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Ching How Menu

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Description
A menu for James Wong Howe's and Sanora Babb's Ching How restaurant in Los Angeles, California. The cover is printed with green and black border illustrations of stylistic Chinese motifs, including birds, dragons, and women in dress. Center of cover reads "Ching How Menu" and the illustration is signed by an unknown artist, "Sally" towards the lower right. Interior pages include variations of food entrees, appetizers, soups, and other dishes with their prices. The menu is bilingual, with the original dish names listed in Chinese and English descriptions below, for example, "Git Lic Gai...Fried breaded boneless chicken with sweet and sour sauce." Some items are crossed out in black pen, noting name changes or when the restaurant was out of a specific item. The menu promotes "Chinese food in the Chinese manner," while having "the chef of a thousand dishes," and an introduction to "the best in Chinese food." The approximate date of the item is based on text in the lower center of the menu, which mentions pricing being high in April 1943.
Type
Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Production date
approximately 1943.
Call number
priPEF 111
Provenance
Purchased from Books for Cooks, January 2026.
Restrictions
Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.
Rights
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining permission rests with the researcher.
Dimensions
34 x 48 cm, folded to 34 x 24 cm.
Find out more
View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

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