Food Rule 6: Know your masters, or “The Cruel Tutelage of Yuet Lee”

House Cuisine is about simple, satisfying meals at your fingertips. I find satisfaction in some of the greatest food memories and they bring balance to my constitution. So I decided to go on a little trip to visit some of the masters of cuisine that taught me. My greatest sources of knowledge have come from a number of places: the four star restaurant, the barbecue joint, the vineyard, various TV shows, a little grill on the beach in Morocco, cooking for my nieces and nephews. One's experiences in life are what provide their soul in their kitchen.

Just remember to always check the weather before you go on a trip.

It was the middle of July and as expected I am chilled to the bone, and since I am in the northern hemisphere I must be in San Francisco. Here I sit, and through the chill cuts the wafting steam and smells of wonton soup topped with slices of roast duck and steamed clams in black bean sauce. Complementing these heartwarming sensory instruments are an orchestra of neon green walls and the dingy tanks filled with sea bass, lobster, and Dungeness crab. As the delivery man passes by with a dolly full of fresh egg noodles, I know I am back at Yuet Lee's in Chinatown. This little restaurant is where my sensibilities about Asian cuisines were formed.

The hint of roasted duck in the simple wonton broth is just about as good as it gets. It is obvious this stock is fresh with the flavor of pork and chicken bones and finished with a touch green onion to liven it up. The stacked wontons let the duck sit just under the surface and turn this plastic bowl of soup into a meal. Filled with ground pork and whole baby shrimp they are moist and lightly seasoned and are just the right tenderness when bitten. Something that seems excessively important today since the throbbing in my mouth tells me of a root canal coming on.

I wonder if the Green Door massage parlor up the street does root canals. Giving a new meaning to “painless dental care,”  I would subtly rename the place Happy Ending Dental. Double entendre is always a good selling point to the younger well-heeled class, or Eliot Spitzer.

The clams with a sauce kissed with fermented black bean and fresh jalapeno are a great second course. Three things smack into my face about this dish. First, even with the medium-weight sauce you can taste the sea when you bite into the clams. Second, the jalapenos add more pepper flavors as opposed to heat. Third, when you don’t put the dish on top of the rice and eat them together you really miss the balance of flavor.

By the way, the Kill Bill reference in the title of the piece refers more to tutelage and less to cruel. If you think it is more appropriate to reverse the emphasis, please pre-pay your bill at the shrink or house of dominatrix.

One family of white folks comes in and asks if they can bring their dog.

Gay Mexican crowd comes in and asks if they serve family-style. The befuddled look in the older Chinese woman’s eyes as she stares and the young man and tries to understand his effeminate voice is bringing me to laughter. This sweet but no-nonsense woman simply does not understand what he is asking for and they leave in a huff. Here it is better to not ask a lot of questions. Just order a bunch of stuff and eat whatever way you want.  

Chef comes out and talks to one of his regulars about how stupid some people are.

No matter what culture you’re in, the chef seems to have a strong personality.

As I sit here the wonton filling is set out on the table next to me and you see the ratio of pork to shrimp and the consistency of the grind. It has been put through a food processor instead of a meat grinder. This is why you don’t get that granular texture or meatball effect in the wonton.

Doing some of the prep in the dining room during off hours has been a common experience for me in Asian restaurants. Just the hand work like picking basil, making wontons, trimming vegetables, etc. are commonly done by service staff. From the ergonomic point of view it only makes sense. Having servers do it is great in terms of utilizing the human resource. From OSHA’s point of view it is a class-action lawsuit and the health department would probably close you down.

Given the limited amount of space I learn that the duck was roasted at another restaurant. This only makes sense since you have such limited space in any given restaurant you need to outsource some things to people that have that equipment. On my way over I passed at least 10 places with roast duck, lacquered duck, gorgeous spare ribs, so there is plenty of talent available to outsource to.

In the end, I taste as much as I can and make notes so when I am making things at home I have taste and consistency references to guide my adventures. As for the tutelage of Yuet Lee, there is an old proverb that holds well for food as well as life: “Order what you want, eat what you get, and swoon over the joy that it brings you.”