Canton Tea Garden
Jennifer Glick and I took the PATH train to Journal Square, near her Jersey City home.
"I don't think it'll ever be really hip. I've been here six years, and the only thing I've seen really happen is a Wendy's going up."
Glick thought for a minute before continuing her half-hearted endorsement: "If you're looking for a cheap unglamorous place to live, and you don't need a lot of distractions, Jersey City's the place to be!"
Glick moved to Jersey City to be with her boyfriend, Lincoln. Or, as she puts it: "I turned 32, and got my exit visa from the East Village."
She was living in a leaky walk-up soaked with cat pee, with junkies living in the basement, and was glad to go. (I love how a substance can turn people into a separate species just like that: The Junkies.) She lived near the Hell's Angels headquarters on 3rd St., and they were all going through an Iron John (remember him?) phase where they'd pass a talking stick and beat drums on club night, every Thursday.
Besides the vaunted lack of distractions and a healthy psychic distance from New York, Jersey City has one more thing going for it: the Canton Casino. It's huge and red, with a stage area. It was part of the Chopsuey Circuit of the 30s and 40s. It's likely that Dean Martin, who started out playing chop suey joints, probably appeared at the Canton.
Glick, who produces the East Village Match Game, had her wedding reception there (after Lincoln finally proposed). Guests were treated to a full meal and open bar and serenading by Dem Brooklyn Bums. The price? Two thousand dollars for 100 people-in a cool-looking spot. The big red space-often empty, but always there-is frequently rented out for movies. The venue's list of credits include such lesser-known works as Mickey Blue Eyes and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.
Our waiter says he writes for the China Press, in which he prints poetry and essays on how the Chinese struggle in this country and how the older generation has trouble communicating with their own children. The waiter is an elegant man, and I was glad to have an excuse to talk to him as the late-20th-century hit "All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun" wafted in the air.
We started out with complimentary fried won tons and duck sauce. A recent New York magazine review on No. 1 Chinese praised "a side order of ironic nostalgia in the form of fried wontons with homemade duck sauce." The Canton Tea Garden won tons, while not ironic, tasted pretty good. As Glick pointed out, this is the kind of Chinese food you got with your parents when you were seven. It's still the same-and it's still good. Cantonese food is traditional American Chinese food, she added; the spicier Hunan and Szechuan didn't really get popular until the early 70s.
As for our meal, we got dinner for two: won ton soup, steak kew, General Tso's chicken and ice cream ($29.90). I never heard of steak kew before, but I knew nothing here could be all that surprising. I liked it fine, and the General Tso's-which is nearly always different from restaurant to restaurant-had a soothingly puffy quality.
The meal cried out for a soda pop to accompany my fortune cookie, which some people don't actually eat. I do, every time.
"A merry heart does good like a medicine."
Grammar is a lot to expect from a fortune cookie, Glick noted, forgivingly.
Stuffed-all for the price of an upscale appetizer-we went back into the warm night. We are nice ladies, so we did not go to the nearby Jack Miller Pub, a creepy bar I would have been dying to see in another life-about a month ago.