As for Matzoh, it comes in two forms. One is matza
“bread,” I use quotation marks because matza is unleavened bread, eaten during Passover to remember how God took the Jews out of Egypt. It’s unleavened because the Jews didn’t have time to make leavened bread and so every Passover, they eat matza and unleavened items only (for most Jews, observant or not, they eat unleavened items each Passover).

Matzoh ball soup that you had, is basically matza meal. It has the consistency of bread crumbs. Here in the US, they sell them in boxes and are usually cheap during Passover season. You have to add an egg and oil to one pouch of matza meal, let it sit in the fridge, and shape into balls. Then it has to be cooked in really hot water (rolling boil) before it’s taken out and cooked some more in chicken broth. Good matza ball soup is really tasty! Most of the time matza soup isn’t served in homemade chicken soup. But, we make our chicken soup “chinese” style (with ginger and green onions) and then dunk the matza ball in. Good with rice too :) My mother-in-law even loves it for an occasional frugal but filling meal at home.

One of my white American friends saw me eating udon at a Japanese restaurant and thought it looked like matzoh ball soup. But it was not very good udon. I think she meant just that it was clear broth with some stuff in it.

Also, have you seen this site: http://www.kaleberg.com/dumplings/dumplings.html. Your comparison of knishes and char siu bao reminded me of it.

They did a poll before. The most popular ethnic food in California is Mexican food. Thai food is second; Japanese food is third; Chinese is fourth.

It’s understandable Mexican food is the first because of the large hispanic population in Southern California. Second is Thai, is that a surprise? There’s not too many people there, certainly not more than Chinese descent people. But Thai food is very popular, that sort of tells you Californians’ taste bud.

Japanese is third, people love it because it’s healthier, guilt free food. Good old Chinese food will always have a place, never go out of style.