Twist of fortune

Two entrepreneurs found their calling in China in their American roots, dishing out sweet-and-sour pork, crab Rangoon and crunchy cookies full of sage advice to eager expats and even locals, Wu Yiyao discovers in Shanghai.

In cosmopolitan Shanghai, finding a restaurant that caters to nostalgic expat stomachs may not seem difficult. But how about those who grew up with Chinatown cuisine packed in takeout boxes with disposable chopsticks and fortune cookie?

Fung Lam and David Rossi, a pair of United States entrepreneurs who met at a hospitality program at Cornell University, sensed something was missing when they came to Shanghai in 2012-the "Chinese food" they grew up eating, like General Tso's chicken, chow mein, crab Rangoon and sweet-and-sour pork.

Unlike many Chinese immigrants who opened restaurants in the US just to survive, Lam and Rossi wanted to start a venture blending family business spirit and modern corporate management. They decided to fill in the gap they saw, to serve US expats and local Chinese, and named it Fortune Cookie.

The two were not certain they would attract many customers at the beginning, so they did not want to order more than the minimum 1,000 fortune cookies at once from their supplier.

"The takeout boxes were all over our living room," says Rossi, laughing. "If we could not use all of the cookies, we might have had to sell them on Taobao (China's largest e-commerce platform)."