Sorry – Just one more comment on Chinese Restaurants in London – circa 1915

Just one more sneaky little post on Chinese restaurants in London (following these recent ones – here, here and here) – this from Thomas Burke’s Nights in Town: A London Autobiography originally published in 1915 ( just before his perhaps better known (at least to people interested in London’s Chinese community) Limehouse Nights in 1916) on going out for a Chinese in Limehouse just before World War One. My thanks to Anne Witchard for this – who is of course the author of the definitive work on Burke, Limehouse and Chinoiserie in this period – Thomas Burke’s Dark Chinoiserie. This from the chapter A Chinese Night:

Mr. Sam Tai Ling keeps a restaurant, and, some years ago, when my ways were cast about West India Dock Road, I knew him well. He was an old man then; he is an old man now: the same age, I fancy. Supper with him is something to remember — I use the phrase carefully. You will find, after supper, that sodamints and potass water are more than grateful and comforting. When we entered he came forward at once, and, such was his Celestial courtesy that, although we had recently dined, to refuse supper was impossible. He supped with us himself in the little upper room, lit by gas, and decorated with bead curtains and English Christmas-number supplements. A few oily seamen were manipulating the chop-sticks and thrusting food to their mouths with a noise that, on a clear night, I should think, could be heard as far as Shadwell. When honourable guests were seated, honourable guests were served by Mr. Tai Ling. There were noodle, shark’s fins, chop suey, and very much fish and duck,  and lychee fruits. The first dish consisted of something that resembled a Cornish pasty — chopped fish and onion and strange meats mixed together and heavily spiced, encased in  a light flour-paste. Then followed a plate of noodle, some bitter melon, and finally a pot of  China tea prepared on the table: real China  tea, remember, all-same Shantung; not the backwash of the name which is served in Piccadilly tea-shops. The tea is carefully prepared by one who evidently loves his work, and is  served in little cups, without milk or sugar, but flavoured with chrysanthemum buds.  As our meal progressed, the cafe began to  fill; and the air bubbled with the rush of labial talk from the Celestial company. We were the only white things there. All the company was yellow, with one or two tan-skinned girls.