28. FAR EAST RESTAURANT
While my mother was alive and living with my brother, neither of us would consider bringing fast food or take-out home. It was an extravagance my mother would not suffer silently.
If during my annual visit back to Niagara Falls, I treated my brother to something other than what our mother cooked, the burger, sandwich or pizza would be subjected to all sorts of scrutiny: How much did it cost? It’s not made from quality meat? That won’t fill you up. She could make something much tastier. What a waste of money.
However after Mother broke her hip and did not recover, she went into care. My visits to Niagara were still only once a year but during those times, take-out food was de rigueur.
My brother’s favourite was Arby’s roast beef with curly fries but even he would tire of it. Eventually came a longing for Chinese food.
The Far East Restaurant at 6536 Thorold Stone Rd. was a convenient stop en route back to long decommissioned St. Paul Ave. restaurant where my brother lived.
It was the early 2000’s. There were many Asians in Niagara Falls. My family had no connection to the Far East Restaurant. Yet by stopping there, I retained my anonymity and lessened the felt sense of disappointment for not learning to cook Chinese and betraying Mother for buying Chinese take-out.
While researching for this project, I was pleased to come across this interview published in September 2015 about the Far East Restaurant available online at
The true test: becoming comfort food
Here’s one thing Chinese-Canadian restaurants offer that may help explain their enduring appeal: comfort and predictability in a chaotic world. When you order sweet and sour chicken balls, regardless of the restaurant, you have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to get. The take-out plum sauce packets are a familiar touchstone. And who ever goes to a Chinese-Canadian restaurant without getting fortune cookies before they leave?
“Consistency always rules,” says Amanda Fong, whose family runs the much-loved Far East restaurant in Niagara Falls, Ont.
Once a truck stop, her grandfather Henry started Far East in 1972 along with her father Paul, gradually integrating Chinese-inspired items with what patrons of the former establishment had come to expect. Some of Far East’s elderly patrons, still “come in for our burger, because it’s what they remember,” says Amanda, a schoolteacher and the eldest of four siblings who all do their stints at the restaurant while pursuing careers elsewhere.
Although her father has introduced some newer items to the menu more recently, such as the “house specialty chicken,” with fried chicken blended in slightly spicy sweet Hoi Sen sauce, “all the ingredients are the same,” says Amanda. “If you came 42 years ago they would have been exactly the same. My dad still cooks back there to maintain that consistency. But it’s comfort food now. People want to go where they know they can expect the same kind of quality as the last time.”
The Far East take-out meals brought comfort to my brother and I.
Post Script:
I have since learned that HENRY FONG shown in a photo in Post #20 is the previous Far East owner/grandfather noted in the above story.
His parents were: SAM MOON FONG (b.1877, d.1938) and SAM MUI FONG (b.1889, d.1991).
Post Script:
I have since learned that HENRY FONG shown in a photo in Post #20 is the previous Far East owner/grandfather noted in the above story.
His parents were: SAM MOON FONG (b.1877, d.1938) and SAM MUI FONG (b.1889, d.1991).
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