Kurobuta pork chop with sautéed apple, pineapple and bell peppers.

Richard Chen Pittsburgh

5996 Penn Circle South, Suite D101, East Liberty
412/924-0080, richard-chen.com

The boundaries and form of Asian cuisine are forever altered in this new Pan-Asian restaurant on the border of Shadyside and East Liberty.

Mon.-Thurs., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-10:30 p.m. Sun.: brunch, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.; dinner: 5-9 p.m.; Appetizers and Dim Sum: $6-$12; Entrees: $16-$42; Rice, Noodles, Vegetables: $10-$14; Dessert: $8; Full bar, major credit cards, nonsmoking, wheelchair access, covered parking; reservations suggested for weekends.

 

Not Your Mother's Fortune Cookie

The leaves are beginning to thin, and a sweet scent in the air warns that a cold snap is right around the corner the night we impulsively redefine impromptu by breezing into Richard Chen's new, ultra-cosmopolitan restaurant without reservations. We immediately feel comfortable. All sorts of people in all sorts of dress are chatting away under gorgeous silk lanterns over pristine tuna sashimi and a duck salad that practically takes your breath away.

I can't help but momentarily reflect on Asian cuisine a decade or so ago - egg rolls, chop suey, cocktails with paper umbrellas - and a favorite little neighborhood spot nicknamed Noah's Ark, which I remember more for its creaking floorboards and physical resemblance to the swaying (Kennywood) funhouse than for its gummy rice and hyphenated Chinese dishes. There was nothing that a few shakes of soy sauce and some kooky fortunes in the cookies couldn't remedy.

Left: The room renders the illusion of a sepia-tinted photograph with splashes of vibrant color. Photo by Laura Petrilla.

Richard Chen is its polar-opposite. On a corner that not so long ago was all concrete and sky, a building has arisen that hugs the pre-existing traffic artery. The curve perfectly rounds out the corner, an aesthetic, thoughtful design. In fact, the hip, burgeoning little commercial district in the newly coronated Eastside, which is redefining the once-infamous East Liberty corridor, is a perfect site for Richard Chen's nonformulaic, pan-Asian cuisine.

At night when the blinds are up, the room renders the illusion of a sepia-tinted photograph with splashes of vibrant color. Inside, the building reacts to culture and character, juxtaposing intimacy with openness, texture with sleekness. "It is for me breathtaking," says Chen of the sparkling new digs. "It makes people turn their heads." And so they have been since dry rehearsal (Chen calls them "play days") in mid-August.

The buzz was fast and keen - a love story in the restaurant world, where Chen, a Chinese chef who had garnered the only Michelin star in the United States for a Chinese restaurant, fell in love with Kathy Yee, owner of Ya Fei in Robinson. She lured Chen to Pittsburgh, where he went from an occasional tourist to a besotted loyalist. Opening his own restaurant had been a dream of Chen's since he was a boy in Taiwan cooking at his father's side.

He has a knack for getting the details right; each dish seems like the most desirable thing you might imagine. "His cooking is passionate," says Kathy. "I think, truly, it is in his blood."

Chen has hired equally passionate colleagues with heady résumés: general manager Noel Flores, who worked with Chen at The Peninsula Hotel in Chicago; and executive chef Simon Lewis, who hails from the U.K. and has worked at both Four Seasons Hawaii and Chicago as well as at Tru in Chicago and Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas. "I love the way he thinks," says Lewis. "He is so versatile. And he has the most remarkable palate of any chef I have ever encountered."

Chen's energy and optimism are catchy. He is entirely approachable, with a grand sense of fun. And that's how he wants you to experience his restaurant - bold and modern, yet warm and pleasant - without the kind of huffiness that restaurants of this caliber can often project. Drop in informally, dress casually, yet expect to find the sort of innovative pan-Asian cuisine that might induce a trance.

Seated in a little two-top in the high-ceiled portion of the room, we hold down one end of a long banquette that sweeps the easterly side of the building. Warm finger towels are a nice touch as we dust off street grit. Tuna sashimi with marinated jellyfish, crispy scallops and translucent spring rolls remind me of elegant cocktail snacks you must grab every time a server passes with a tray.

Since everyone's palate is a little different, we swoon over bowls of spicy mustard, hoisin and chili sauce which fine-tune our choice of shu mai, thin-skinned wrappers made fresh daily and stuffed with a house mix of shrimp and pork with a touch of sesame oil steamed and served in silver dim-sum baskets. And don't miss the flawlessly executed Peking-duck salad: thick chunks of duck roasted in-house with squeaky fresh organic greens; these are perfectly dressed in a simply amazing clean duck vinaigrette (fresh roasted peanuts, grape-seed oil, apple-cider vinegar, soy sauce and a tad of butter) and finished with truffle oil, then dusted with slivered almonds and extra-crispy duck skin crackled on before serving.

Left: Peking-duck salad with peanut dressing. Photo by Laura Petrilla.

My jaw drops at the sight of a 1.5 pound Maine lobster, wok-tossed with bok choy, winter bamboo shoots and shiitake mushrooms. Just before serving, a standout XO sauce, made with dried shrimp and scallops with chili, garlic and shallots, is poured lightly over the lobster. Breaking the silence, my husband, Brad, irreverently blurts, "Damn the presentation! Full speed ahead!" His edit of David Farragut's famous Civil War battle cry accompanies my efforts at gingerly scooping soft lobster that's bursting from its fiery red shell. How nice to have the pleasure of fresh lobster, always best cooked in shell, without the usual travails of cracking and extraction.

Our waiter with the whiskey voice is half the fun. He takes us in like old regulars and steers us toward Kurobuta pork (Berkshire pork from England), a different approach to sweet-and-sour pork, using a whole chop instead of diced chunks. Tender and juicy, it is complemented with a refined Hong Kong-style sweet-and-sour sauce, and accompanied by sour apple, sweet pineapple and bell pepper as refreshing extensions of the sweet/sour notes. Clay-pot sea bass, Sichuan chili prawns, Five Spice Duck, Kung Pao free-range chicken - even beef rib eye for meat-and-potato Pittsburghers - all have beautiful, clean interpretations, without too much fanfare to distract.

It's the little unexpected turns that free the food from obligation and make it fascinating. Rice, noodles and vegetables are categories unto themselves. I notice that no one can keep his or her spoon out of "Yang Chow Fried Rice" (choice of red, jasmine or brown rice) or "Garlic Chive Mushroom Chow Fun," a spin on a Cantonese dish that uses sensitive, delicate rice noodles (wok-tossed for that charred flavor).

Desserts are likewise transcendent. "I want to bring something memorable to the end of a meal, just a little something," says Chen, who bucks the trend of Chinese restaurants of old, where diners were content with an almond fortune cookie. We pass around coconut tapioca with fresh tropical fruit, caramelized apple with smooth cinnamon cream on a lovely, nutty shell. Swoon over a very grown-up crunchy chocolate caramel bar in the shape of a 4-inch parallelogram; it's garnished with two tiny leaves made of gold filigree, a sesame twill and a mini-scoop of hazelnut ice cream. (I'm told this is a permanent fixture on the menu.)

But go, go. Dip your toes and taste buds into new soil; introduce yourself to Richard or Kathy, Simon or Noel. Never drink the same wine twice. If you like something, move on. Have a new experience. Don't wait for the next full moon or the next special occasion. Hang out at the twee bar with friends. Forget your rituals and the food of your childhood. Listen for harmonies whispering in the background. And therein lies the charms of Richard Chen. Eat well and have some fun.

Each month, Deborah McDonald jump-starts appetites with lively restaurant reviews that scrutinize who's cooking what and where. She works anonymously, visiting each restaurant at least twice before writing her column.

Do you know of a restaurant you'd like to have reviewed? E-mail Deborah.

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