Although its name suggests a connection to Mongolia, Mongolian chicken has scarcely any relationship with the country. The name’s origins instead lie with Wu Zhaonan, a comedian born in Beijing who escaped to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War. In 1951, he opened a food stall in Taipei.
Wu’s preference would have been to call his griddle-cooked dish “Peking barbecue,” a reference to his hometown. Peking, another name for Beijing, would have made that connection explicit. However, Beijing had only recently been designated the capital of Communist China. The naming history thus links a dish associated with Mongolia by name to a comedian from Beijing and the food stall he established in Taiwan.
