[QUOTE=FredH;8537460]Oh boy, if I couldn't have the bar from the Yee Mee Loo. I would have loved the neon Chop Suey sign.
![](https://oi445.photobucket.com/albums/qq178/fhinckley/chop%20suey.png)
lamag.com
I think the only Chop Suey sign left in L.A. is on the Far East in Little Tokyo?
I'm pretty sure I related this story years ago: My wife is from Taiwan, so I asked her if she knew how to make chop suey. She looked at me like I was nuts...and not for the first time.
According to Wikipedia: Chop suey (/ˈtʃɒpˈsuːi/) is a dish in American Chinese cuisine and other forms of overseas Chinese cuisine, consisting of meat (often chicken, fish, beef, shrimp, or pork) and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery and bound in a starch-thickened sauce.
Translation: Wikipedia has no idea what chop suey is either.
^^^^
I read somewhere that "chop suey" was invented in the California mother load gold fields. Resourceful Chinese who gave up on mining either took in laundry or set up makeshift restaurants to sell "Chinese" food to adventurous American (and other) miners. At first pretty much anything went into chop suey, but it later evolved to the ingredients you mention. I'm sure Mark Twain was familiar with the dish when in the goldfields (and perhaps ate it in Virginia City & San Francisco too) & I just bet Hop Sing on the Ponderosa whipped up chop suey for Ben and his boys, and I bet Hoss ate massive quantities and licked his plate shiny clean. Before the 1970s, most lower end Chinese places had a "Chop Suey" sign out front. Sometimes "Egg Foo Young" & "Chow Mein" also. I doubt any of these dishes are actually found in China, or at least not called that. Rare is the Chinese person who would actually order chop suey. It is strictly for the gringos. That being said, I am rather fond of the stuff in a nostalgic sort of way, and sometimes order it in the little cardboard takeout boxes when I can find it. Never order Egg Foo Young though.