Joyce Chen; Mandarin Restaurateur, Author, TV Host

Joyce Chen, 76, who popularized Mandarin Chinese food in the United States through her restaurants, cookbook and TV shows. Born in Beijing, Chen fled the Communist regime with her husband and children in 1949 and settled in Cambridge, Mass. She opened the Joyce Chen Restaurant there in 1958. It not only was the first Mandarin Chinese restaurant in New England but became one of the best known Chinese restaurants in the country. Later, she wrote “The Joyce Chen Cook Book,” and in the 1970s was host of “Joyce Chen Cooks,” broadcast weekly on PBS. In Lexington, Mass., on Tuesday of the complications of Alzheimer’s disease.