Shang
Shang will open next month in the Thompson Lower East Side Hotel, 190 Allen St., New York. 212-460-5300.
We in Toronto make a habit of comparing ourselves unfavourably with the Big Apple, especially in matters cultural, including (and perhaps most especially) food. So when one of our own was wooed away to New York, there was only one conclusion to draw: Susur Lee is better than Toronto. Sort of like the actors who went to Los Angeles because Hollywood was better than here. The old story goes like this: New York restaurants are better, New York diners are more discerning and, if we were more epicurean, we would be eating in New York.
Losing Susur to New York makes it a soupçon easier to nurture this inferiority complex. But wait: I have been paying a fair bit of attention to things edible in New York for the past few years and, so far, the Big Apple is not so far ahead of Hogtown. New York has more of everything than we will ever have. You want takeout delivered in the next half hour? Pick a cuisine and it will be at your door. You want ravioli delivered by waiters in drag? Food from Mexican micro-regions? Go to New York. But for a wide breadth of high-quality world cuisines in pleasant surroundings, stay home.
I did not stay home on Monday, when the pre-opening preview party of Shang, Susur's New York resto, was held. How was a foodie to resist an invitation from Ruth Reichl, editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine?
Shang is in the just-opened Thompson Lower East Side Hotel. Both hotel and restaurant are too cool to require signs, and the hotel is a minimalist fun factory. The restaurant has been designed with minimalist-style pizzazz, straddling the line between artsy and comfy. The big bar is reminiscent of the new front of the Art Gallery of Ontario, all curving lines and undulating walls. Sink into armchairs made of thick plate glass with black leather cushions or recline on couches made of "sausages" of black leather. Beautiful servers offer cocktails of vodka, cucumber and ginger. They're pouring champagne, and the kitchen is sending out Susur food so fast one can hardly keep up.
Just what was the New York Susur food? Duck à la chinoise with spiced nut chew - ultra-tender barely cooked duck breast, sliced thinly, wrapped round crunchy veg and sweetly scented with sesame, soy and five spice, with a tiny disc of nut brittle. Singapore slaw was a tangle of shredded crisped taro root, flower blossoms and carrots in salty/sweet apricot dressing. Chinese doughnut, small and perfectly deep-fried, was stuffed with shrimp, sitting in a fab sweet-and-sour chili sauce.
Is this sounding familiar? Anyone who has been to Madeline's, Susur's new place on King Street West, knows this food: It's haute chinoise à la Susur. It's the man going back to his roots, which many of us do in our middle years. It's more Eastern than Western. Whereas Susur used to cook Occidental food with an Oriental accent, now he's going home to Hong Kong in his mind - and Madeline's menu was clearly the rehearsal for Shang food, as was its design.
Just like Madeline's, Shang looks like a slightly ironic reimagining of a fifties Chinese restaurant. The Shang dining room is dominated by large round walnut tables with black glass in the middle. Two huge chandeliers look like a cross between tangerine tulle skirts and Chinese lanterns.
At the Gourmet party on Monday night, the tables were filled with beautiful people, few over 40. Celebrity chefs Daniel Boulud, Tom Colicchio, Bobby Flay, Rocco DiSpirito and Mauro Maccioni attended. The aristocracy of food writing - Indian cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey, Calvin Trillin - showed up. So did Drew Nieporent, who owns Nobu (with Robert de Niro) and Tribeca Grill.
Did these people like Susur's reimagining of his hometown cooking? I don't know how much of the party fare will make it onto his menu, but they were not hoovering it with the greatest enthusiasm, which I think is because New York doesn't understand Chinese food like Toronto does, so they can be forgiven for not quite getting it. Wait staff were having trouble giving away the crispy tofu with Thai basil pineapple and spicy chunky peanut sauce. But the lightness of the tofu, its barely deep-fried skin, the sweet/spicy contrast of the sauce, was a small perfect piece of postmodern Chinese cooking. That's Shang - just like Madeline's!
The same, almost unbearably light touch in the deep fryer was applied to small, sweet oysters served crisp with sauce of earthy black vinegar and chili oil, and shredded cucumber on top. Susur likes to culture-jump; hence raw yellowtail snapper rolled round lightly pickled daikon atop a sauce of grapefruit-scented soy. And a small sphere of foie gras mousse on green onion pancakes spread with huckleberry jam.
This wasn't new food for Susur: He has been playing Chinese games with foie gras since Lotus, and the Singapore slaw at Shang recalled a slaw at Lee. Ruby red, fork-tender cardamom-curried lamb chops came with little fried banana fritters and were painted with green mint chutney. There were melt-in-the-mouth braised veal cheeks, the veal's velvety fat cut by the salty tang of olive-preserved cabbage and winter greens that spiked the brown rice congee underneath. Congee! The audacity of a chef who is confident enough to serve Chinese porridge! The control over his kitchen brigade was evidenced by chef's calm demeanour as he worked the dining room.
Susur's New York act was delectable, but do you need to leave Toronto for his po-mo chinois? Only if you can't get a table at Madeline's.