DAZZLED BY FUSION

I've had a few "whoa" dining moments in my life. Not as many as you'd think, given my food writing career, but enough to make each one distinctly special. My first bites of tomato pie from Delorenzo's on Hudson St. in Trenton in 1992. Escargot in Champagne Butter at the original Le Bec-Fin in Philadelphia in 1980. Square pizza topped with porcini mushrooms from DiFara in Brooklyn in 2004. Buffalo shrimp from Frenchy's in Clearwater, FL in 1995. Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale and a plate of nachos at Isaac Newton's in Newtown, PA in 1996. Shrimp wonton noodle soup at NY Noodletown in NYC's Chinatown on more visits that I can count.

Lsst Saturday I had another startling "whoa" moment at a new restaurant in town, Inchin's Bamboo Garden, a new outpost of the 11-locations chain from, of all places, Georgia.

The restaurant concept boasts a fusion of Indian and Chinese cuisines (from which the fictional Inchin name is derived), with some Thai and Malaysian notes thrown in for good measure,  But this food is nothing like any Asian food I've ever had before.

The backstory of this small chain is based on the 18th century Chinese migration to India, specifically to the ports of Calcutta and Madras. And it is the substantial Chinese population and influence in Calcutta that inspires the menu at Inchin's.

The photo above gives only a hint of the atmospheric decor of the places, housed in what used to be the decades-old Rider college hangout bar, The Carousel, and briefly a Chinese buffet restaurant.

Moody statuary exaggerated faces greet you at the entrance and vestibule, dark woods, bamboo and carved teak decorate the walls and help create several different dining spaces, and set the escapist tempo of the place. A solicitous host and waitstaff (maybe a little too solicitous) great you quickly and eagerly. OK, points for enthusiasm.  They have a lot to be enthusiastic about.

The menu is huge and highlighted by an abundance of vegetarian dishes and options. The kids ordered egg drop soup and coconut soup with chicken, from a menu of 19 different soups (9 non-vegetarian, 10 vegetarian), and both bore no resemblance to any such soup in a Chinese or Thai restaurant that I've ever seen. The egg drop soup was snowy white with a rich chicken broth aroma and a tamarind note that elevated it several levels above the Chinese soup staple. The dark orange coconut soup was perfumed with galangal and had sliced dark mushrooms and dark meat chicken and a growing heat level courtesy of jalapeno threads that rested on the bottom of the bowl.  It proved even a bit too spicy for my daughter, who can hold her own when it comes eating the heat of most Szechuan dishes.

An order of "veg coins" brought small pancakes, slightly bigger than poker chips, damn near drowned in a "hot garlic" sauce and shreds of onions, red and green peppers. On the menu the hot garlic sauce is billed as "spicy", which is on the lower end of the heat scale at Inchin's ("very spicy" and "fiery" are the hotter settings).The plump patties, made from shredded carrot, cauliflower and squash, were greaselessly fried and the sauce packed quite a punch, and was a preview of how hot things can get here. Chili Chicken, touted on the menu as the house specialty, was a definite notch higher in heat (and listed as "very spicy"---sweet Jesus,  how hot can "fiery" be??)and the equal of anything I've had at notable Szechuan eateries such as Szechuan House in Hamilton and the Han Dynasty restaurants in the Philadelphia area. The sauce was sweet and tongue-numbing hot and studded with green and red peppers and scallion rings.  Mongolian Chicken was white meat chicken tossed in a sticky sauce of caramelized sugar and onions over a nest of puffy fried taro root shreds, and the kids gobbled it up.I kinda liked it too.I ordered beef with hot garlic sauce and it looked to have the same sauce that graced the veg coins, but this dish's heat level was turned up quite few notches, which really enhanced the beef slices but put a serious hurt and sweat on my head.

My daughter really took charge of the menu here, showing her growing confidence in restaurant dining, and ordered Burnt Garlic Chili Fried Rice with Vegetables and Singapore Noodles with vegges for the table. Good choices for the most part. The rice was a nice departure, studded with browned garlic bits and crushed chillies, it has a spicy undertone which cut some of the extreme heat of the entrees, while the Singapore noddles were actually a bit dull, lacking the usual yellow curry punch that most versions have. But again, along with some bowls of white rice, the noddles were a good foil for the spice wallop of the chicken and beef dishes.

But the overall experience, the atmosphere, the vibrant color and composition of the dishes and the startling heat level of what we ate, combined with the fusion of Asian flavors in ways we had just never experienced before in any Chinese, Indian, Thai or Malaysian restaurant, were flat out dazzling.

There are 10 other Inchin's Bamboo Gardens in the US so far, from Atlanta to Austin, Cleveland to Columbus, Dallas (2) , Raleigh, Scottsdale, San Fransisco and Seattle. I would hope they would be at the same culinary level as we found this new one in Lawrenceville.  Don't hesitate to get to one. You'll be dazzled.
But bring your best asbestos tongue.

YA-YA

It's been more than a few years since I've ventured north to Montgomery, NJ to eat at Ya-Ya Noodles, a sister restaurant to one of my favorite Chinese places anywhere, Tiger Noddles in Princeton. It was more than just geography that kept Ya Ya Noodles out of my culinary peripheral vision. It was the food. It was just not up to the quality of its older sibling in Princeton. Sure, the presentations were more contemporary than the homestyle cooking of the older mothership, but the dishes were just too bland, too Americanized, too blah. Were they playing is safer for the suburban crowd? Perhaps.

Well it's been about 10 years now, and Ya Ya has a new manager, Judy Tung, who's worked in the Princeton restaurant for longer than I've been dining there, and she's whipping Ya Ya into shape. We had dinner there Friday night to surprise her and congratulate her on her well-deserved promotion.

"So what's good here now?" we asked. "Chef here is very good with Thai dishes. Thai style is very good here," said Tung. This branch of the 3-location mini-chain (there is another Tiger Noodles on Route 1 South in West Windsor, next to a Whole Foods market)is a much larger place, seating about 125-150 maximum, and its menu is also a larger adventure, with more appetizers, several more Chinese entrees (including Creaky Chicken, a terrific dish) than the other two Tiger Noodles, a full page of Thai dishes and an extensive sushi menu.

Yes, Ya Ya Noodles is one of those hybrid Asian restaurants that merge 3 or more cuisines onto one menu. I am not a big fan of this style of Asian restaurant, and there are usually disappointments just waiting for a knowledgeable palate. But I have faith that Judy Tung will be making sure that each menu segment will be authentic and expertly made. Her personal standards for Chinese and Thai food are very high (we've dined with her many times and she's taught me a lot about what REAL Chinese should taste like, as well as Thai). I'm not a big sushi fan, but Tung is. The sushi at Ya Ya's gonna be fresh and expertly crafted, bet on it.

Friday night we ate around the menu a bit, mostly at Tung's direction. Seafood dumplings (it's Lent after all) were gossamer thin wrappers plumped with ground shrimp and scallops, pan fried to a nice golden shade. Popular at Tiger Noodles, these were a new addition to the Ya Ya menu and a good move. The kids loved their won ton and won ton egg drop soups; the wontons looked as delicate as the larger dumplings on my plate, a good sign of skilled handwork in the kitchen. A plate of spare ribs was also ordered, and they looked larger and meatier than any I've ever seen in a Chinese restaurant. But Lenten adherence kept me from sampling them, of course. Entrees included a zippy jumbo shrimp dish in a red curry sauce, with peppers and eggplant, dramatically served in a large handmade clay bowl; chicken in garlic sauce, the chicken, onions and peppers,sliced into matchsticks for an impressive presentation; another shrimp dish, this one with a fiery Szechuan sauce into which was tucked peppers, onions, mushrooms and crunchy broccoli crowns; more broccoli came with Ben's go-to dish, chicken with broccoli, and his empty plate at dinner's end said enough about what he thought of his choice.

Judy Tung has Ya Ya Noodles humming, with well-trained servers and highly skilled chefs in her kitchen. Expect more improvements as she gets settled into her new position as manager of the place. There will be serious Chinese, Thai and sushi in Montgomery at last. Stay tuned.

The Amazing Green Apple

I had the very good fortune to join the friend of a friend and a lively gang of her co-workers for an impromptu lunch at a restaurant whose fame has been growing on foodie websites usch as eGullet and Chowhound. North Brunswick's Green Apple restaurant is situated in a partially hidden shopping center just off Route 130 South, about a quarter mile south of Adams Road, as unlikely a location for authentic Chinese food as one could imagine. But isn't that the true fun of discovery? And isn't that the joy of making new friends?

I walked in as lunch was being served family style, ordered by one of my dozen new lunchmates, a Chinese chemist for the pharmaceutical company at which the group all worked. My eyes quickly caught sight of an abundance of fiery hot dried peppers in several of the dishes. Oh boy. Sechuan style.

There were heaping platters of Chung King Spicy Chicken, tossed with onions, green pepper, brown sauce and those dried chilies; the same dish served with shrimp in place of chicken; julienned beef with long hot green peppers (a favorite dish of mine at other Sechuan restaurants); green beans tossed with garlic and shallots; small bowls of airy pork stuffed wontons in chili oil; two Sechuan-style seafood "hot pots", one called "Boiling Fish," a huge spicy bowl filled with filet of sole, a cascade of vegetables and Sechuan peppercorns, and a darker, incendiary bowl called "Dancing Fish", with sole, a similar mix of vegetables and a truly painful amount of dark red dried chilies. There were bowls of white rice to help soften the spice attack, but these plates were skillfully done, eminently delicious and searingingly hot!

Green Apple also serves sushi, with a large sushi bar and the requisite serious sushi chefs behind it. We were offered a couple of sushi rolls, arranged elaborately on large platters, to counter the vibrant dishes we had all just consumed. One such roll was dubbed a Hawaiian roll, with tempura shrimp, cucumber and avocado. Another was a special Halloween roll, with spicy yellowtail, shrimp and jalapenos. Both were grorgeous presentations, but it's unlikely any of us could really appreciate the subtle artistry within after the assault our taste buds had just taken.

After just this lunch, I'd rank Green Apple among the very best Chinese restaurants in the state; it can take its place proudly alongside Sechuan House in Hamilton, Tiger Noodles in Princeton and China 46 in Paramus. You've gotta get to this place. It will not be long before this new place is a destination restaurant.

GREEN APPLE

Japanese & Chinese Cuisine

432 Renaissance Blvd. East

North Brunswick, NJ 08902

732-398-8893