Just caught an episode of Steven Raichlen’s Project Fire on PBS. The subject was Chino-Latino. I get the concept but, even having what I think is quite a bit of exposure to different cuisines, have never heard of this before.
Obviously some kind of Asian-Latino fusion, but is this really a thing?
I remember “Chino-cubano” growing up in NYC, i think mostly when I was in The Bronx. Although the name says Cuba, I also associate it with friends from Puerto Rico, and especiailly remember roast pork, yellow rice, and the word “cuchifritos”.
Chino-Cubano seems a fascinating relationship. Trindad stuff too.
Curious about this cuisine. Not a new article.
In the years following the Cuban Revolution, New York City welcomed large numbers of Cuban-Chinese immigrants, and during the 1960s and ’70s, restaurants serving these new residents’ food abounded. This isn’t fusion cooking like Peruvian chifa; rather, it’s a mash-up of both Latin American and Chinese cuisines offered separately, side-by-side. Once a common sight on the Upper West Side and in Chelsea, these restaurants have slowly disappeared as the neighborhoods have changed; the people who built them embrace retirement and old age. This year, Washington Heights lost the beloved Jimmy Oro, and Chelsea’s seen the demise of La Nueva Rampa, La Chinita Linda, and Mi Chinita, to name a few. But remnants of this once-thriving type of restaurant still dot the landscape, and the Garment District recently welcomed a new entrant: Calle Dao, named for a famous street in Havana’s Chinatown, serves good Chino Latino fusion. Built on a foundation of no-frills cooking and barebones atmosphere, here are the remaining representatives of this proud, fading genre.
Arroz Chaufa (which I ate in Lee, MA) is an entirely Peruvian dish, albeit one based on Chinese immigration to the country. Essentially, it’s chicken fried rice, right down to the use of soy sauce.
Yep, it’s a thing. There are still plenty of these restaurants in nyc, mostly inexpensive and casual. Asia de Cuba is the only high end version I can think of - and they had branches in several big cities at their peak.
There’s the mashup that happened here, and the mashups that happened in central and south america with immigration.
Japanese-Latino (Peru & Brazil) is another category - Nobu is the most famous example of this.
Just speaking from my travel experience and my friends, there was actually a decent amount of immigration to South America of people Chinese and to some extent Japanese descent (at least more than perhaps most would guess), so there Chinese-Latin fusion cuisine is almost a cuisine unto itself in some of the countries with these sizable populations. My friend who is half-Colombian and half-Chinese has always called herself and her family/friends from this community as Chino-Latinos (or Latina, in her case). 
Definitely was pleasantly surprised at a lot of fusion Chinese and Japanese cuisines in Peru – whether it be the chaufa places already mentioned, or the nikkei Japanese restaurants. I have random Chino-Latino friends born and raised in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil, and they’re always a fun group to go eat with. My half-Colombian friend’s mom cooks up a really great fried rice but also makes the best yucca fries I’ve ever had.
There’s also Japanese-Brazilian cuisine. Brazil has the world’s biggest Japanese community outside Japan. And did you know… more than half the migrants on the first boat to Brazil were Okinawans? I’ve read young Okinawans used to go to Brazil to learn about their culture as it’s better preserved there than in Japan. Their culture and languages were banned in Japan but they were free to be Okinawans in Brazil.
I’m curious about it but Brazil is not on my travel list for several reasons. But I do change my mind sometimes so who knows.
I used to live in Chelsea, and I can attest that at the time, you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a Chino-Latino place. Mi Chinita served something called “Chinese soup” which I think was wonton, egg drop and hot & sour all mixed together.
CHINAS COMIDAS!!!
It was such a thing, there was even a band by that name:
But sadly there are not near as many as there were when I moved to NYC in the early 80’s.
You might also include all those Fresco Tortillas joints:
ytimes.com/1997/02/02/nyregion/where-east-meets-tex-mex.html
That article is 22 years old but Fresco is still very much a thing.
Another fun and short article on how Asian and Latin cuisines have influenced each other. Makes me want to do a Chino-Latino or other Asian-Latin cuisine food crawl.
https://remezcla.com/lists/food/8-foods-show-latin-america-asia-influenced-others-cuisines/
Since I started this discussion I should probably clarify to say it’s not that I haven’t been aware of Asian immigration into Latin countries (or that there are cross-cultural culinary influences) but that I haven’t come across what I recall as specifically“Chino-Latino” as a cuisine. I cook a lot, follow many food sites, read restaurant reviews, etc., etc., and don’t recall reading or hearing the term until that TV show. I guess I need to get out more.
Bolivians have chaufa too!
The mix of the two cuisines is actually called “Chifa” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chifa
You’d also call a Chinese restaurant in Bolivia or Peru a chifa.
It has long been around in the DC area, and then Jose Andres opened up China Chilcano (pronounced cheena chilcano). The national dish of Peru is lomo saltado and the ‘secret ingredient’ is soy sauce.
Many a tienda latina carry Latin brands of soy sauce.
Here too
I spent a lot of time with an older NYer in the mid-70s exploring these places, all over Manhattan and Queens. The reality is that there was a large Chinese diaspora into Central and Latin America and the caribbean - I suspect that much of the restaurant culture in these countries was created by these Chinese migrants where there had been only informal cookshops before; cuban-chinese was just one of the more influential and better versions, but as others have mentioned, there were dominican chinese, trini-chinese, etc etc. My favorite things were the “sopa china especial” almost like a ramen dish with chicken base, roast pork, noodles, scallions, bean sprouts and a poached egg - you could add your own soy or hot sauce, chicherrones de pollo, garlicy fried dark meat chicken bits with bones, you could season up with lime and hot sauce (ditto fried pork bits), and the weekend special roast pork with garlic sauce, yucca, fried plaintains and moro rice (garlicy rice fried with black beans) yum! Favorite places were Tacita d’Oro in the 100s on Broadway and a chain that had a spot on 9th Ave in the 50s, and several branches in Queens. La Rampa on 14th was quite good too. The Chinese cooks had a light touch that made their cooking special, I miss this whole delicious scene. Its all very simple of course but its been years since Ive had a specimen of this food at its best.
Lots of recipes on Chinese cooking in diaspora, and a great cookbook: Stir-Frying to the Sky’s Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories https://a.co/d/3ErI1Ry
