
Do You Own the Most Famous Cookbook in Billings?
Do you love to cook, enjoy Asian food, and miss a beloved Billings restaurant that closed years ago? If so, you might know which famous Magic City restaurant is the subject of this article: Wong Village. Unfortunately, I missed my chance to dine at Wong Village; it had closed a few years before I moved to Billings.
Despite saying goodbye 30 years ago, the family-owned Chinese restaurant still generates a flood of fond memories whenever it's mentioned on Billings-centric social media pages, with fans filling the Comment sections with their remembrances.
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The Wong Village recipes live on.
While the restaurant is long gone - the building is now a strip club - those famous Wong Village entrees are still accessible for those willing to cook, thanks to the Wong Village Cookbook.
After Wong's closed, the family of the late owner Mitch Hayashi compiled the restaurant's signature dishes into a soft-bound cookbook. Until recently, the cookbook was published somewhat sporadically in very limited numbers.
When copies of the cookbook would occasionally pop up over the years at thrift stores in Billings, they were quickly purchased by shoppers, and as far as I know, it was never regularly available on local bookstore shelves. When you missed a chance to buy one, too bad.
Find the Wong Village Cookbook at The Maker's Market in Billings.
Great news, if you're been trying to get your hands on a Wong Village cookbook. It's now consistently available at The Maker's Market at 4220 State Ave. I recently stopped by this fun shop (2024's Made in Montana Retailer of the Year) to find this famous cookbook for myself.
Sure enough, copies of the book were neatly displayed right by the checkout register. The staff I spoke with said the book is a popular seller. I took a peek at a few of the recipes and a reoccurring ingredient in many of them is Accent, a flavor enhancer (aka MSG). Perhaps we've discovered a secret ingredient to the wildly popular food at Wong Village.
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