One town, many cultural delicacies
Wednesday, September 14, 2016 • The Hammonton Gazette • Page 3
CUISINE, from Page 1
... and then my father kind of expanded the menu more to what we
do today,” Maplewood i owner
Jimmy italiano, while speaking
about how his grandfather wanted
to add more to the Maplewood
inn, said.
With the word “italian” in his
last name, Jimmy italiano’s parents and family followed their her-
itage traditionally with making the
gravy and the meatballs on Sundays like every other family. they
now have been sharing their own
culture and traditions with Hammonton for more than seventy
years and are still going strong.
at first, asian culture does not
seem very similar to the italians,
but Hoy Yeung and the Grand
owners both agree that the two
have surprisingly similar aspects.
established in Hammonton almost thirty-nine years ago, owner
of Japanese and Chinese cuisine
Hoy Yeung restaurant, Bill Chiu,
said his father founded the business and his mother soon became
a part of it as he pointed to his parents’ wedding picture on the wall.
Despite Hoy Yeung being a Japanese and Chinese fusion, the owner
and his family kept the roots of
their Chinese heritage in the
restaurant. One of Chiu’s favorite
meals to share is the “Wild fungus” dish, which consists of mushrooms, seaweed and tofu sautéed
together. another authentic dish
that Hoy Yeung shares is the “Buddha’s Delight,” along with a hot
and sour soup. all of these are
fresh, healthy foods from their culture.
as Chiu became lost in the history of China, he explained the
complex and hard system of rice
farming, one of the most essential
parts of the Hoy Yeung menu.
“You have to have passion, and
we have a lot of that around here.
as long as i’m here, we will continue to have a lot of passion,”
Chiu, when speaking about how
they link the Chinese culture to the
rest of Hammonton, said.
Passion seems to be what drives
the Hoy Yeung restaurant and the
culture behind it, with the pride of
their traditions being shared with
DiMeglio Septic,
Est. 1975 ~ DEP 03261 ~ Paul DiMeglio
THG/Anne Sparaco. To purchase photos in The Gazette, call (609) 704-1940.
Hoy Yeung owner, Bill Chiu, posing with his chef knives behind the sushi
counter and salad ingredients in the back kitchen.
coming from his home in Malaysia
the town.
“Our restaurant was the first and completing his college degree
restaurant of its kind here … until in Canada, francis began his own
more places started moving in,” restaurant in Hammonton to share
his own cultural background and
Chiu said.
Chiu was correct in that a while t