Mein Menu, part 9: Sam Woo Barbeque Restaurant

The silence is getting a bit awkward. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take quite this long to read the Mein Menu entries, even if he is an extremely slow reader. He seems to be staring intently at the pages while actually thinking about something completely different. Like linguisa.

I clear my throat, but he doesn’t seem to notice. There is more silence. Finally I ask, “well?”

He looks up, and then pauses for a second, as if recalling where he is. Then he says, “they’re good.” And then more silence. Is that it? I’m about to say something when he begins again: “But you’re a dilettante. An amateur. Yeah, you can talk about the chow mein, and I can tell you’re a fan of the dish. But I can also tell you don’t really know anything about it. You’ve got a bunch of reviews here, but what you need is a standard to compare against.”

Then he’s silent again. That’s fair, I think to myself. I never pretended to be an expert on the subject of chow mein, just someone who, when he has eaten it, has enjoyed the experience. But if I really want –

My thoughts are interrupted when he suddenly speaks again: “Also, I don’t know about the title. I mean, Mein Menu? That’s pretty lame.”

***

Tiffany knows a place.

Conveniently, I am going with her to visit her parents for a few days for Thanksgiving, which provides an excellent excuse to visit Sam Woo Barbeque Restaurant, her family’s favorite Chinese place and one which, according to Tiffany, is the real deal when it comes to chow mein.

As it happens, we are going to head to the restaurant straight from the airport after arrival. We get picked up by Tiffany’s mother and grandmother, and are told that her father will be meeting us there after he gets off from work. It’s not too far to the place, and we have more than enough conversation topics to fill the time.

We get there, park, and head inside. If the place had been called John Woo Barbeque Restaurant, there would probably be a bunch of birdcages with birds in them, about ten times more people, and some frenetic action-packed gunfights involving pistols in each hand and lots of diving around. But it’s not called John Woo Barbeque Restaurant, it’s called Sam Woo Barbeque Restaurant, and Sam doesn’t roll that way. Sam’s motto is: “Fewer birds and guns, more chow mein.” And given my past experience with guns (and birds for that matter), this is a good thing.

The place is of medium size, and there are a few families eating there already. We sit down at a round table, still finishing up the car ride conversation. Tiffany’s mother wants to give me a different seat than the one I initially sit down in, because I’m facing the kitchen area. I insist that I don’t mind, and Tiffany comes to my defense by telling her mother about the Mein Menu posts I’ve been doing on the blog, and how I’m looking for the real, authentic experience. While I appreciate the gesture, I’m also a little alarmed. Does this mean her mother might actually look at the blog? I’m OK with most people seeing it, but… I mean, I’m pretty sure I wrote “what the fucketh” in one of the posts. Fortunately, Tiffany does not divulge the web address.

Tiffany’s father calls. He’s running a bit late, but he wants us to go ahead and order, and he’ll get here as soon as he can. Tiffany predicts he won’t actually make it, but just wants us to order extra food so he can eat it as leftovers later. If this is, in fact, his intention, then he’s playing his part well.

At any rate, we order the food. Tiffany makes sure to ask for the chow mein, and asks the waiter to prepare it with “the gravy”. After the waiter is gone I ask Tiffany what “the gravy” is, and she tells me she doesn’t know, but it’s delicious. We also order chow fun, Kung Pao chicken, a pork dish, a clam dish, some bok choy and an eggplant dish. Because eggplant is awesome. When the food arrives, it all looks quite tasty, but my attention is understandably drawn to the chow mein.

Sam Woo and John Woo do have one thing in common: their chow mein is done in the Hong Kong style. This means thin, pan-fried noodles, with the meat and vegetables on top. In fact, when the dish arrives, I at first do not even recognize it as chow mein, because the meat piled on top obscures the noodles. Only when Tiffany offers me some do I realize what it is.

I don’t know what “the gravy” is either, but it is, as advertised, quite delicious. I’ve had Hong Kong-style chow mein before on a few occasions, but this is definitely the best I’ve tasted so far. The noodles are quite crispy, but “the gravy” softens them enough to make them significantly easier to handle with chopsticks, and the large pieces of beef are quite good. The other dishes, which I also sample liberally, are also of very high quality, though the eggplant is rather spicy.

About midway through the meal, Tiffany’s father calls again. Sure enough, he’s not going to be able to make it, but he’d appreciate it if we could bring the leftovers home for him. Tiffany would now be demanding payment if anyone had been foolish enough to bet with her on whether her father would show up. But no one was, so instead we just laugh about it.

As we finish, Tiffany asks me how the chow mein was. “It was good,” is all I can muster (you may notice that I am writing this more than a month after the event… sometimes it takes me a while to formulate my thoughts). She asks if it is better than the other chow mein I’ve had. “Well, you can’t really compare the Hong Kong-style chow mein to the Americanized version,” I say. As soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize this is a mistake. I have probably just lost about ten points. “But it was really tasty,” I say in an attempt to recover. A poor attempt. Maybe two points at best.

In retrospect, Sam Woo’s chow mein is most aptly compared to the chow mein from Daimo, covered in Mein Menu part 5. They are the two most authentic versions I have had, and I must say I prefer Sam Woo’s, though Daimo definitely provided more of a sense that I was eating some genuine working-class Chinese fare. Perhaps it was because I didn’t know to ask for “the gravy” at Daimo. Perhaps it was because Daimo put approximately six or seven different types of meat and seafood into their dish, whereas Sam Woo chose to focus on beef, to good effect. At any rate, they were both delicious, and both dishes were rather different experiences than most chow mein I’ve had.

And in the end, the chow mein really is the point, anyway.