![]() ![]() “I need to be able to connect with them through my food and drinks.”īack at Short Pump, in what might be a large kitchen in another restaurant, it’s so packed with people that it’s hard to wedge into a corner to stay out of the way. “I need to step out and start somewhere and find an entryway into American society,” he says. ![]() Branding - a quintessentially American preoccupation - is at the forefront of his mind, but ultimately for Chang, the food comes first. When the new restaurant is on its feet, he plans to renovate his other locations to match this one. “ it connects the industrial culture of America with traditional Chinese culture,” she says. Although Yan wasn’t happy about the new constraints, she made the changes quickly. But she’s a focused young woman who designs commercial projects both here and in China. Tall, lovely and slender, Xu, Meng says, looks like a model from Shanghai. There was a month to go before the planned opening, and she had to radically alter her plan. “The agent never told us about this,” Yan says. But in April, the landlord informed Chang and Yan that nothing could be attached to the walls. That was to be opposite delicate wooden screens made from long, narrow strips of pale bamboo to divide the bar and dining areas. It included a long dragon - symbolizing prosperity and abundance - against red background stretching down one wall. In January, designer Yan Xu had finished the plan for the restaurant. There was a little confusion about those walls. Instead of the utilitarian interior that you see in most mom-and-pop Asian spots, you’ll find a modern space full of taupe, bursts of red, hanging iron fixtures and the industrial brick walls of the rug factory for which the structure originally was built. A sophisticated modern style will meet traditional Chinese elements, with the building’s industrial beginnings as a backdrop. The design of the new restaurant will be radically different from Chang’s other places.It’s not that they don’t want to, but that they have no way of doing so.” “Traditional Chinese restaurants in the U.S. “This restaurant is an experimental store,” he says with the assistance of interpreter Sharon Meng, brought along by Style. Chang plans to pair smaller dishes with wine and other alcoholic drinks. The new spot, scheduled to open this summer, won’t resemble his Short Pump strip-mall location. Add cumin to the trinity and you have Chang’s signature flavor bomb - it’s emphatically nontraditional and you won’t find it anywhere else.Īnd fortunately for Richmond, even more diners will be able to taste for themselves when Chang’s downtown restaurant opens near Boulevard and West Broad Street in the Hofheimer Building, which once housed the old Adams Camera shop. Like a rock band, it sings with ma la - the hot, numbing sensation created by a drizzle of oil steeped in Sichuan peppercorns, both dried and vinegary pickled chilies, and sliced jalapeños - backed up by a generous sprinkle of cilantro and green onions. Thick-cut eggplant is crispy and meltingly soft in the middle. Once you take a bite, though, his food transcends expectations. ![]() To stretch beyond that is incomprehensible to the average diner. And even if Chang did serve the traditional dishes of the Hubei and Sichuan provinces at his restaurant - the regions that most influence his food - few people would recognize them. The difficulty Chang faces is that because he cooks Asian food, most people expect it to at least loosely conform to the Americanized dishes that they’re used to - General Tso’s chicken, mu-shu pork, lo mein. The James Beard Award-nominated chef is simply doing what all great chefs do - creating something memorable that’s all his own. It’s a dish that employs Chinese flavors but rearranges them in new and surprising ways. Nor is it commonplace to scoop up and eat all of the ingredients together - stacking, he calls it - to create one powerful bite. Chef Peter Chang, a slight man with a ready smile who looks younger than his 53 years, urges me to pick up the green onions and cilantro dusted with cumin along with each piece.įish fried this way isn’t traditionally Chinese, he says, comparing it to British fish and chips. Ordinary tilapia has been quickly fried and transformed into an impossibly light, greaseless burst of tender fish. The fish arrives under a latticework of bamboo. ![]()
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