What is considered true Chinese food? Are the fried chicken pickles glazed in a sweet orange sauce of a steam tray at the airport? The fried egg rolls and Mein's frame in your favorite restaurant to carry? My grandmother's fried rice?
For chef Bryant Ng, it is all of the above. And then some.
NG and his wife Kim Luu-Ng are behind the new Jade rabbit, a counterman restaurant in Santa Monica that serves roasted garlic cheese, orange handle chicken, beef and broccoli and cookies of chocolate sparks with almond rock.
The restaurant configuration is similar to a chipotle or Sweetgreen. Go down the counter and build a bowl of rice, salad or noodles with a selection of prepared proteins and vegetables.
It may seem a bold pivot for those familiar with the culinary trajectory of NG. He was the Opening Chef in the Nancy Silverton girl, then went on to direct his own kitchen at the spice table influenced by Singapore in the center of Los Angeles. He was appointed one of Food & Wine's best chefs in 2012 and has been nominated for a James Beard award several times. Cassia, the extensive restaurant of Santa Monica known as NG's syncretic kitchen style, mix influences from all of Asia and southern California.
He and Luu-Ng decided to close Cassia earlier this year, changing their approach completely to Jade Rabbit.
Cassia Chef Bryant NG and his commercial partner and wife, Kim Luu-Ng.
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
“For the cost of a cocktail in Cassia, you can eat a complete meal in Jade Rabbit,” says NG. “We wanted to create something more democratic and more convenient and more involved by value.”
And as for the style of the kitchen, it had to be a American Chinese. NG passed much of his childhood in his family's restaurant kitchens. In the 1950s, his grandparents opened an American Chinese restaurant called Bali Hai in Culver City. For years, their parents ran Wok Wok in the San Fernando Valley.
“For us, American Chinese food is a regional type of Chinese food,” says Ng. “If you look at China, each regional cuisine is influenced by the people and the accessibility of everything there. Here, with American Chinese food, it was based on the hard work and the dedication and need of the American Chinese who preceded us. Many of them were not even chefs, but they had to open a restaurant to survive.”
After the Chinese exclusion law of 1882, Chinese immigrants requested commercial visas eligible for the owners and workers of the restaurants. A boom from Chinese restaurants in the United States soon continued, and plates like Chop Suey and the chicken of General Tso became known names.
In his book “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food”, Jennifer 8. Lee writes: “Chinese cuisine is not a set of dishes. It is a philosophy that serves local tastes and ingredients.” You could say the same about a myriad of world kitchens, but the feeling sounds especially true for Chinese food in the United States.
Like many Angels, NG grew by visiting restaurants such as Panda Express and PF Chang's. And is very aware of stigmas associated with American Chinese restaurants.
The roast of chives garlic cheese in Jade Rabbit is a wink to Sizzler.
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
“There is this racist idea that American Chinese food is not” real “and that if I hug the Chinese native food, that also makes me more authentic,” he says. “To say that it is not a true Chinese food flattened to the Chinese as a whole and flattened how the Asian Americans look in society. We should be proud of what it is. We all love it. It doesn't be ashamed.”
In Jade Rabbit, NG is hugging the Chinese cuisine of the diaspora to create its own American Chinese food style. Its beef and broccoli is a reluctant spimacinated spine, with beef and broccoli sauteed with tomatoes, onion and fries. The accompanying “jade sauce” could be confused with green Aji, with the same vibrant green color and a subtle heat of the birds for bird eyes.
Sichuan's spicy chicken is strongly inspired by the ZI JI, with dark meat chicken marinated in fish sauce, milk serum and white pepper. The chicken is fried in a light dough and then throws a hot wok with chili oil, peppers from Chile Sichuan, mushrooms, sesame, garlic and onion. You can ask for it as a “50/50 combo” together with the orange mango chicken, with large pieces of fresh mango mixed with chicken covered with light citrus sauce.
Curry Koda Farms Curry with flat bread was the best -selling dish in Cassia in Santa Monica. Now that the restaurant is closed, diners can still find the curry (less flat bread) in the new jade rabbit.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
For the dessert, NG turned his family's love for Almond Roca into a cookie with chocolate sparks, crushed and mixed in the dough with black chocolate, almonds and a healthy pinch of sea salt.
Those that are missing Cassia will be happy to learn that the chickpea curry, the best -selling dish in the restaurant, is also available in Jade Rabbit (without flat bread). The creamy coconut base originated in the family recipe of NG, incorporating influences of Singapore and China.
NG's greatest triumph in Jade Rabbit can be a golden portion of toast inspired by one of the great restaurants in the Los Angeles chain.
“My family grew up going to Sizzler as our special occasion dinner,” says NG. “We pray for the salad bar and everything you can eat shrimp. It is one of those memories of flavor that stays with you throughout your life.”
The cookie with chocolate sparks Roca Roca Roca de Jade Rabbit.
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
NG NG garlic cheese toast is a nod to the toasted of sizzling garlic cheese, just merged with an onion pancake. It begins with thick slabs of fermented mass bread, which covers one side in a butter composed of onion, garlic, garlic salt and Parmesan and pecorino cheese. The toast is ruin until a golden crust is formed. If the original has tried in Sizzler, the taste memory is immediate. The bread is crispy and ultra butian on one side, then soft pillow on the other. And there is enough butter to leave your bright fingers.
“We take the toast in the back of the house and pile the spicy chicken of Sichuan,” says NG. “And then, if you get the curly collar salad, it accumulates at the top and then you put the jade sauce.”
As you continue listing the dozens of possible combinations, my mind is composed and anxiously dealt with my next visit. Even without a fortune cookie, I can predict a fried chicken sandwich of cheese toast in the near future.
