December 4-10, 2003

food

Hello in Many Languages

by Jenn Carbin

Some Chinese restaurants in Philly offer dishes that Chinese themselves eat: sauteed snow pea tips, steamed fish. Often, they also feature more hardcore items such as chicken claw and tongue, stir-fried eel and soups with pig’s blood. Some places please American foodies with hot pots, roast duck and Hong Kong-style cooking. And perhaps unfortunately, some offer Americanized menus.

Hello Café does all these things and more. Owner Fang Bing Huang, from China, touts that her menu features Chinese, Hong Kong, Vietnamese and Thai styles, as well as a steak selection she describes as "American with Hong Kong style." She’s actually selling Hello Café a little short. Take the appetizer selection. It includes chicken satay (Indonesian), escargot (French) and spring roll.

There are egg sandwiches, chicken nuggets for the kids and baked spaghetti on one end, to curries, steamed tilapia and fish ball soup on the other.

A team of cooks, each with an Asian specialty, does well by Asian dishes. At lunch recently, a pork and preserved-egg congee (rice porridge) was consistent with the best versions from Chinatown’s authentic restaurants.

On a weeknight, the borscht, with tomato base, a smattering of celery, onion, cabbage and no discernable beets, worked but didn’t divulge its Eastern European roots. Sweet and easy to finish, it reminded me of canned alphabet soup (sorry, Mom) from childhood.

"Eight green mussels in smelt roe" were actually seven, and weren’t green-lipped or green-shelled like the imports from New Zealand. They were, however, mild-flavored and tender, served with tiny dollops of both firm orange roe and a mayonnaise-tinged cream sauce, and in a nod to the Vietnamese cuisine, a garnish of lightly pickled carrot and daikon slices.

An entree of sauteed watercress with preserved bean sauce may sound like medicine to those who don’t like greens, but was a great way to balance the richness of meat and fried dishes. Its chewy bitterness wasn’t basic or satisfying enough to stand alone as a main dish, though; it’s a better table sharer.

Despite how scary I always find the idea of deep-fried Thanksgiving turkeys, a whole, deep-fried Cornish hen seemed like a good idea, and it was. Accompanied by crisp salad and a sweet dipping sauce, it was crispy-skinned and moist-fleshed but somehow not greasy. Cleaved in half, it was easy to pick apart with the hands (Sorry, PETA).

There are fruity black teas and tapioca "bubble" drinks (both Taiwanese), and "lychee ice" and exotic Vietnamese fruit shakes. Beers? Not surprisingly, Budweiser, Corona and Tsing Tao round out an eclectic list.

HELLO CAFÉ

600 Washington Ave., 215-467-7008

Sun.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

Appetizers, $2.50-$7.95; entrees, $4.25-$18.95

Wheelchair accessible. Smoking section provided. Reservations not necessary. All major credit cards.