When Hong Gao was growing up in Taigu, a county in China’s Shanxi province, she never ate rice.
“I remember noodles, dumplings, pancakes from my mother and grandmother,” she recalls. “But were we lived, you never ate rice. It was all noodles. Like our ‘cat ear’ noodles, [which] look like the shape of a cat’s ear.”
So imagine her surprise when she moved to the United States 23 years ago and saw the menus as the “Chinese” restaurants that populate the country. The ubiquitous dishes – things like General Tso’s chicken and pork fried rice – had no connection to her homeland’s delicious fare.
That’s why Hong and her family decided to take over the former Orient Express at 7610 Elmwood Avenue in the City of Middleton late last year. They changed the name to “Taigu,” a nod to their hometown and its food, introduced elegant decorations and Hong’s joyful paintings of everything from flowers to noodles, and revamped the menu.
