Orange chicken is the best Chinese food of 2023, survey says. In a random survey of 100 Morton East students, 41 selected orange chicken as their favorite Chinese food.

According to ‘en.wikipedia.org,’ this dish may have originally come from the ‘tangerine chicken’ dish from Hunan province, China, literally “dried citrus peel chicken,” referring to dried orange or tangerine peel.

According to ‘nbcnews.com,’ it all started in Hawaii. In 1987, executive chef Andy Kao invented orange chicken on a business trip to open the state’s first Panda Express restaurant.

According to ‘liftenrichment.com,’ the original ‘Orange Chicken’ had no breading around each piece of chicken, and the sauce was made of leftover orange or lemon peels cooked with soy sauce, chilis, and garlic. The sauce had a citrus element, but it wasn’t as pronounced or sweet as you would think of today.

We went out to take some quotes from students who voted. “Orange chicken and fried rice, in my opinion, is really good. It’s my favorite out of most Chinese foods,” said Alan Olmos, a senior.

The second-place winner was chow mein with 12 votes, 10 votes for steamed dumplings, 6 votes for pho (yeah, we know it’s really Vietnamese), and 2 votes for General Tso Chicken.”