Sometimes I'm struck by an existential fear for the future of Cantonese haute cuisine. (And if you're still reading this, thank you for putting up with the single most annoying sentence ever written.) But really, I sometimes worry about this food, at least in America. Here's the basic issue: Traditional Chinese chefs endure incredibly long, back-breaking apprenticeships before mastering a classical canon of dishes and finally exercising creativity. It's a lifetime commitment that people, understandably, aren't really lining up for anymore. And it doesn't help that in most places where Chinese immigrate, the central expectation of Chinese food is that it must be cheap. Imagine training your whole life in a magnificent cuisine while staring at a future of people expecting you to throw in their choice of soup, fried rice, and a can of soda with their $4.95 lunch special. Yeah, and gimme an order of General Tso's Demoralization with that, too. But a few weeks ago, my father was in town inviting me to dinner at a place that he said, with a now-characteristic wariness, "Is supposed to be pretty good." A friend is friends with the chef there, he explained, and he put together a special menu for us.
Deep in the heart of the Jersey suburbs, the restaurant was notably more snazzed-up than your average Empress Garden Golden Dragon Great Wall Take Out, but I snuck a peak at the menu, and the inevitable Sesame Chickens and Beef and Broccolis disheartened me. But, in a private back room, out came our first course of lobster and fruit salad. How to describe it? Imagine a Chinese countryside scene, lush with grass. There are hills, birds fluttering about them. There's a swerving river cutting through town, between the trees and pagodas and under the bridge where young lovers stand in awe of the dragon that flies by every morning. Now imagine that scene, only made out of carrots, ginger, and lobster salad. The chef came out, explaining that he spent a day and half carving dragon heads out of carrots the size of your forearm and arranging parsley to look like trees. We were in for a serious meal.
The next course introduced us to a congregation of flash-braised shrimp, dressed in scallions and celery, bowing before a pair of swans in flight. Four hours later, we'd eaten 13 courses. There was fresh eel with flowering chives, frog and greenbeans with a sauce of chili and dried scallops, a winter melon soup so clear it was impossible to believe how flavorful it was. There was a braised fuzzy gourd that absorbed all the flavors of pork, squid, dried shrimp, and mushrooms and gave them up as it dissolved in the mouth. I was nearly in tears. The chef came out again, to thank us for coming. He looked to be in his early 40's, thin in his baggy dishwasher's shirt. My aunt asked him about a dish of aged beef tenderloin stirfried with enoki mushrooms and Thai basil. She wanted to know where this dish came from, what region it's traditional to. "Oh, I made that one up," he said with a confident smile. As he spoke openly about how hard he'd worked on this food, I noticed his arms. They showed the usual burns and nicks, but also a deep, thick vein of scar tissue that traverses his elbow. He thanked us again and went home as our dessert appeared, a clear sweet soup with papaya and rich bitter almonds. I left thinking about the food I just ate, of course, but even more so about the chef. I thought about the pride that compelled him to come into a room of customers and point out the details of the dragon's head we should not miss. I thought about the care with which he cooked a meal that shows that high Chinese cooking is still alive. (The meal I had was not on the menu, but rather arranged through conversation with the Chef. Call ahead for availability and a consultation.)
Dim Sum Dynasty 75 Franklin Ave., Ridgewood, NJ (201-652-0686)