New Oriental hotspots feed on growing taste for the real thing

Nation's Restaurant News, Jan 22, 1990 by Carolyn Walkup

New Oriental hotspots feed on growing taste for the real thing

Innovative operators are answering demand for authentic Oriental fare with creative, `non-Americanized' culinary blends

A new wave of Oriental restaurants is changing the face of America's Chinatowns.

Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Oriental-Occidental crossover restaurants are expanding American tastebuds from Boston to the Bay Area. Their well-heeled owners are aiming their sizable investments primarily at sophisticated Americans who have grown to know and appreciate the world's most exotic cuisines.

Although Chinese restaurants have been a part of the U.S. restaurant scene for decades, most of the familiar mom-and-pop storefronts featuring Americanized versions of Chinese food are a far cry from the new, more authentic representations of the Golden Age of China or of current trends in Hong Kong. Neither chop suey nor MSG will be found in these new temples of Chinese culture, often furnished with museum-quality art and artifacts in award-winning architectural settings.

"We have had Chinese-American food here" previously rather than the real thing as served in China, according to Barbara Tropp, owner of the China Moon Cafe in San Francisco, cookbook author and Chinese food authority. Now, Hong Kong companies, "eager to get their money out of Hong Kong" before British rule ends in 1997, are investing millions to open authentic restaurants here, she said.

Martin Yan, host of "Yan Can Cook" on PBS-TV, told Nation's Restaurant News that the affluent Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan who are moving to the United States, Canada and other countries eat and entertain in restaurants as a way of life. The food served in the new Chinese restaurants is upscale and updated instead of the home-style dishes more familiar to most Americans.

Japanese companies also are finding American investments to be profitable, so they, too, are opening fine restaurants in the United States.

These restaurants are going far beyond their predecessors that gave Americans Japanese-American steak houses.

The wave of Thai restaurants that accompanied immigrants from Thailand in recent years keeps on growing, as more and more Americans discover the complex flavors. While most Thai restaurants are modest family-owned places, a second wave of Thai restaurant owners is moving from ethnic neighborhoods to the higher-rent mainstream.

On a smaller, but significant, scale, innovative chef-owners continue to combine elements of several Oriental and Western cuisines to create a new East-West hybrid style of restaurant. Many of these chefs are Americans trained in the French tradition, Tropp noted.

Wolfgang Puck's Chinois on Main in Santa Monica, Calif., often is credited with being the first.

Among the newest upscale Chinese restaurants in this country are Harbor Village in San Francisco and Los Angeles; Weylu in Saugus, Mass.; Diamond in Washington D.C.; Ming Court in Orlando, Fla.; T'ang Dynasty and the Silk Mandarin in Chicago; Hunan River in Houston; Amethyst Grille in Cleveland; Royal China in Overland Park, Kan.; and the Golden Unicorn in New York City.

"We are known as the aristocrat's restaurant in Hong Kong, and we are proud to continue the tradition here," said Lawrence Lui, whose family owns the Harbor Village restaurants in California and in Hong Kong. He plans to open another next summer in Blackhawk, Calif., near San Francisco.

A large number of seats shows the owner's intentions of appealing to a large volume of customers. Weylu in Saugus, outside of Boston, with 1,500 seats, claims to be the largest Chinese restaurant in the United States, according to owner Rick Chang, who owns four other restaurants in Massachusetts and plans to open two more within a year. He projects first-year sales of $12 million for the Saugus location.

Other Chinese restaurants going for high volume include the Golden Unicorn, 600 seats; Ming Court, 400 seats; and the Harbor Village in San Francisco, 400 seats.

Ming Court's proximity to Walt Disney World, the new Orlando Convention Center and other area tourist and convention attractions gives owners Tzow-Chyi and Jiin-Jiau Wu Chen an entree to Orlando's booming tourism market. They are heavily marketing their private dining and banquet capabilities to convention planners.

The other new Oriental restaurants' markets are the local populations in such relatively non-touristy places as Milwaukee, Cleveland and Detroit, as well as in the more trend-setting restaurant bastions of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Several operators report they have not had to modify or "Americanize" their food. "A lot of customers have very sophisticated tastes now, so they can taste right away if it is real or not real," noted Arun Sampanthavivat, chef-owner of Arun's Thai restaurant and managing partner of Eurasia, both in Chicago.

The same can be said about urban America's knowledge of Japanese food, according to Yoshiaki Oda, president, Restaurant Suntory, a 17-unit international subsidiary of Japan's Suntory Distillers.