Read more about Evansville’s international community in the January/February 2025 feature story.
Drive any main commercial stretch in the Evansville region, and you’ll see the influence of immigrants. Numerous restaurants in the area were opened by entrepreneurs from other nations who have shared their native cuisine.
One prominent such restaurateur was the late Yuk Tang, who received his culinary degree in 1956 from a cooking school in Hong Kong. Tang owned, along with his wife Po Lin, Lucky Dragon in Evansville for 33 years. They raised their sons David, Robert, and Glenn in the River City.
The family’s tentacles were even longer. According to a 2013 Courier & Press report, Po Lin’s brother, Frankie Jung, worked at the former F’s Steak House and then opened the now-closed Shing-Lee on Main Street with their father, Chew Fon Jung.
The Ma family also has spawned more restaurants. Jane Tang paired up with Ling Ma to open Ma. T. 888 China Bistro in 2006. In addition to China Bistro, which specializes in Cantonese cuisine, the Mas and Filipino chef Marvin Abadicio in 2018 spun off Domo Japanese Hibachi Grill, Sushi and Ramen in an unoccupied space inside China Bistro.
Abadicio, who had moved to Evansville to join the kitchen of the now-closed Nagasaki Inn, moved Domo into its own storefront in 2021.
“I started to like this place — the city of Evansville — so I decided to stay here and get settled here,” Abadicio told Evansville Living in 2019.
Other Asian restaurant legacies include Charlie Chang, the longtime owner of Yen Ching on South Green River Road; Yim Seto, who worked with his father, Shun, at F’s Steak House before opening Canton Inn in 1984; and Karen and Eddie Kung, who have operated The Chopstick House for 35 years.
