The New Steak Kew.

[title type="h6"]Wednesday, September 4, 2013.[/title] After I finished the radio show at home, I checked in with the population at the Cool Water Ranch as to what might be in the offing for dinner. Mary Ann (who, I forgot to mention in yesterday's diary, is back from Los Angeles) said that she would not be eating anything for the remainder of the month. Mary Leigh and The Boy had more realistic desires. I suggested Trey Yuen, where we have not dined for quite a while. And The Boy has never been there. ML was ambivalent, but The Boy said that he would be fine with a Chinese chicken dish. The place was busier than we expected. The first topic of discussion, once the menu had been decided, was the matter of hiring hostesses at Trey Yuen. The young women in that position are always dressed in beautiful, very slim silk dresses with a decidedly Chinese look--even though not many of them are Asian these days. Mary Leigh keeps her figure pretty slim, but she was impressed by the slinkiness of the Trey Yuen girls. The Boy did not hazard (and I think that's the perfect word to use in this sentence) an opinion about the hostesses or their dresses. [caption id="attachment_35989" align="alignnone" width="400"] Hot and sour soup.[/caption] I began with my usual hot and sour soup, while the young side of the table busied itself with fried won tons. Mary Leigh took a liking to those not long after she developed her still-strong taste for Mexican tortilla chips and salsa. Same thing, isn't it? [caption id="attachment_38952" align="alignnone" width="480"] Pot stickers.[/caption] Now an order of pot stickers, requiring the mention of Jude and the way he used to down a dozen and a half of these fried dumplings when he was still in his single digits. If we didn't mention it, one of the Wong Brothers would. Pork fried rice for ML. (Like all the others in my family, nobody gives any regard for my advice, which in this case is that you're wasting a great Chinese meal by getting fried rice.) The Boy, a chicken lover (hmm. . . Jude was a gourmet for poultry himself), got the Presidential chicken and loved it. Frank Wong showed up a third of the way through the meal. "My chef is on vacation in China," he said. How long? "Two months!" Frank is a generous boss. "We have to watch the kitchen while he's away, so I've been working a lot back there. Have you tried our new steak kew?" I recalled that for our most recent Eat Club dinner at Trey Yuen, Tommy Wong rolled out a version of steak kew made with filet mignon instead of Trey Yuen's usual rib-eye steak. Rib-eye is still a lot better than what most Chinese restaurants serve under the steak kew name. [caption id="attachment_26047" align="alignnone" width="399"] Steak kew, new style.[/caption] "That's not it," Frank said. "We have a new sauce with thirty-one ingredients. I'll let you try it." It happens every time. Three people at the table with four entrees. In a place where two would be enough. Mary Ann will dispatch the leftovers, though. Steak kew appears to have been invented in America and made popular by Playboy Magazine, back when that book gave greater attention to gourmet dining than food magazines did. This version was delicious. Lot of complexity, lot of beef, nice and tender. I'll bet Mary Ann will love this, and will find it impossible to resist, despite her alleged fast. Trey Yuen. Mandeville: 600 Causeway Blvd. 985-626-4476.