Auntie Yuan: A Theater of Taste

          Knowing mouths insist the best Chinese cooking in the world comes out of the kitchens of great homes in Hong Kong and Taipei. What a tease for our town’s cuisinary Sinophile, on egg roll in childhood hooked, by chow mein pacified, by bean curd persuaded, now fiercely loyal to the Sichuan pepper cult. Of course, it was only a question of time. Happily, our town is an irresistible magnetic field—lure to culinary missionaries dedicated to saving the heathen. Auntie Yuan is here.

          Recruited by the dapper mogul of uptown Chinese feeding, David Keh, and installed at the woks of what is surely the most beautiful Chinese restaurant our town has ever seen, there is in fact not one Auntie but four, a quartet of Graces from Taipei: Mrs. Fan, owner of two celebrated home-style restaurants; her daughter, Chieh Fan; Mrs. Yuan, a fine cooked renowned for her banquet dazzle; and Mrs. Hsu, protégée of two famous chefs. What emerges from their cleavers is an astonishment of elegance, often original and occasionally sublime.

          Every sense is being wooed. You feel that as soon as you step into the shiny black lacquered sophistication of Auntie Yuan, with its mat-black banquettes (that don’t let you slip or stick), handsome black chairs, pin spots making pools of light on one giant clutch of orchids, and, on every table, organic calligraphy—a single blossom, sweet freesia or a lazy curve of bachelor’s button. A king’s ransom dresses the setting: Wedgwood, gold-edged peonies on black saucers, mock-ivory flatware, chopsticks in a roll of crisp linen napkin.

          It all speaks of fantastic attention to detail, calculated to dramatize innovation—the “tasting dinner,” at $28, tiny portions of many dishes (evolving monthly), which two might share with the addition of two or three items from the à la carte list, a mélange of homestyle and banquet notions. There is a lobster dinner, too ($21), and a Peking-duck dinner (for two or more, $20 per person). Serious wines from Bordeaux, Idaho, Germany, California’s Edna Valley, even a Château d’Yquem—by the taste or the glass from the Cruvinet bar—can push the price tag for two to $50 or $60 or more. But in this theater of taste, that scarcely seems excessive.

          For everyone there is a complimentary bowl of carrot and daikon sticks in a fiery sesame-scented oil, and Mrs. Fan’s celestial “coleslaw”—cabbage shreds with strings of scallion and a hint of sesame and dried shrimp. Tonight’s tasting dinner begins a bit off-key. A crisply aristocratic scallion pancake seems pallid to those of us keen on Chinatown’s greasy rendition. So we’re brazenly sloshing it in the garlicky sauce of the cold orange beef, an oddment that tastes like shredded tennis shoes.

          “This is a tai chi dish,” my companion observes. “Chewing it is a martial art.” Happily, big fat crayfish are arriving in an aura of black bean, hot pepper, and fierce garlic. And the next dish is a stunner, one of those gastronomic epiphanies that punctuate the everyday bliss of a gourmand’s life—simply steamed eggs, perfumed with the smoke of Smithfield ham and scallion, in both texture and taste utterly lyrical. Perfectly cooked mussels in a peppery coriander-spiked broth are another sensory thrill. Chopped beef and slithery cellophane noodles rolled into the house’s elegantly thin pancakes is that old home dish “ants climbing trees,” here as if dressed by Dior. Chewy Black Forest mushrooms are steamed into voluptuous submission and served with crisp hearts of baby bok choy. And even as humble a dish as white- and dark-meat chicken on the bone with bean curd twisted into knots is a triumph.

          At times the kitchen pace slows: The four Graces strike out. Occasionally the garlic seems unduly sharp. Tough, tasteless beef does nothing for shin-noodle soup ($3). Sliced pork ($8) stirs no emotion. Delectably tender ribbons of Peking pork in pancake ($13) have only one taste—sweet. Steamed baby eggplants ($8) are bland and rather steamed-out. And at lunch the Peking duck ($28) is a flop: the skin is not the crisp lacquered crunch of Shun Lee Palace’s or David K’s at their best and somehow too sauced, too airy, perhaps too aerated. In the stir-fry that follows, the meat is dry, uninspired. The fried rice ($6) seems almost preppily proper, with peas and bits of Smithfield ham, but the spinach is wonderful, on its own ($6) or nesting moist chicken ($12) on the à la carte menu.

          Indeed, the misses are few, and sensibilities not anesthetized by Sichuan pepper will admire aristocratic spring rolls ($2), delicate wontons in gentle chicken broth ($3), subtle vegetable dumplings ($4), nutty cold noodles ($5), strange, almost perfumed potatoes ($5), flavorful mashed eggplant ($7), a pan-fried flounder ($14) so fresh and perfectly cooked it tastes barely “gelled,” and mysterious “Buddha’s shreds” ($6) with slivers of black mushroom, giant-headed bean sprouts, tree ears, and tangy lotus stems.

          After such sensory output, a sorbet seems perfect. And Auntie Yuan’s—delivered daily from Pierrot, in Brooklyn—are mostly splendid: mango, grapefruit, exquisite passion fruit, and Granny Smith, less smooth than the others, but crisp and wonderfully tart.

          This brave departure from New York’s Chinese-restaurant cliché may startle the unadventurous. Addicted fire-eaters whose palates are permanently blistered by fiery Hunanese cooking may not appreciate the subtlety of certain Cantonese dishes. And purists may be puzzled by Caucasian waiters, though the captains are Chinese, and definitely capable of wishing one “Bon appétit,” as ours did. I choose to find that amusing. The familiar face running the house here is David Keh’s partner, Ed Schoenfeld, who teethed on chow mein in Brooklyn and was the bearded Caucasian in the powder-blue tuxedo back when Keh opened Uncle Tai. He will have to coach the kitchen into a surer pace, edit the experiments that don’t translate well, and end the ban on credit cards. (For now, the house takes checks.) And as Schoenfeld tells it, never has a restaurant been quite so blessed.

          Early on opening day, a limo pulls up. Scholar Lin Yuan (no relation), “the Lubavitcher rebbe of his people,” as Schoenfeld explains, emerges in flowing blue silk robes and proceeds to bless every nook and cranny, every slat of parquet, every swan-topped teapot, followed by an entourage of eight Chinese women in matching Gucci blouses recording his every word. Daily, Lin Yuan is besieged by pleas for blessings on capitalist ventures from Chinese on three continents. “And here he is at Auntie Yuan…eight hours of blessing.” Schoenfeld marvels.

          The magic is working already.

Auntie Yuan, 1191A First Avenue, near 64^th Street