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On the rise: Filipino food
Photographer: Bill O'Leary/Washington Post via Getty ImagesI’ve written an online ethnic dining guide to the Washington area for over 20 years, and I find food a useful way to grasp how rapidly this country can change. These days, a lot of the biggest trends just aren’t on most people’s radar screens.
The first and most striking dining development is the rise of Chinese regional cuisine. There are now Nanjing, Shanghai, Uighur, Shanxi, Taiwanese and other regional restaurants readily available. Real Hunan and Sichuan offerings are plentiful, in contrast to the thousands of nominally Hunan and “Szechuan” restaurants that have been around for decades. Cantonese food too now bears some resemblance to the real thing. The underlying reality is significant: The Chinese are now the second most numerous immigrant group arriving into the U.S., behind only Mexicans and catching up rapidly.1512751598289