Broad Strokes

Choosy diners probably won't choose Chew Man Chu.

by David Snyder

Neal Santos HOUSE OF BUN: Tender, slow-braised pork belly on house-made steamed buns are a winning dish at Chew Man Chu, where the kitchen tends to eschew "authentic" flavors in favor of accessible fare.

[ review ]

When new friends learn that I'm a restaurant critic, it's never long before they ask if they can tag along on a review dinner. Excitement tends to dissipate, however, when I welcome them to join me for a followup meal at a place I describe as (up to that point) mediocre.

"No, thanks," they reply, as their disappointment marbles into a polite request for a sexier invite down the line. "Maybe next time?"

Who knew it was so hard to give away free food?

There are many metrics I use to measure a place's value. What my dining companions are free to ignore, however, is the task of understanding how a restaurant serves a specific audience. This idea became especially relevant during my visits to Chew Man Chu, the new pan-Asian spot from Marty Grims.

Chew is located in Du Jour's former digs in the Symphony House on the Avenue of the Arts. Grims thought Asian cuisine was underrepresented in the theater district and dreamed up a Buddakan-like eatery with lower price points. "Given that you have the theaters and residential base, we thought it would be a nice fit," he told me in an interview.

The restaurateur teamed up with Tyson Wong Ophaso, with whom Grims had been working on a restaurant still in development at Commerce Square. Ophaso's pedigree includes stints with heavyweights like Paul Bocuse and Daniel Boulud, two restaurants in Manhattan, an executive chef gig in Los Angeles and an appearance on Iron Chef America, where the Laotian-born chef fell to Masaharu Morimoto in "Battle Curry."

The 75-seat Chew gives off a fun vibe — a square communal table seats 17, Kung Fu Panda plays on the TV behind the six-seat bar, and purple walls feature flowers blossoming into the Chinese characters for the phrase "Equal Opportunity."

Based on a chat with Ophaso, those words have dual meaning. These Asian plates are meant to be shared — but they're also designed to be accessible for unadventurous eaters. In other words, if authenticity is your sole yardstick, Chew's food will fall short.

The fish sauce flavor familiar in Thai dishes, for example, was missing from the off-balance pad Thai, rendering it overly sweet. Pad see ew, a traditional stir fry made with broad rice noodles, dark soy sauce and sliced meat, also lacked that fishy backbone.

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The kitchen also dials down the spice level by traditional standards. You won't burn anything when you eat the "Burn Your Tongue" app, a savory ball of baked dough filled with chili paste. The dish was inspired by a fiery street snack Ophaso enjoyed in Singapore, but the chef said he tones down the heat to appease Western palates, which made me wonder why the restaurant felt compelled to make its name a warning. I enjoyed the bright flavors of string bean, onion and Thai basil in the jungle curry, stir-fried with duck. But it was difficult for me to understand how something this mild could be described (by my server) as the hottest curry on the menu.

Visual appeal is a strong suit here, but it seemed that the most fanciful dishes were the most disappointing. Take the Korean-style barbecue beef short ribs — medallions of beef arrived beautifully arranged in a semicircle around a pile of bright green kale dressed with plum vinaigrette. The dish was gorgeous, but that did not make up for tough, chewy meat and an aggressive hand with the vinegar on the greens.

My server talked me into ordering the chicken chow mein, citing the spectacle of its service — she covered the top of the bowl with a spoon to prevent the contents from spilling before flipping it over, removing the bowl and cracking the crispy wonton shell into the chicken/noodle stir fry inside. But every component was bland as could be. The house-made sauces at the table were not enough to rescue it, though rock sugar and chili gave Ophaso's special soy sauce a pleasant dimension.

Chew Man Chu is nowhere near the worst restaurant I've endured. And though deviating from traditional preparations to please the largest cross-section of hungry Philadelphia doesn't really deserve commendation, there are some really tasty plates here.

The jungle curry didn't work as a stir fry, but it added life to the delicate crackling calamari. Based on the judges' critiques from Ophaso's Iron Chef America performance, I expected his coconut-based curries to be overwhelmingly sweet. But that wasn't the case — the heat needed to be amped up, for sure, but the red curry with chicken was comforting, and I enjoyed mopping up the soulful bright yellow rendition with fluffy house-made scallion roti.

My favorite dish was the pork buns. You could almost feel puffs of air tickle your cheeks after biting into the soft, pillowy house-made steamed buns. And thanks to a mixture of seven Chinese spices, hoisin sauce, pickled cucumber, scallion and cilantro, the tender braised pork belly nestled inside was wonderfully flavorful.

But Chew's savvy shows up most in its wisely executed concept, given its location. The fare here is friendly to theatergoers by design, and it seems to be working — on two weekday visits, the place was packed, and on my last visit there was a 20-minute wait. By comparison, when I reviewed Du Jour last year, the joint was practically empty. Restaurants need to stay in sync with their core audience, and that's what Chew seems to do.

Chew will in no way please those searching for faithful renditions of Asian cuisine. But if you're in the market for accessible, shareable grub, you could do a lot worse.

(david.snyder@citypaper.net)

Chew Man Chu | Symphony House, 440 S. Broad St., 215-735-8107, chewmanchu.com. Lunch and dinner Mon.-Thu., 11:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. and Fri., 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; dinner Sat., 4-11 p.m.and Sun., 4-9 p.m.; brunch Sat.-Sun., 11:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Dumplings, rolls and wontons, $5-$9; salads, $11-$14; banh mi, $8.75-$9; moo shu and wraps, $9-$16; soups, $6-$12; large plates, stir fries and curries, $14-$19. Handicap accessible.