A Delicious Half Century

Tom has always said that everyone has their favorite Chinese place and that your favorite Chinese place is the standard bearer for the cuisine. The loyalty to one is stronger than in any other food category. 

Since Chinese food restaurants are a niche part of the market, I can’t tell if that is true, but it is certainly true for us. Trey Yuen in Mandeville made it unnecessary to explore further. It has been excellent from Day One and is still a destination restaurant for people on the Southshore. We are lucky to have it as our own.

Many happy evening meals were spent there with the kids as they grew up. I am flooded with memories each time we go. The menu is so large and everything on it so delicious that it is stupid for us to be creatures of habit here, though we aren’t always. It was here that I learned to love duck. Their Cantonese Wor Shu Opp, crispy duck on the bone wowed me, and I am sure I’d have that same experience if we ventured more into the menu. Tom always did, but I stuck with the kids in choosing “amateur” menu items like Mandarin chicken, which just happens to be delicious.

At Trey Yuen, the specials board is where the exciting things are. The chefs have fun there. We love the steak special, which seems to be a whole sliced filet mignon prepared with interesting sauces.

On the last visit, I decided to return to good times with the kids and get the Mandarin Chicken, just to see if my memory is correct in thinking this much-mocked Chinese-American food dish is good. But my plan to visit Memory Lane was thwarted by a glance at the specials board. Softshell crab was there, and I knew it would be good. Usually it is prepared with Tong Cho Sauce, which is always superb.

When I asked about it at the table I was informed that this evening it would instead be served with a Crawfish and Mushroom sauce. I have had Frank Wong’s Chinese gumbo which is a fresh take on our local cuisine. I much prefer this fusion to the Vietnamese blend, because those flavors are too arresting for my palate. Frank’s Chinese fusion is just fantastic, though Tommy Wong was in the kitchen.

Two softshell crabs came crispy fried golden brown and quartered on a plate, with a gigantic bowl of Chinese Crawfish and mushroom sauce beside it. This would be enough for the crabs and the accompanying white rice. 

We started first with an order of spring rolls. Who can resist eggrolls and spring rolls in a Chinese restaurant? Eggrolls seem to hold less grease, but spring rolls are lighter and I have lately gravitated to the spring rolls. The wonton wrapper on egg rolls is thicker with its wheat base, and the rice paper spring roll wrapper is usually more appealing to me. Except this evening, when the spring rolls were the size of eggrolls, and were soaked in grease.

A puddle of grease remained when they were removed from the plate. 

When the softshell crab arrived all was forgiven. It was a beautiful thing, greaseless and golden brown, in four pieces on the plate. The Chinese crawfish sauce came in an enormous bowl that could have served six. It was very hot, its glistening broth heavily studded with crawfish, mushrooms, and other vegetables.

There was enough of this for everything on the table, which also included combination fried rice, something we have had on the table at every meal here since our first visit.

The stew was so hearty and filling we didn’t finish the softshell crab. But it was too good to be disciplined. The contrast of the creamy crawfish stew and the crunch of the softshell crab was irresistible. 

The combination fried rice was overkill. Just the white rice that came with this special was enough of a terrific bite 

Fifty-three years ago five brothers from China opened a restaurant in Hammond. It became a sensation, with its glamorous environment and delicious food celebrating all the regions of their homeland. The second location in Mandeville is all that remains, and a few of the brothers have retired. This last meal proved that the food remains every bit as great as the dishes that made Trey Yuen a national name.