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Ferguson Chop Suey, located in a strip mall at 63 N. Florissant Road in Ferguson
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Owner Ray Ning at Ferguson Chop Suey
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The order counter
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Part of the menu posted at Ferguson Chop Suey
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Deluxe Fried Rice at Ferguson Chop Suey
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A perfectly fried egg foo yung patty on the St. Paul sandwich at Ferguson Chop Suey
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Gizzards, now available at Ferguson Chop Suey
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Not much is free anymore...to-go menus still are
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New Chinese Gourmet restaurant, located at 42 S. Florissant Road in Ferguson
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New Chinese Gourmet co-owner Lac Vo
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The menu on the wall of New Chinese Gourmet
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The “Happy Meal” combo plate at New Chinese Gourmet
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The interior of New Chinese Gourmet
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A Buddhist shrine
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...and Buddhist statuary
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We will. And we did.
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Hot Buttered Wings at New Chinese Gourmet
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New Chinese Gourmet’s Elena Vo and her father Lac Vo
Most of the chop suey joints on the North Side do not have Facebook pages. They are, as we say, keeping it old-school.
They don’t seem to need the extra publicity, either.
Pork-fried rice in a white box. Potstickers in a clear tub. Fried gizzards in a brown paper bag. The customers know what to expect at these humble eateries, which would seem to be recession-proof. The chop suey joints – stripped-down Chinese restaurants – have become survivor stories. Run by first and second-generation immigrants, they are often neighborhood anchors that have seen fads come and go, while crab rangoon endures.
But change is the order of business in Ferguson, where the unrest has galvanized protesters and pundits alike around the globe. Will meaningful change come to an area that has come to symbolize racially tainted policing?
At Ferguson Chop Suey, located less than a mile north of the Ferguson Police HQ, proprietor Roy Ning has both an international and a personal take on related issues.
Ning prefers to go by the name “Roy Freeman.” It’s his way of saluting the U.S. and dissing his homeland of China, both.
The Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 made up his mind, he said: he could no longer stay in China and abet its repressive policies. He emigrated and worked in a series of Chinese restaurants in the Midwest. A year ago he bought Ferguson Chop Suey. Now, when he’s not frying eggrolls, he posts screeds on social media about the depredations of the Chinese government. (China is “a Mafia of corruption, except that’s an insult to this level of corruption,” he said.)
This week, he’s on fire over Beijing's announcement that it will continue to corral the democratic process in Hong Kong (by commandeering elections in 2017), and the vigorous protests that have resulted..
Closer to home, the Ferguson protesters have his sympathies.
“I support them [protesters], as long as they are not violent,” he said. “Hearing everyone’s voices is good.”
Also good: Freeman’s version of the quirky St. Louis invention, the St. Paul sandwich. He claims that the noted egg foo yung/lettuce/pickle/mayo sandwich is so popular that he goes through nearly 30 loaves of white bread a week. The Ferguson Chop Suey version uses a lot of onion for a snappy vegetable texture, and is not a sloppy pile of ingredients, like some of the other iterations we’ve tried.
Maybe that’s because Freeman operates under a sign he hung in the restaurant’s kitchen: “Cook With Passion,” it reads. “Cook [as if] For Your Family.”
Just up the street, New Chinese Gourmet has been dishing it out for some 22 years. This chop suey enclave looks a little different than most; it has more seating than the typical Chinese take-out. Yet the menu of lo mein and fried rice, explained via low-budget signage, adheres to the standard.
The uproar in Ferguson has affected business in a curious way, said Elena Vo, whose family owns the place.
“Some of our newest customers are protesters,” she said.
How can she tell?
“They’re wearing ‘I Love Ferguson’ T-shirts, or they’re just not regulars,” she said. “I know all my regulars.”
The Vo family opened the restaurant in ’92, eventually sold it, and then bought it again. Many of the area chop suey restaurants are owned by Vietnamese-Americans, like the Vo’s. An extended family of relatives and in-laws has supported one another by employing each other, and even selling the eateries to one another. The Vo family has had a hand in a number of chop suey restaurants, from NoCo to SoCo. One of their in-laws even owned Ferguson Chop Suey at one point, explained patriarch Lac Vo.
The new addition to the menu at New Chinese Gourmet is “Hot Butter Wings,” wings breaded thickly, fried, and tossed in a viscous orange hot sauce. The lip-tingling appetizer is selling fast, said Elena.
That staple of chop suey joints, the fried rice, is excellent here. The deep flavor bespeaks of a well-used wok.
And the longevity of this and other chop suey joints bespeaks of an economic foothold in the community. The immigrant owners and operators of these restaurants are tenacious. They have made survival their business.
Survival is on the minds of many witnessing the evolving landscape of justice in Ferguson. While a grand jury deliberates, white politicians make awkward statements, and citizens clamor for change, the chop suey storefronts endure as living fossils that hearken back to the rise of the Chinese restaurant in urban America.
At the risk of sounding like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, in order to thrive, one first must survive.
Ferguson Chop Suey
63 N. Florissant Rd.
314-521-8300
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New Chinese Gourmet
42 S. Florissant Rd.
314-522-0026
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Photos by Jonathan Pollack of J. Pollack Photography
