- We love to eat in Seattle's Chinatown International District.

But what do we know about the neighborhood's culture and history?

The Wing Luke Museum fills in those gaps with walking food tours called Tastes of the Chinatown International District.

I'm Rachel Belle, host of Your Last Meal podcast, cookbook, author, and longtime Seattle journalist.

Today on The Nosh we'll talk the talk and eat from the wok.

The tour was originally created in 1985, 2 years after Seattle's Wah Mee massacre CID local Vai Mar wanted to prove the neighborhood was still safe and vibrant and support local restaurants.

Today my guide is Doan Diane Hoang Dy, Wing Luke Museum's Associate Director of Education and Tours.

Can't believe I get my very own food tour.

- This is Tai Tung, one of my favorite places in the neighborhood - And they're almost a hundred years old.

That's right.

All right, let's go inside.

- Hello.

Hi guys.

How are you today?

Hello.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

It's a long time to see you.

This is my son Gordon.

- It's a true family operation.

Right?

- Right.

The restaurant start with my grandfather with three other people and then in 1950 my father and my brother and my grandma, they came over.

Okay.

And then they start working at the restaurant.

- And when did you start working at the restaurant?

- 1980 when I was six years old.

Wow.

- What were you doing when you were six?

I - Was a cashier.

- You were?

Could you reach?

- I could.

Well I actually had phone books three or four - And - So I knew 10, 20, 30, 40.

So I figured it out.

- So is there another generation working here now under you?

- There is.

There's a fifth generation that's working here.

My dad's third, I'm fourth and then - Fifth.

So what is the significance of chop suey at Tai Tung?

- The literal translation is odds and ends.

Whatever's in the kitchen.

They throw it into the wok, throwing a little bit of protein and that's your chop soy.

It came from America.

- The counter and stools we're sitting at were built for the Chinese and Filipino men who moved to the US alone without their families to find work.

That's where they drank their coffee in the morning.

Harry's been running Tai Tung since he moved from Hong Kong in 1968.

And in the early sixties when Bruce Lee was a student at the UW, Tai Tung was his favorite restaurant.

And you can still sit at his table.

- If you take a look, you can see a lot of photos of Bruce in the neighborhood.

- He love to sit there.

It used to be have partition you can close off here.

- Oh it.

It's a little private room.

- Muscle up.

People don't have to worry anything behind him.

- Oh right.

You wanna be able to see the room.

Yeah, that makes sense.

What was his favorite dish?

- It's an oyster sauce beef with rice.

He love cha-cha.

- He liked dancing the cha-cha?

He was like the Hong Kong like cha-cha champion - One - Two.

Should we cha-cha?

That's the only dance I think I know.

One two cha-cha-cha We could be cha-cha champions.

- Yeah.

- Cha-cha-cha!

Yeah, cha-cha-cha.

Should we go eat?

- Yeah, sure.

- I just really worked up an appetite Cha-cha-ing right now, so yeah.

Alright.

Is this the old original menu?

- Yeah, that's the original.

- This whole meal is a dollar 25.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're gonna do oyster beef, - Chicken wings.

- Chicken wings, - Honey, one shrimp.

- Oh, now we're going crazy.

- That's your Beef Chow Fun that you're looking for.

with Chinese broccoli, - This is the best day of my life.

This is a dream.

A whole table filled up.

Okay.

We should start eating.

We have to eat every single thing on here.

Restaurants are kind of famously hard to run and hard to stay open.

What do you think it is about Tai Tung that you've been able to stay open for 90 years?

- We're very blessed.

We've got a very loyal following of customers, people of all nationalities, ages.

We've been around for five generations and so we continue to want to hit that a hundred year.

And so that's a legacy that that would be great for us to hit as a family.

'cause actually if you go to different cities around the world now, Chinatowns have actually closed up shop basically been relegated to just strip malls.

I'd say probably about 15 years ago.

I didn't know if Chinatown was going to survive.

And I remember, you know those days my dad would say, man, it'd be nice to have somebody come through the door.

- You survived the pandemic as well.

People stopped coming to Chinatowns because there was that racism associated with China.

And I remember the the last meal that I ate before all the restaurants in the city closed was in Chinatown because I was reading all those articles and I'm like, we have to go.

- Tai Tung is like the heart of Chinatown.

This is the place that you go for your family.

This is where you're making memories, a place of coming together and gathering, sharing stories.

It's just so important that we are supporting these spaces to show that love and care the way that they've given us comfort and love through the food throughout all these years.

So this is just a beautiful example of that.

This is just amazing.

Thank you guys so much.

Yeah, thank you so much.

- And we have to eat our cookie 'cause it's bad luck.

Otherwise my finances will not adjust and my budgets will not improve.

- Oh yeah, we gotta make sure you're good.

Yeah.

Do you see all those windows up there in the building?

Yeah.

So all of those are homes to a lot of the immigrant laboring workers from the early 1900s This is where those immigrant workers would be calling home and then when they were hungry they would eat at Tai Tung.

- I think a lot of people forget that it's this living, breathing, working neighborhood.

Yeah.

Like you might just come and have dinner but like knowing that this was such a historical place.

Alright, where are we going next?

- Let's just go to E-Jae Pak Mor It's gonna be right down this way.

It's our only Thai restaurant in the neighborhood.

- Pak Mor are Thai street food dumplings rarely seen in the US and the rice flour dumpling skins and noodles are made fresh for each order.

Some of them are naturally dyed blue with butterfly pea flowers.

Oh, it's so cute in here.

This is Rachel.

Hi.

Nice to meet you.

Do you want a fortune cookie?

Oh, you do homemade noodles, right?

That's really special.

I can't believe you just made all these noodles amazing.

- The Pak Mor is really neat.

You've got Vietnamese kind of style to it, but this is like the Thai taste that is really good.

- I don't know if it's the sauce or what's inside, but it's spicy.

Mm.

It's so delicate.

The dumpling itself, it's just so tender.

Beautiful.

This is really good.

- All right.

Last stop of the day.

This is Chung Chun Rice Dog Mochinut.

So it's a combination where you can get a mochi donut and your Korean corndog.

I love this.

I think we should get something really cheesy.

- Yes.

- So what about number 11, the potato mozzarella?

- Yeah.

- Would you - Like sugar on it?

It's like a thing in Korea.

They usually put like sugar on it.

Do you want sugar?

- You have to try it.

Okay.

A little sugar.

A little sugar.

Yes, a little bit.

Thank you so much.

You too.

It smells like McDonald's french fries.

- There we go.

Look at that.

- The Wing Luke tour is following in Vai Mar's footsteps using food, the most universal equalizer.

To remind folks that the CID is still vibrant post pandemic.

The tour starts with two tastes at the museum and then you'll visit three restaurants.

Thank you so much.

My gosh.

Taking me around the neighborhood.

You're welcome.

I've been to this neighborhood so many times over the 20 years that I've lived here and I feel like I had a different perspective today and I got to get a little bit deeper.

So I love it.

A really cool experience.

I hope other people come and take your tour so they can have the same experience as I did.

Thanks Rachel.

I can't believe I'm still eating.

I actually can believe I'm still eating.

The Nosh was made possible in part with the generous support of Alaska Airlines.