Philip Chiang, co-founder of P.F. Chang’s, was born in Shanghai and grew up in Tokyo before relocating to San Francisco.
In the early 1960s, his mother opened “The Mandarin,” one of the first Chinese restaurants in the United States to serve Chinese food from regions other than Canton. The Mandarin became widely known for its high-end cuisine and eventually led to a second location in Beverly Hills.
After graduating with a B.F.A. at the Art Center College of Design, Chiang ran The Mandarin for several years before opening an offshoot concept called the Mandarette in West Hollywood.
As a smaller, less expensive café, the restaurant served “grazing food” which became an immediate hit and attracted the attention of restaurateur Paul Fleming. After successfully opening Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Beverly Hills, Fleming was looking for a new opportunity.
In 1992, Chiang agreed to consult on a Chinese restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, where Fleming had recently relocated. One year later, the first P.F. Chang’s China Bistro opened and today, there are over 200 locations worldwide.
In his current role, Chiang acts as a culinary consultant to ensure P.F. Chang’s remains true to the restaurant’s original vision of creating great craveable food that guests cannot get anywhere else. He also oversees new dish development and is responsible for the current menu.
When Chiang is not consulting, he paints and pursues his love of the arts in Los Angeles. He also enjoys spending time with his daughter.
On his recent visit to Jeddah to promote opening the first franchise in Saudi Arabia, we met with him to learn more about his personal life and his restaurant.
You studied art but you decided to invest your time, money and energy in food. Why is that?
Because it doesn’t pay being an artist and its very difficult to make a good living off being an artist. I still paint though; I am a full-time painter. I don’t have a gallery and I paint in my loft in Los Angeles and I sell my work sometimes, but not through galleries.
Tell us about your art?
My art is nature inspired; I like things very nature and simple. I use oil or acrylic on canvas. I am very lazy and I don’t have any website or a gallery to exhibit my work even though I used to paint.
How did you create the first Chinese restaurant to reach across the world?
It was actually the real founder, Paul Fleming, and he has asked me to help him open a restaurant in Arizona with my food. It just got bigger and bigger from there. My part was always being involved as the culinary consultant and I’m still a consultant, but I have become the culinary and cultural ambassador for the brand, especially for the international openings.
How did you learn about food?
For the love of food, because my family always loved food where my father was a gourmet and my mother opened a restaurant and got into the business and it was only natural that I follow in their footsteps. It was in my blood I think.
What brings you to Jeddah?
I wanted to meet Saudi people who are our new guests and diners and I wanted to help promote opening the first P.F. Chang’s in Saudi Arabia.
Tell us about the Middle East market and how did it affect your business?
It has been wonderful. We opened our first restaurant in Kuwait and it has been amazing and the response has been better that expected. It pushed us to want to expand more in the region until we reached Saudi Arabia and we are optimistic about it and hope it will be another success story.
How did you first market for the restaurant when it first opened?
It's funny that we didn’t even think about marketing and we depended on word of mouth at first. It was so popular and we were doing great. This was before the Internet. It spread like wild fire in Phoenix and Arizona alone. It grew so fast and it has continued growing.
How often do you develop the menu?
Well now that the concept is in place, we have chefs that work in our corporate office that develop new items on the menu. We have seasonal items always added on the menu for each region, so I set the foundation for the food and they follow it. The basic framework is set and I still advise them and I work with local food products in the States.
Do you use the recipes your mother used in her restaurant?
Yes we do. That was the basis for when I started the business; it was her concept and her business and I just changed it to my nature. I changed the dishes and the recipes on the menu to my stye. San Francisco is very different from Los Angeles when it comes to lifestyle and culture so I had to adapt this to my living style in LA.
You mother’s restaurant was fine dining and you wanted yours to be casual dining. Why is that?
It’s my nature to be casual. She is from a different area and she is from an older generation. My generation prefers casual dining and likes to be in and out in a short time, where they dine out more frequently and spontaneously and casual dining work more with them and my nature.
What is your favorite Item on the menu?
A lot, but I don’t have a favorite. The chicken lettuce wrap, Mongolian beef and Chang’s chicken are definitely some of my favorites.
What is the next step for P.F. Chang’s?
We are going to keep expanding and making more food to satisfy our diners like we always do.
Email: Rima.almukhtar@arabnews.com
Philip Chiang: Perfect recipe for culinary success
Philip Chiang: Perfect recipe for culinary success
Fitness enthusiasts challenge themselves with pre-iftar hikes in Pakistani capital
- Hikers set out hour before sunset, break fast on trails on Margalla Hills National Park
- Participants say pre-iftar hikes help boost fat burning, maintain weight in Ramadan
ISLAMABAD: Zarnab Tahir struggled to catch her breath as the steep incline of the hiking trail at Islamabad’s picturesque Margalla Hills tested her endurance. Hiking can put people through physical exertion, especially when they do it on an empty stomach.
An hour before the sun sets and the call to prayer blares out from various mosques located in Pakistan’s capital city, a group of fitness enthusiasts take to the hiking trails in Margalla Hills National Park.
Islamabad Run With Us — IRU — which describes itself as Pakistan’s “pioneering running community,” is behind the pre-iftar hiking initiative.
“When you engage in pre-iftar (physical) activities during Ramadan, it gives you extra energy, an extra boost,” Qasim Naz, who founded IRU in 2016, told Arab News on hiking trail number three.
“And when someone joins in on an activity once or twice, they figure out it’s not that hard and they can sustain it comfortably.”
Naz stresses that staying active during the holy month is essential. The IRU organizes five activities a week, which include two runs and three hikes.
“Either we can maintain our weight, or if our goal is weight loss, we can achieve it by being in a calorie deficit while eating a healthy diet and exercising,” Naz explained.
Tahir, 22, meanwhile, said that she was committed to reaching the top of hiking trail before sunset. This was the second time she was hiking with IRU.
She agreed with Naz that group activities are “much easier” to sustain.
“I think it is important to go at your own pace and it’s so much easier with the group,” Tahir, a content creator, told Arab News.
“If you go alone, it’s kind of more difficult and you are, like, really slow but if you go with the group you can maintain that pace and I think it’s much easier that way.”
Mahwish Ashraf, a journalist associated with a foreign diplomatic mission in Islamabad, shared how she struggled the first time that she went on a pre-iftar hike with IRU.
“The first time I was hiking, I returned from in between, I couldn’t complete it,” she admitted. “So, this is my second time hiking with the IRU, and gladly, I’m at the main point, the meeting point.”
Eraj Khan, a commercial specialist visiting from Australia to spend Ramadan with his family, said pre-iftar hikes give one “lots of energy.”
“For fat burning, it’s a great activity,” Khan said. “Especially because the last two hours of fasting are the hardest, most people feel really hungry. But so far, I’m loving it.”
As the clock continued to tick and evening settled in, the hikers began to pick up their pace. For Tahir, reaching the top of the trail before sunset was a victory in itself.
She had pushed past exhaustion, embraced the challenge and proved to herself that she was capable of more than she thought she could achieve.
And according to her, hiking with the group made all the difference.
“The energy of the group keeps you going,” she said. “Even when you feel like stopping, you see everyone else moving forward, and you push through.”
Arctic sea ice hits lowest peak in satellite record, says US agency
- Arctic sea ice forms and expands during the dark, frigid northern winter, reaching its seasonal high point in March
- In recent years, less new ice has formed, and the accumulation of multi-year ice has steadily declined
WASHINGTON: This year’s Arctic Sea ice peak is the lowest in the 47-year satellite record, according to data released by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) on Thursday, as the planet continues to swelter under the mounting effects of human-driven climate change.
Arctic sea ice forms and expands during the dark, frigid northern winter, reaching its seasonal high point in March. But in recent years, less new ice has formed, and the accumulation of multi-year ice has steadily declined.
The maximum sea ice level for 2025 was likely reached on March 22, measuring 14.33 million square kilometers (5.53 million square miles) — below the previous low of 14.41 million square kilometers set in 2017.
“This new record low is yet another indicator of how Arctic sea ice has fundamentally changed from earlier decades,” said NSIDC senior research scientist Walt Meier in a statement.
“But even more importantly than the record low is that this year adds yet another data point to the continuing long-term loss of Arctic sea ice in all seasons.”
The Arctic record follows a near-record-low summer minimum in the Antarctic, where seasons are reversed.
The 2025 Antarctic sea ice minimum, reached on March 1, was just 1.98 million square kilometers, tying for the second-lowest annual minimum in the satellite record, alongside 2022 and 2024.
Combined Arctic and Antarctic sea ice cover — frozen ocean water that floats on the surface — plunged to a record low in mid-February, more than a million square miles below the pre-2010 average. That is an area larger than the entire country of Algeria.
“We’re going to come into this next summer season with less ice to begin with,” said Linette Boisvert, an ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It doesn’t bode well for the future.”
US scientists primarily monitor sea ice using satellites from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), which detect Earth’s microwave radiation.
Because open water and sea ice emit microwave energy differently, the contrast allows sea ice to stand out clearly in satellite imagery — even through cloud cover, which obscures traditional optical sensors.
DMSP data is supplemented with historical records, including early observations from the Nimbus-7 satellite, which operated from 1978 to 1985.
While floating sea ice does not directly raise sea levels, its disappearance sets off a cascade of climate consequences, altering weather patterns, disrupting ocean currents, and threatening ecosystems and human communities.
As reflective ice gives way to the darker ocean, more solar energy is absorbed rather than reflected back into space, accelerating both ice melt and global warming.
Shrinking Arctic ice is also reshaping geopolitics, opening new shipping lanes and drawing geopolitical interest. Since taking office this year, US President Donald Trump has said his country must control Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory rich in mineral resources.
The loss of polar ice spells disaster for numerous species, robbing polar bears, seals, and penguins of crucial habitat used for shelter, hunting, and breeding.
Last year was the hottest on record, and the trend continues: 2025 began with the warmest January ever recorded, followed by the third-warmest February.
NOAA predicts that La Nina weather conditions, which tend to cool global temperatures, are likely to give way to neutral conditions that would persist over the Northern Hemisphere summer.
Polar regions are especially vulnerable to global warming, heating several times faster than the global average.
Since mid-2023, only July 2024 fell below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, raising concerns that the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting long-term warming to 1.5C may be slipping out of reach.
Satanist leader’s attempt to hold ‘Black Mass’ inside US statehouse sparks chaos and arrests
- Kansas City-area Satanic Grotto rallied to protested what members called the state’s favoritism toward Christians in allowing events inside the statehouse
- Members of the satanic cult said their rally was in support free speech rights and religious freedoms guaranteed by the US Constitution’s First Amendment
TOPEKA, Kansas: The leader of a small group of self-described satanists and at least one other person were arrested Friday following a scuffle inside the Kansas Statehouse arising from an effort by the group’s leader to start a “Black Mass” in the rotunda.
About 30 members of the Kansas City-area Satanic Grotto, led by its president, Michael Stewart, rallied outside the Statehouse for the separation of church and state. The group also protested what members called the state’s favoritism toward Christians in allowing events inside. Gov. Laura Kelly temporarily banned protests inside, just for Friday, weeks after Stewart’s group scheduled its indoor ceremony.
The Satanic Grotto’s rally outside drew hundreds of Christian counterprotesters because of the Grotto’s satanic imagery, and its indoor ceremony included denouncing Jesus Christ, who Christians believe is the Son of God. About 100 Christians stood against yellow police tape marking the Satanic Grotto’s area. The two groups yelled at each other while the Christians also sang and called on Grotto members to accept Jesus. Several hundred more Christians rallied on the other side of the Grotto’s area, but further away.
Kelly issued her order earlier this month after Roman Catholic groups pushed her to ban any Satanic Grotto event. The state’s Catholic Bishops called what the group planned “a despicable act of anti-Catholic bigotry” mocking the Catholic Mass. Both chambers of the Legislature also approved resolutions condemning it.
“The Bible says Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy, so when we dedicate a state to Satan, we’re dedicating it to death,” said Jeremiah Hicks, a pastor at the Cure Church in Kansas City, Kansas.
Satanic Grotto members, who number several dozen, said they hold a variety of beliefs. Some are atheists, some use the group to protest harm they suffered as church members, and others see Satan as a symbol of independence.
Amy Dorsey, a friend of Stewart’s, said she rallied with the Satanic Grotto to support free speech rights and religious freedoms guaranteed by the US Constitution’s First Amendment, in part because Christian groups are allowed to meet regularly inside the Statehouse for prayer or worship meetings.
Before his arrest, Stewart said his group scheduled its Black Mass for Friday because it thought the Kansas Legislature would be in session, though lawmakers adjourned late Thursday night for their annual spring break. Stewart said the group might come back next year.
“Maybe un-baptisms, right here in the Capitol,” he said.
Video shot by KSNT-TV showed that when Stewart tried to conduct his group’s ceremony in the first-floor rotunda, a young man tried to snatch Stewart’s script from his hands, and Stewart punched him. Several Kansas Highway Patrol troopers wrestled Stewart to the ground and handcuffed him. They led him through hallways on the ground floor below and into a room as he yelled, “Hail, Satan!”
Stewart’s wife, Maenad Bee, told reporters, “He’s only exercising his First Amendment rights.”
Online records showed that Stewart was jailed briefly Friday afternoon on suspicion of disorderly conduct and having an unlawful assembly, then released on $1,000 bond.
Witnesses and friends identified the young man trying to snatch away the script as Marcus Schroeder, who came to counterprotest with fellow members of a Kansas City-area church. Online records show Schroeder was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct, with his bond also set at $1,000.
Dorsey said two other Satanic Grotto members also were detained, but didn’t have details. The Highway Patrol did not immediately confirm any arrests or detentions.
A friend of Schroeder’s, Jonathan Storms, said he was trying to help a woman who also sought to snatch away Stewart’s script and “didn’t throw any punches.”
The woman, Karla Delgado, said she came to the Statehouse with her three youngest children to deliver a petition protesting the Black Mass to Kelly’s office. Delgado said she approached Stewart because he was violating the governor’s order and Highway Patrol troopers weren’t immediately arresting him. She said in the ensuing confusion, her 4-year-old daughter was knocked to the ground.
“When we saw that nobody was doing anything — I guess just in the moment of it — it was like, ‘He’s not supposed to be allowed to do this,’ so we tried to stop him,” she said.
Child slips through fencing at White House and is intercepted by Secret Service
- Similar intrusions have happened at th White House before, including in April 2023 when a toddler squeezed through the metal fencing
WASHINGTON: A child slipped through fencing outside the White House on Wednesday and was intercepted by Secret Service officers.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said the young trespasser squeezed through the fence on the North Lawn around 6:30 p.m., about an hour after President Donald Trump announced planned auto tariffs from the Oval Office.
“Officers quickly reunited the child with their parents without incident,” Guglielmi said in a social media post.
Video posted on social media shows an armed officer carrying a young child wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt across the lawn before handing off the child to another officer.
Such intrusions have happened before. In April 2023, a toddler squeezed through the metal fencing, also on the North Lawn, and was later reunited with his parents, who were briefly questioned.
It was bacteria — not a miracle — on a communion wafer in US church
- The host, or bread, with red marks had fallen out of a Mass kit at St. Anthony Church in Morris, Indiana
- A biochemical analysis revealed only “fungus and three different species of bacteria, all of which are commonly found on human hands”
MORRIS, Indiana: A laboratory analysis turned up nothing miraculous about red marks found on a Communion wafer at a Catholic church in Indiana.
The discovery at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Morris was unusual enough for a formal inspection, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis said.
But a biochemical analysis revealed only “fungus and three different species of bacteria, all of which are commonly found on human hands,” the archdiocese said Monday, adding that no blood was found.
The Catholic faith teaches that wine and a bread wafer signify the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Typically, they’re consecrated by a priest at Mass.
The host, or bread, with red marks had fallen out of a Mass kit at St. Anthony Church.
“Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, there have been well-documented miracles and apparitions, and each has been thoroughly and carefully reviewed,” the archdiocese said.
Before the analysis, some members of St. Anthony Church were excited about what might be found.
“We have such a little town. You can drive through and blink and you’re through it,” Shari Strassell, a church member, told WKRC-TV. “It means the world, it does, and I think there is something special about our church up here.”
