From The Philadelphia Inquirer
January 20, 2005
by Rick Nichols
One Night a Week, A Prix Fixe with a Story Behind Each Dish.
It is misting outside and at Fork:etc. the Wednesday-night
chef's table - it is a walk in affair - will be sparsely attended
this evening, conferring an unscripted intimacy and, by the
time the mint sorbet finishes things, the afterglow of having
supped at an exclusive and comfortably urbane dinner party.
This is the sixth or seventh weekly running of the, well,
"event" doesn't quite capture it.
It can seem more as if you've crashed the staff meal.
Owner Ellen Yin (who also owns Fork restaurant next door) is
a regular, as is Roberto Sella, a partner and producer of his
own Tuscan olive oil, and, on any given Wednesday, an
off-shift baker or the florist. But it is, if you care to pay
attention (and the $40, wine-included freight), a vicarious
perch from which to parse the narrative of a dinner's
creation. In this case, that would mean not simply eating
and sipping your soft, Spanish red, but asking the courtly,
publicity-shy Thien Ngo just why - for this particular night -
he has chosen to serve after the big nuggets of snail (in
turmeric and chive butter) and a cleansing winter melon
soup, a dish called unrevealingly "braised short ribs with
taro."
There is a story, of course, the details of which are soon to
come. First, the setting. Fork:etc., is the Dean and
Deluca-esque prepared foods shop (an old Dollar Store) that
has recently been appended to Fork, the New American
dining room in Old City. To give it a touch of class, Yin has
added a commanding center table upon which wicker
baskets spill crusty house-baked loaves and tall vases erupt
with long-stemmed tulips and smoky-pink roses. To give it
life after dark, she has added banks of fat ivory candles.
And to give her chef his head, she has turned the table over
to him once a week. Given him carte blanche, as it were.
To cook, as he puts it simply, "food I like."
Thien (pronounced, Tee-En) Ngo long plied his trade behind
the scenes, serving anonymously in kitchens around town.
But it is at Fork, at 54, that he has found his groove: His
menu is contemporary American - mustard-marinated duck
with dried fig, pan-seared Alaskan halibut, grilled pork loin
with balsamic reduction and roasted apples. And it is at
next-door Fork:etc. that he has entertained his whimsy,
recasting dishes from his childhood in Vietnam or the cafes
of Paris where, for a number of years, he made sauces and
soups. He may get an idea, even, from Taco Loco, the
home-spun Mexican joint in Camden. He cycles there on his
mountain bike: "I buy a new one every year for $365 or less:
that way it costs me a dollar a day." He is a poetic soul,
quiet and droll in the kitchen, a modestly flat, black baker's
cap on his head, a glass of red wine routinely at hand. A
few nights before the dinner in question, he'd eaten in
Chinatown, where he'd sampled a bowl of beef tendon in a
broth of lemongrass. This recalled to Thien - as he is
universally addressed - the shaved water buffalo shin his
mother would braise in a liquid of lemongrass, tomato and
anchovy. "I think of my mom. So I did the same," he says,
"but with short ribs." At Fork:etc's table it will be served
after a course of knobby snails in turmeric and chive butter,
a preparation Thien says was common in the eel dishes of his youth.
But this evening he adds a delightful contrast to the snails'
chewiness - a bracingly crunchy, fresh relish of star fruit,
fennel, cucumber and red pepper drizzled with lime juice,
olive oil and rice wine vinegar. This is my second visit to his
chef's night, which tends to fall in place about 8 pm (My first
was more curious than delicious, featuring a bland lobster
maki roll and tender beef cubes in Brittany butter over a
crisp if unremarkable, chopped romaine salad.) When the
short ribs arrive, they are creamily tender and sweetly juicy
with the lemongrass broth. The potato-ey taro root tucked
next to them has been seared in duck fat, adding a welcome
crisp edge to its starchiness. A stalk of lemongrass juts
from the bowl. This is not fare found typically at Fork next
door, and the guests remark on its lush, savory flavor, and,
a little later, on the heady burst of baby mint leaves in the
scoop of lime sorbet. Thien is toasted, and when it is
suggested that such food may result in the loss of his
anonymity, he permits a Chesire grin. Was it Charlotte or
Emily Bronte, he muses, "who said something like, "The lust
for fame is but a flame that vanishes in the morning'?" "So I
don't want fame," Thien says softly. "Just my wine."
It was Emily.
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