1983: Restaurants: Thresholds for Immigrants

Chairs in Surakarta kraton museum, Java, drawn from Gourmet

     Gourmet had long treated New York as the dining capital of the country.  Eventually it had admitted California to a regular restaurant review column, alternating Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Yet, more than a third of the 1980s wave of Asian immigrants, especially those from the Philippines, China, South Korea and India, settled in California. 

      

     In New York, Jay Jacobs reviewed Shanghai Manor, an "uptown" Chinese restaurant.  Interestingly, although he applauded the cooking, he listed the quibbles of a irritated cosmopolite:  westerners treat appetizers and soups in un-Chinese ways; why do menus say crispy instead of the perfectly good adjective crisp?  Jacobs devoted a review to Pamir.  He began by locating the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan.  The owners of Pamir, seven brothers and sisters of the Bayat family, were Pashto speakers, originally from Kabul. Jacobs found the food reflected Afghanistan's location near India and Iran.  
     At Flower Drum in New York, Jay Jacobs found another remarkable immigrant, Pao Peter Lee.  Jacobs wrote that Lee belonged to the "last generation of restaurateurs born in what is now the People's Republic of China."  The fortunes of war and politics drove him from Beijing to Taiwan, via Wuhan and Chongqing  Lee came to America in 1953 to attend an international conference of  police chiefs.  He worked, he studied and he became an interpreter at the United Nations. He saved.  Ten years later he opened his restaurant, and by Jacobs description is was first rate.  Peter Pao Lee was many things in addition to restaurateur, including an expert in tai chi.    He learned the 108 Yang family form of Tai Chi from his grandfather.  

    Back in the realm of David Keh, this time to Auntie Yuan.  With the assistance of one Ed Schoenfeld, the restaurant was geared to American tastes, based around the cooking of particular Taiwanese cooks, but incorporating the nouvelle cuisine developed in France.
     Jacobs dedicated his column to Takesushi, a temple to the rite of eating fugu, the tiger blowfish of deadly toxin.  The next month, he featured Toons, a Thai restaurant in Greenwich Village.  In addition to explaining the prevalence of fish sauce in Southeast Asian cooking, Jacobs dwelt on the importance of street, or sidewalk food, and in Toons' menu as appetizers.  The remainder of his review was devoted to making parallels between the French treatment of foods like frog's legs and crab served in its shell to Thai food, perhaps to build a launching pad to Thai food from the French restaurants and recipes which numerically dominated Gourmet's pages.
     Perhaps Geri Trotta's Indonesian junket prompted Jay Jacobs' discovery of the Indonesian Tamu, recounted in the June issue.  The owner, Andi Sangkala, hailed from Sulawesi, fourth largest of the islands in the Indonesian archipelago.  Jacobs thought Tamu the only Indonesian restaurant in New York City.  The number of Indonesian immigrants in the United States tripled between 1980 and 1990, most lived in Southern California.


     In California, Caroline Bates ventured to Santa Barbara to visit Bangkok West, a restaurant run by one Pathon Jittayasotorn and his wife, and numerous brothers and sisters, recently arrived from Bangkok. La Petite Chaya's Japanese food with French influence first succeeded in Japan, and then was launched in Los Angeles. This fusion concept, the idea of applying Japanese thinking to a French base, was already several years old.  Was a concession to American tastes, or was it the Japanese, with their expanding economy who explored this?  Or is it the some molecular similarity between Japanese Kaiseki, the special refined small plates that go with the tea ceremony, and the French menu de degustation or tasting menu?
     Bates began her March review of Korean Palace with the observation that Korea seldom gets credit for a cuisine of its own.  She was impressed with the individuality and vitality of the cooking at this San Francisco restaurant.  The owner and his wife, Nam Kun Song and Un Hui, created what a homey and welcoming place that  featured dishes influenced by Japan, like ku jul pan, a Korean version of obento presentation, and uniquely Korean ones, like bibim bab, a salad said to be of Buddhist origin.   
     For Christmas, Bates decided on Indian food for a post Nutcracker feast, largely because The Kundan had opened in the just completed Opera Plaza condominium near the San Francisco Ballet.  She observed that San Francisco was the country's reigning capital of Indian cooking.  The focus, as with The Gaylord and The Peacock is Mogul, or northern Indian cuisine, served formally.  

      Travelling in Jogjakarta, central Java, Geri Trotta happened on a performance of the dance drama of the the Ramayana, in front of the Prambanan temple. Trotta observed the Jogja dance style, created by a sultan in the Eighteenth Century. She visited the many Hindu temples or Candi as well as Borobdur, the world's largest Buddhist monument. The Hindu epic Ramayana is wildly popular in a county which recognizes six religions but Islam is the principal creed.

     Elisabeth Ando wrote about lunch at the Sanko-In, a temple on the outskirts of Tokyo.  Ando observed that in Japan, the very best vegetarian fare was found at Buddhist temples.  The Sanko-In luncheon was the creation of nun, Yoneida Soei.  Ando described each course, and also gave detailed instructions on travelling by train to the Tokyo Suburb. 

   In the midst of a icy New England winter, Dick and I took a page from the December issue of Gourmet, 1982, and went "Scuba Diving in the Bahamas" off Andros Island at a resort called Small Hope Bay Lodge.  In October, we retraced together the Maine adventure I'd previously enjoyed alone.  We had duck and pork curry at Aubergine and camped in Blue Hill.  We cooked over a wood fire.  In rain and fog, we hiked the carriage trails of Mount Desert from Northeast Harbor.  At the Central House we had bouillabaise and steak with bernaise sauce.  The next day we climbed the rocks of Mount Desert in bright and hot sun.  The next day we walked to Jordan Pond House for popovers.
     I might have remained in this East Coast to the Caribbean axis, had I not not been sent to Silicon Valley for training in computer software.  I made my first trip west of the Great Divide.  I checked into Dinah's Motor Hotel, with its collection of Asian art and and its Japanese garden.  My instructor, a young Vietnamese woman, invited me to dinner---at a French Restaurant.  My friend Patrick took me for Mongolian Bar-b-cue in Mountain View, another friend guided me to the Asian Art Museum and the Japanese Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.  On we went to the Japan Center on Geary, with its Kinokinuya Bookstore.  In my journal,  I wrote "I feel very much a citizen of the world, powerful because I am able to cope with change."


New York:
Shanghai Manor is currently home to a Chinese restaurant, Lychee House, who claim to serve a "modern Chinese,"  and they still serve crispy fish.
Pamir is gone, and the intervening years no kinder to Afghanistan.
Flower Drum Leaving New York, Peter Pao Lee took Flower Drum Restaurant to Palm Springs.  Lee died in 2008, but his students continue to teach Tai Chi.



Los Angeles:
La Petite Chaya is still going strong, as can be seen in its offspring, Chaya, with branches all up and down the Pacific Coast. 
Bangkok West

San Francisco:
Korean Palace at 631 O'Farrell, still houses a Korean restaurant,  Dong Baek, 
which from its yelp* reviews seems to merit a visit.
The Kundan is gone from Opera Plaza, replaced by a Max's Opera House Cafe.