By Jim Duncan
CVFDude@aol.com
Wong’s
Chopsticks
 In
1964 Bob Dylan decided to visit
Carl Sandburg unannounced. Since
there were no addresses in the
Carolina hills, Dylan began asking
folks if they knew where the great
poet lived. No one did, but finally
one local said he knew “Sandburg
the goat farmer.” That foreshadowed
a bad day for the young songwriter
who left upset that Sandburg didn’t
welcome him as a peer. One person’s
god is another’s goat farmer,
and only the initiated see through
the disguises.
Every culture has mysterious
rites of recognition. In that
of the divine food seeker, mysteries
become urban myths, as often true
as false. For instance: In the
1960s, chef Ann Tancredi really
was cooking authentic Emilia-Romagna
cuisine in a small café
in Madrid, Iowa; in the late 1970s,
nurse Beni Luangaram really was
serving Iowa’s first authentic
Thai food on weekends at an Little
Joe’s Italian luncheonette on
Court Avenue; since early this
decade, bus driver Luis Avila
and his wife Carmen really have
been making “birria de chiva”
from scratch at La Pena on Indianola
Road.
In Des Moines, no cuisine has
been the subject of so many myths
as Chinese. Some 90 years ago,
George Wee’s restaurants downtown
truly were covers for illegal
enterprises — the infamous “Duncan
Sisters” were frequently arrested
there. Though reported in Des
Moines newspapers, it was not
true that the “heathen white shoots”
grown in Wee’s basement were “a
form of celery,” nor did they
cause “intoxication and loss of
judgment.” That was a convenient
excuse used by the “finer families”
of Des Moines who were caught
in police raids of Wee’s places.
Wong’s Chopsticks in Johnston
is our contemporary suburban myth.
To the uninitiated, it’s like
any other strip mall “Chinese-American”
joint. You can order the usual
suspects with the ubiquitous brown
gravies or sweetened sauces that
suburbanites expect at a Chinese
restaurant; Wong’s breaded dishes
will seem much lighter though.
There are other indications of
something different here, and
I don’t mean the annoying soundtrack
that oddly includes rap and commercials.
The regular menu pot stickers
and steam dumplings remind one
of real dim sum. Chow mein is
prepared in Cantonese style, with
the noodles crisped into a nest.
The mythic part of Wong’s Chopsticks
brings such long-awaited news
that I have to pinch myself to
be sure I am not dreaming. Initiates
do not order off the menu, they
call ahead and ask owner-chef
Ling Wong to prepare their favorite
Cantonese dishes. It helps if
someone in your party speaks Cantonese,
but that’s not necessary. The
composite family includes speakers
of Spanish, English and Cantonese
(but not Mandarin), so patience
communicates your orders.
The happy news includes several
things that used to be at least
a three-hour drive away. Whole
steamed fish, in scallion-spiked
soy water, was so good I’ve re-ordered
it several times. Glazed lemon-honey
walnut shrimp were made without
the usual diminishing touch of
mayonnaise. Salt and pepper prawns,
lightly breaded and served with
the heads on for contented sucking,
were even better. Pickled mustard
greens with pork, steamed baby
bok choy, steamed broccoli rabe
(“Chinese broccoli”) and fermented
tofu- flavored vegetables could
have been delivered from the best
restaurants in Chicago Chinatown.
Salt fish and sausage stir-fried
rice was pure Cantonese, not for
all western taste buds, but the
black bean sauces I tried were
all subtle enough to hide the
fermented flavor that scares many
non-Asians. Chow fun could have
passed for Italian noodles, especially
when served with tomatoes and
stir-fried beef.
Like Taste of Thailand, which
evolved from Little Joe’s, Wong’s
Chopsticks could become Central
Iowa’s first pure Cantonese café.
It could become a dim sum specialist,
too — that is Ling Wong’s
expertise. The ball is in our
court. CV
Food skinny
Ban Thai has opened for lunch
as well as dinner in the old Taste
of Thailand venue at 215 E. Walnut.
Comment
on this story | Return
to top |
