[title type="h5"]Wednesday, July 9, 2014. The Next Wave Of Chinese Food. [/title] A few years ago, the China Rose in Metairie grabbed a good deal of attention by adding a second menu to its offerings. Called "the Chinese menu"--seeming to imply that the regular menu was not really Chinese--it was written in Chinese characters (with English subtitles), and presented food more like what one would have in China. This effect was enhanced by the new presence of a lot of Asians, including many on the young side. Everybody was excited by this, especially those whose definition of enjoyability requires the presence of uncommon food. When something works for one Chinese restauramt, it isn't long before you start seeing it in others. Jung's Golden Dragon added a "Chinese" menu to its other Chinese (?) food a few years ago, and there have been several more since. You can tell you're in such a place when intestine is on the menu. This is a sort of pork sausage made with a very natural casing. Calling it Chinese chitterlings is not exactly right, but not wrong, either. And now we have a handsome, brand-new Chinese restaurant whose regular menu mixes all these exotic new (to most of us who didn't grow up in China) dishes. It's called Soho. I am there tonight, and the first thing I feel good about is that it takes the place of a Chinese buffet. Buffets are taking over the Chinese dining scene around the country--a very bad development. We have a few here, but so far they have not been able to dominate the category. For a buffet to close is always a good sign. "Real" Chinese food takes a little getting used to. First, you have to forget the Chinese food you've eaten in New Orleans all your life. That's hard enough even in highly Americanized Chinese places, where a large percentage of customers can't seem to get past the one or two dishes they order every time they get the Chinese appetite. Second, you have to get your head around a lot of flavors that have never come your way before, as well as unusual cuts of meat. One common barrier is the Chinese taste for bony morsels with a relatively small percentage of meat, requiring nibbling and maybe even sucking at the bones. In my trips to San Francisco--where the long-established, large population of ethnic Chinese allows the restaurants to go native the the extreme--I've run into quite a few dishes in which the meat-to-bone ratio is less than one. I can't say this is something I've become accustomed to. The entree in my dinner at Soho is one such. It was called sizzling chicken, and was indeed a hot pot with a burner underneath, and chicken bits of unfamiliar shape. It was dark meat, I think--the sauce was also dark, and the chicken appeared to have been stewed in it. I have no problem with any of that, nor could I say that the sauce was bad. But eating the chicken was not easy. It soon became a chore, giving up little meat for the effort required. Meanwhile, the few other people in the dining room--especially those whose ethnicity was in sync with the restaurant's--were having a great time. I need to educate my palate a bit more to grok this food. On the other hand, the first part of dinner was well made. This ia a pan-Asian restaurant, with not just Chinese food but also Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese--although the Chinese dishes dominate. After a cup of well-made clear soup Japanese style, I have an excellent sushi hand roll of salmon, tuna, and avocado. The prices are low and the premises handsome. A maze-like quality to the dining rooms make me lose track of which way was out. I'll try again. [title type="h5"]Soho Asian Cafe. Metairie 2: Orleans Line To Houma Blvd: 601 Veterans Blvd. 504-301-2266. [/title]
