Thus began a period of experimentation, when American Chinese restaurants—many of which were fancy, date-night places—began trying a whole bunch of stuff to see what stuck.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, much of the modern American Chinese oeuvre developed and was codified, especially the proven hits, the stuff you had to have if you wanted a packed dining room

Menu printing was and remains dominated by a few printers in New York City and the Bay Area—menus used by tens of thousands of independent restaurants.