Chasing the Perfect Bite

Wing Hing Foods is a Los Angeles-based manufacturer and distributor of authentic Chinese noodle and wrap products for restaurants, stores, and consumers nationwide. Now in its 31st year, the company’s knowledge and expertise in noodle making extends back four generations to Toi San, a small village in South China. Wing Hing was founded in 1978 by Robert Yee, who immigrated to the United States as a teenager in 1948, and the company owes its success to the hard work and dedication of many Yee family members and other employees through its decades of growth and expansion. But it was Robert Yee’s quest for the perfect noodle, and his genius for combining the ancient art and craft of noodle making with modern technology that distinguishes Wing Hing from its competitors. Wing Hing’s and Robert Yee’s stories are as interwoven as the golden strands in a delicious bowl of noodles. His story is the embodiment of the pursuit and realization of the American Dream.

In the true spirit of entrepreneurship, by day, Yee learned all aspects of the noodle business from the bottom up, while he worked nights to support his growing family. Focusing his hard work and determination on technical innovation in the manufacture of high quality products, acute sensitivity to market trends, and incomparable customer service, he built Wing Hing into a leading supplier of noodles and wraps for restaurants and shops throughout the rapidly growing city.

A humble man, Yee was a passionate and life-long learner who cared deeply about both his family and community. He also proved to be a visionary businessman. Blessed with an appreciation of cultural heritage and family tradition, as well as a curious, determined, and thoroughly modern scientific mind, Yee quickly learned, for example, that restaurants desired a wide range of textures, weights, and flavors of their noodles. Through study and tireless experimentation with ingredients and processes, he created noodles with exactly the qualities and properties his clients requested. Yee’s quest for the “perfect bite” paid big dividends.

In a sense, the national cuisine of America is Fusion Food—a virtual melting pot of dishes and delights that blend and borrow from the nation’s many rich cultural and culinary traditions. The recent rise in the popularity of these foods tracks with consumers’ heightened awareness, interest in, and sense of adventure about great food. Almost everyone, it seems, has a desire to taste something new. The creative combination of foods, recipes, cooking styles, and ingredients, from a spectrum of ethnic traditions, has resulted in many exciting new dishes featuring Wing Hing products. Today, while these products remain essential elements of traditional Asian cooking, they are also used increasingly as high quality “building ingredients” for hundreds of Fusion Foods that may not be Chinese in origin. The business savvy and special spirit of Robert Yee, and the continued hard work and dedication of Yee’s children and staff, have positioned Wing Hing Foods for the large-scale manufacturing of these delicious and popular products—for both commercial and private kitchens—well into the 21st Century and beyond.