Why do the Chinese and the Jews have a rock-solid connection? Because neither celebrates Christmas as a religious holiday.
Consequently, a tradition emerged where Jews ate with the Chinese at Chinese restaurants on Christmas, spending the snowy day together, while the rest of society closed shop, opened presents and sipped spicy eggnog cocktails.
This connection is no exception in Seattle, which is home to kosher Chinese restaurant Bamboo Garden Vegetarian Cuisine in Queen Anne.
Keeping kosher
Since becoming kosher in 1992, Bamboo Garden has been the only restaurant to stay kosher to the large Jewish Orthodox community in Seward Park, the North End and Mercer Island. While dozens of restaurants have come and gone over the years — either by becoming non-kosher or closing entirely — Bamboo Garden has been a steadfast staple to the Jewish Orthodox cuisine experience.
Unlike Conservative and Reform Jews, Orthodox Jews keep strict kosher. People who keep kosher cannot eat at any restaurant they like: They can only eat at restaurants certified by the Va’ad HaRabanim of Greater Seattle, the authoritative organization that oversees all things kosher in Seattle.
Currently, aside from Bamboo Garden, there are only five restaurants in the entire Seattle area that are permissible for people keeping kosher: YoMercer, Pabla Indian Cuisine, Einstein Bagels in University Village, Krispy Kreme on First Avenue South in SODO and Island Crust Café.
For a food to be kosher, it needs to meet the dietary guidelines outlined in the Torah. These laws include:
•Milk and meat — They cannot be eaten together (such as a cheeseburger).
•Seafood — It needs to have both fins and scales.
Salmon qualify, while sharks do not because while they have fins and they don’t have scales.
Shrimp and shellfish do not because they have neither.
•Livestock — It needs to both chew its cud and have split hooves.
Cows qualify; pigs do not because, while they have split hooves, they don’t chew their cud.
Camels do not because, while they chew their cud, they don’t have split hooves.
•Other mammals — “Crawling creatures,” such as mice and bats, are not kosher.
•Birds — The Torah has a list of birds that are kosher. Today, scholars don’t know what those birds are — the translations have been lost over the years — so only birds that have that have a clear tradition of being kosher (such as domestic fowl) are OK.
•Insects — Not kosher.
However, these guidelines are only the bare-bone basics. Over the years, leading rabbis added to these laws. Now, keeping kosher also includes many laws regarding dishware: Dishes need to be immersed in water with a blessing before they can be used. If food is eaten on a non-immersed dish, the food is not kosher anymore.
Milk that touches a dish cannot touch meat (or vice versa), or else the dish must be thrown away or re-immersed. If food is eaten on meat-and-milk dish, the food is not kosher anymore, either.
If an oven is used to cook a meat dish, it cannot be used to cook a milk dish. If food is put in an oven that has cooked both milk and meat dishes, a new dish cooked is not kosher, as well.
Furthermore, food bought in a store must have a kosher symbol. If someone wants to buy a package of chips, for instance, even if every ingredient in the chips is kosher, if there’s no kosher symbol, it is not kosher.
Orthodox Jews need to have a “kosher kitchen” where no non-kosher meats or fish are permitted; where all utensils, ovens and stoves are kosher; where milk and meat will not touch each other; and where every packaged food has a kosher symbol.
Eating non-kosher food is considered a grave sin.
While academics speculate that, 2,000 years ago, keeping kosher made sense for health reasons, most Orthodox Jews feel that kosher is what’s called a “choke,” meaning God didn’t give a reason — it is meant to be kept because it makes a person closer to God.
Many other laws also fall into the “choke” category, such as keeping the Sabbath, laws of family purity and holiday rituals.
The ‘default’ place to go
Bamboo Garden was founded by Hong Kong transplant Victor Yeung in 1989. In 1992, Rabbi William Greenberg from the Orthodox synagogue Congregation Ezra Bessaroth approached Yeung with a proposal to make the restaurant kosher.
“If you want more business, this could help,” recalled Bamboo Garden’s longtime waiter Kitson Leung, of Greenberg’s pitch. “We said yes.”
The change was huge, Leung said. The restaurant was soon flooded with patrons from the Orthodox community, and Bamboo Garden’s business soared.
The restaurant continues to do well under current owner Wei K. Tan, with most customers being Orthodox, Leung said. Bamboo Garden receives non-Jewish patrons, as well, including Asians, tourists, vegetarians and Queen Anne locals.
The restaurant has an easy time keeping kosher, according to Leung. Every day, a “mashciach” or “kosher inspector” comes to the kitchen to make sure everything abides by kosher standards.
“Sometimes he says, ‘Change the vegetables, clean more or throw things away,’” Leung said.
The ingredients the restaurant uses come from Va’ad’s official list. Costumers are requested to not bring outside food into the restaurant, for risk of a dish or utensil becoming non-kosher.
Chana Greene, a young adult who has lived in the Seattle Orthodox Jewish community for most of her life, described how the community takes out-of-town guests to Bamboo Garden pretty much by default.
“We’re always like, ‘You have to come to Bamboo Garden,” she said.
The sweet-and-sour chicken is Greene’s favorite dish.
Sarah Voss, also longtime member of the Orthodox community, said she appreciates the restaurant since it’s one of the only places to eat.
“People like the corn chowder the best,” she said.