![]() ![]() Chen's son, Stephen, later noted that the opening of this restaurant changed the landscape of the Central Square area in Cambridge. It was located between Harvard University and MIT in Central Square, Cambridge, at 302 Massachusetts Avenue. As a single mother both encumbered and assisted by her three children, she managed to open a second restaurant in 1967, called The Joyce Chen Small Eating Place. With her divorce from Thomas Chen, she legally reverted to using her maiden name, Joyce Liao, but continued use the Joyce Chen moniker for her business. Īfter her divorce in 1966, Chen sold the original restaurant to her ex-husband, who converted it in 1972 to a Japanese eatery called Osaka. Members of Bolt, Beranek and Newman's IMP team, when they were working on the first IMPs to create the ARPANET in 1969, would eat Chen's food at her restaurant, which was located next door to BBN. The first restaurant operated for thirteen years, closing in 1971. Ĭhen introduced northern Chinese (Mandarin) and Shanghainese dishes to Boston, including Peking duck, moo shu pork, hot and sour soup, and potstickers, which she called "Peking Ravioli", sometimes shortened to "Ravs". ![]() For Chinese-speaking and English-speaking staff and customers to communicate more easily, Chen introduced the practice of numbering menu items. 2 and other food coloring at her restaurants. She promoted healthy Chinese cooking and refused to use Red Dye No. She also used the buffet format to allow customers to sample unfamiliar authentic dishes at their own pace. According to her son Stephen, here she pioneered the all-you-can-eat Chinese dinner buffet to boost sales on otherwise-slow Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Restaurants Ĭhen opened her first restaurant, Joyce Chen Restaurant, at 617 Concord Avenue in Cambridge in 1958. Chen had already become adept at finding or substituting hard-to-get ingredients, and adapting her recipes to American tastes. She was surprised to hear that her then-unfamiliar Chinese snacks had sold out within an hour, and she was encouraged to make more. In 1957, she first thought that her cooking might be popular when she made pumpkin cookies and Chinese egg rolls for a bake sale fundraiser at the Buckingham School in Cambridge. She gave birth to another son, Stephen, in 1952. Thomas Chen worked as an importer of fine art, while Joyce was a housewife raising two children, a dramatic change from her job in China as an insurance broker (an uncommon vocation for women in China at that time). On April 21, Chen and her family settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The family was on the second-to-last boat to leave Shanghai before the port closed. 1948) left Shanghai (and China for the last time) on April 6, 1949, as the Communists were taking over the country. At that point, her mother and her governess cooked the family meals, and Joyce watched and learned from them. ![]() In her book, Joyce Chen Cook Book, she later said that she grew up with a family chef who left to cook for her father's friend, "Uncle Li", who became the Chinese ambassador to Russia. Her wealthy father, a railroad administrator and city executive, could afford to hire a family cook. Joyce Chen was born in Peking (now spelled Beijing in English), the youngest of nine children of a high-ranking Qing dynasty official, during the Republican era under Sun Yat-sen. Her accomplishments and influence on American cuisine were honored by the US Postal Service and by the city of Cambridge. Chen was diagnosed with dementia in 1985, and died in 1994. ![]() Starting in 1958, she operated several popular Chinese restaurants in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Joyce Chen was credited with popularizing northern-style Chinese cuisine in the United States, coining the name "Peking Raviolis" for potstickers, inventing and holding a design patent for a flat bottom wok with handle (also known as a stir fry pan), and developing the first line of bottled Chinese stir fry sauces for the US market. Joyce Chen (née Liao Chia-ai Chinese: 廖家艾 pinyin: Liào Jiā'ài Wade–Giles: Liao Chia-ai, Septem– August 23, 1994) was a Chinese-American chef, restaurateur, author, television personality, and entrepreneur. ![]()
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