Fried chicken was popular all over town - so why not make his own version? He found a stroke of inspiration by looking at the area's many American restaurants. At that time, he had seven kids.”ĭavid knew he needed to win over the locals in order for his restaurant to be profitable. Because he had to make enough money to feed his family. “He just wanted to get people to come in and try his restaurant. “Some people wanted to see him fail at his business,” Ling says. Undeterred, the Leongs repaired the damage and opened their restaurant a couple of weeks later. 'He wasn’t going to let that stop him from doing this and living his dream and owning his business.' Less than a week before he was set to open a new restaurant - Leong’s Tea House - in 1963, someone tossed sticks of dynamite at the building and stole the lion statues from the front door.

Lingering anti-Asian racism from the war led David and his family to be viewed as outsiders. Ozarks Public Television Wing Yin 'David' Leong first worked at the Grove Supper Club in Springfield before eventually opening Leong’s Tea House.Įxcept in the late 1950s, it wasn't easy to be a newcomer in southern Missouri. While on vacation, a neurosurgeon from Missouri was so moved by David’s cooking that he begged - successfully - for David to move to Springfield and open up the area’s first Chinese restaurant. (David was also in the fourth wave of troops to hit Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion, but that's another story.)Ī similar thing happened when David landed in Florida after World War II. There, officers were so impressed by his culinary prowess that they asked him serve as a cook. “My dad had this amazing ability to make anything taste good,” Ling says.Īfter growing up in China, David emigrated to the United States and joined the U.S. He was a prolific chef from the very start. “He was basically just trying to make a living for his family.”ĭavid died about a year ago, just short of his 100th birthday. “When he came to the United States, he only had $2 in his pocket,” says Ling Leong, David's son. In the beginning, cooking was a form of survival. Ozarks Public Television Chef David Leong invented Springfield-style cashew chicken in Springfield in the 1960s.ĭavid Leong - the Chinese American chef who invented Springfield cashew chicken - never intended to be an innovator.