This Seattle Chinese Restaurant Was A Favorite For A Martial Arts Legend

Seattle's Chinatown has a few tourist attractions — from the historic gate decorated with 8,000 Chinese tiles to the Kobe Terrace, marked by a Japanese stone lantern. For martial arts movie fans, though, the real hotspot is a corner booth in the state's oldest Chinese restaurant: Bruce Lee's favorite seat at his favorite restaurant, Tai Tung.

Tai Tung has been around for nine decades, and has hosted a long list of high-profile guests, from mayors and athletes to comedians and celebrity chefs. Portraits of both Anthony Bourdain and Tom Douglas have a spot on the wall of fame. But it's martial arts legend Bruce Lee who holds pride of place, with his favorite corner booth in the restaurant now kitted out as a small memorial, starting with a life-sized cutout. "I think he wanted to hide back here," manager Harry Chan recalls. "He could sit here with his back against the wall, so nobody could come up from behind him."

According to Chan, Bruce Lee's favorite dishes were oyster sauce beef and shrimp in garlic sauce. In fact, Bruce Lee was such a regular that if he came in alone, as he often did, he didn't even have to place an order. The staff just knew what he wanted. The waiter would bring him a bowl of cabbage soup, followed by the oyster sauce beef with rice, and then they would leave him in peace.

While it might be tempting to restrict your order to Bruce Lee's two favorite dishes, the culinary expertise at Tai Tung runs far deeper than that. Its menu is 10 pages long, and has over 200 dishes listed. Quick tip: If you find yourself ever at a Chinese restaurant feeling overwhelmed by a very long menu, here's a curated list of 30 Chinese dishes you should try at least once to get you going.

Opened by Grandpa Quan in 1935, Tai Tung is still run by the same family and has always taken pride in serving food cooked with the freshest ingredients. It has also stayed true to its roots when it comes to the kind of dining experience that's served up. The extensive menu, which features all the favorites from chow mein and fried rice to sweet and sour chicken, helpfully introduces guests to the concept of family-style dining, in a section titled "How To Order". It states "May we remind you that Family Dinners are best served Family Style, rather than a separate entree for each individual. So for two people, an order of an appetizer, soup and two dishes is usually enough." Family-style eating — aka sharing dishes — is common across Asian cultures. For example, ordering an entree just for yourself is one of the big mistakes people make at authentic Thai restaurants as well.

But back to Bruce Lee — and food. As it turns out, Tai Tung isn't Seattle's only Chinese restaurant that the kung fu legend had a strong connection with. As a young man, Lee worked as a busboy at Ruby Chow's, a restaurant run by the family he stayed with when he first moved to the city. Sadly, this restaurant has long been demolished. But while you're in the north-west, if you fancy a change from Chinese cuisine, take the time to try some of our hidden gem restaurants in Seattle for falafels, momos, sambusas and pizzas.