The Szechuan takeover
of Chinatown – a Trifecta of Cultural Confusion.
Under the guidance of Chef Truman Du
& co The Pot Sticker has been happily plying locals and
tourists with Szechuan's spicy numbing flavor for years now,
providing a Szechuan spot in a part of town dominated by mostly
Cantonese and American style restaurants.
When Uncle's Cafe
on Waverly and Sacramento was undergoing renovations, mostly to the
tune of looking less like a high-school cafeteria, getting painted
red, and putting up a massive picture of a chili pepper on the sign,
I immediately assumed that some entrepreneurial spirit was simply
ripping of their successful neighbor a block away. It
wasn't until I found it open at 1:30am one Saturday that I wandered
in and was greeted by the entire managing staff of The Pot
Sticker enjoying a crab hot pot
and cognac (a time tested combination).
The
new Uncles Cafe, now
called Spicy King,is
owned and operated by the same people behind The Pot
Sticker and when it first opened
it seemed to be basically doing the same menu from before. So why
then, have two places?
However,
now that they have been open a few months Spicy King
finally makes sense. I've heard that The Pot Sticker is
on a month to month lease, and worried about losing it's location
should the landlord decide to increase rent, but it seems unlikely to
close due to its neighborhood popularity. The menu and concept is
working well, but doesn’t change that much. Most chefs will tell
you that putting out the same dishes for years can be an exercise in
tedium, the alleviation of this is where Spicy King comes
in.
Spicy
King's menu takes what made Du's
previous place interesting and increases it's potential, allowing
freedom for creativity. The strength of Du's cooking is taking his
Szechuan training and techniques and applying them to what is locally
available.
In other contexts
this application of foreign techniques to local ingredients results
in Northern California's own brand of French influenced vegetable
dishes, and Boccalone's Italian style cured meats using local
microbes and pork*.
However, this is
not an ordinary context, this is Chinatown. Here local vegetables,
while still grown in California, are Cantonese staples like bitter
melon, pak choi, and winter melon. Here the butchers shops, fish
mongers and stores full of dried seafood cater to a Cantonese
population. It's this trifecta of American produce, Cantonese style
ingredients and Szechuan techniques that make Spicy King
interesting. Dishes like the egg yolk fried bitter melon and
preserved egg with jalapeno are perfect examples of these 3 cuisines
working together to make something that is distinctly new and
exciting.
*I
realize I just put Truman Du on the same level as Jean-Pierre Moullé
and Chris Constantino, and I don't see a problem with that.
