Harajuku Cafe

Eat Chinese food only with Chinese chefs and you'll probably get a different experience.

I went to Ho Lee Chow in Itaewon for the first time. I've heard comments ffrom people ranging from "great" to "alright, nothing special" to "I'll never eat there again." Consistency in a kitchen is a difficult thing and Chinese food, as a great cuisine, depends heavily on execution. The margin for error is small with Chinese food.

Luckily I went to Ho Lee Chow with Laney Xiang, the head Chinese chef at Woosong University's Culinary school along with her friend Simon. Simon is a naturalized Canadian of Chinese extraction and he tell the story of Ho Lee Chow and his time of 11 years as the executive chef. When he started working at Ho Lee Chow it was smaller and in a different location than its second floor Hamilton Hotel space. With a small brigade, Simon cooked a lot and the place went from essentially empty to perpetually packed. From there, Ho Lee Chow developed the cash to open more locations.

Simon owns some restaurants in China and Canada and he was cruising through Seoul to visit some friends and he took Laney and I to dinner. The manager was excited to see him and seated us at a nice table. Simon ordered some of that fragrant Chinese wine and ordered four dishes: lobster with spring onions, beef, shrimp, chicken, squid stir-fry, sauteed bok choy, and some shrimp fried rice.

I thought overall the meal was nice. The lobster was cooked perfectly, and it has been a long time since I have had lobster prepared in a restaurant. The fried rice was a nice change from my fried rice. All the seafood in the dishes were cooked well though Laney commented that the chicken was dry; "I could tell just by looking." was her comment. Additional comments from Laney were "Not enough salt in the bok choy." "Too many onions in the side dish."

Laney also explained the lobster dish "Stir fried with some cornstarch, the lobster releases liquid and the liquid, flavored with the onions and spices becomes the sauce."

Ho Lee Chow's kitchen still had some flaws and they stepped up their game because they knew for whom they were cooking. I wonder how the food was for the other guests in the restaurant.