national cuisines from all over Asia and many award-winning Asian restaurants all over the country. Thai House in Tel Aviv, which The Judean featured several weeks back, is one of them. Want proof, try calling and getting a reservation for the next few weeks - and best of luck in the effort.

So, if you are in Israel and want to taste some amazing Asian cuisine, head up to Haifa and sample the offerings of the Yan Yan menu. Like Thai House, you should call in advance for reservations - however, unlike Thai House, there is a meager 2-day wait.

Batei-Avone!

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