Photo | Drew Lazor

Chew Man Chu, in the Symphony House at Broad and Pine, opens to the public this coming Wednesday, Oct. 28. Tons of photos and info after the jump.

This noodle/dumpling bar concept (first mentioned earlier this month) represents a dramatic shift from Grims’ first Du Jour city location, which the restaurateur (Moshulu, White Dog, The Inlet, Daddy O’s) opened in Symphony House in the summer of 2008 — there’s nothing quite like Chew in this part of the city, so they’re hoping it becomes both a dining destination as well as a regular lunch/dinner drop-in for near neighbors (they’re doing takeout, curbside pick-up and delivery). Du Jour’s hyper-mod interior is now done up with plenty of deep, sexy reds, oranges and purples, with neat talking points like the wall of koi fish-laden plates behind the bar and a chef’s counter where guests can watch the cooks work a giant steam cooker and a triumvurate of huge woks.

Chew’s chef is Tyson Wong Ophaso, who learned the ropes in France working under titans like Paul Bocuse and Daniel Boulud before landing in NYC and opening/running a number of restaurants, most notably Chinatown Brasserie. In 2007, he relocated to Cali in 2007 to join the Domaine Restaurant Group as a corporate chef. (It was during this Left Coast stint that Ophaso fought Masaharu Morimoto on an ep of Iron Chef America, where he was edged in Battle Curry.) Grims brought Ophaso on board about five months back, primarily for his in-the-works 300-seat concept in Commerce Square (code name “Ginger”), but the chef ended up tacking on this project, too.

The gregarious Ophaso was kind enough to walk us through a portion of his tour-of-Asia menu, which is big (50-plus items) but not expensive ($19’s the top asking price, and most items are designed for sharing). What we sampled, in photo order (see full menu below):

• Roti with yellow curry
• Chili sauce, chili vinegar and soy sauce (all housemade)
• Vegan dumplings
• Shrimp dumplings
• Soup dumplings (oxtail, blue crab, pork shoulder; in a broth of Chinese white wine, tarragon jus and black vinegar)
• Crispy Chinese salad (sans chicken spring rolls)
• Five spice pork belly bun
• Housemade pancakes
• Mooshu (chicken or tofu/veg)
• Salt and pepper shrimp with spicy garlic aioli
• Pork and shrimp potstickers
• Shrimp curry
• Korean-style barbecue kalbi (short rib)
• Fried doughnuts with honey and powdered sugar

Ophaso, who’s Thai, Chinese and Indonesian by descent, is adamant about the fact that he’s not reinventing anything with Chew’s menu — rather, he’s focused on sharing clean, simple flavors from Southeast Asia and beyond and fixating on quality by producing everything in-house, including his own recipe for soy sauce. The chef’s high-end pedigree probably shines through most prominently, though, in his plating, which is absolutely gorgeous for this price point (see those salt and pepper shrimp).

Here’s the opening menu, plus the beer, wine and cocktail lists:

Click to enlarge

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Menu Time, Openings, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.