Conscious Choice: Du Yee is a Magic Chinese Pleasure Box

March 2002 | Conscious Dining

Du Yee is a Magic Chinese Pleasure Box

by Ethel Hammer and Stephen Kleiman

In the wake of 9/11 when lots of restaurants are taking major hits, Du Yee is one of those places you want to support. Du Yee means "one of a kind" and it’s no misnomer. Imagine a little Chinese magic box filled with gallivanting noodles, shimmering eggplant, and dancing shrimp. Welcome to a land of happy seafood and succulent tofu, an infinite ocean of tastes from China, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. If ever there was a place that makes you happy to have a tongue and teeth, this is it. As soon as the Yin stumbled on Du Yee, she ran to the Yang and cried, "Put on your muffler, dear. You have some significant eating to do." This was, in fact, our chance to have our first soong — a stuffed Chinese lettuce cup intended to bring luck in the Chinese New Year. We also experienced our first nibble of eel at Du Yee, a morsel so sumptuous you must feed it to your lover between chopsticks. Put yourself in the hands of Mr. Charlie Koay, one of three owners of Du Yee (3203 N. Clark), and you may wake up thinking you died and went to a Chinese banquet honoring the world’s great culinary ancestors who had some pretty nifty friends from other parts of Asia, too. Give this culinary treasure a try, and it can only win your affection and respect.

"To me food is art and if you create art, you have to be different," Charlie says. "You don’t want to follow in other people’s footsteps." Since opening in January 2001 Du Yee has garnered a flood of press. However, in light of recent national and international events, business has slacked off. "We used to be packed, but after 9/11 ..." Charlie said. Suffice it to say, his voice then dropped to the other side of the planet.

Perhaps you’ve seen some of those Chinese movies where people spend hours at the table and rave about the dishes and the chef. If you’re like us, you left the movie with a sympathetic case of gas, shaking your head. After all, our experience of Chinese food has mostly been tasteless wonton soup, greasy eggrolls, and gloppy eggplant dishes. Oh, yes, add an overdone Buddhist delight and "dough balls" doing business as sweet and sour chicken.

Du Yee changed our perception of Chinese food. Chef Jacky Choy (a Cambodian Chinese from Hong Kong whose mother was Thai) and Charlie Koay (who is of Malaysian Chinese descent) have determined to fashion a Chinese cuisine that is healthier than those found in ordinary establishments, one that interprets other Asian cultures, too. (They also profit from the talents of Mark Deng, a Chinese cook from Beijing, and from Choy’s additional mastery of Japanese and Korean cooking learned in Hong Kong.)

As Confucius observed: "By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart." You won’t find heavy fry batters or sticky sauces at Du Yee. "We looked around the neighborhood, and all we found were deep-fried, sweet and sour, lo mein and fried rice in the Chinese restaurants. We decided to do something different. We basically eliminated lots of deep-fried foods and use minimal oils," Charlie said.

Let’s begin at the beginning on a menu with so many stunning choices you don’t have to worry about getting stuck on favorites. Instead of greasy fried wontons, Du Yee greeted us with complimentary pickled vegetables: a triumvirate of soft cucumber, crunchy pickled white radishes and toothsome carrots in a vinegary douse with skinny, red hot Thai peppers that set our mouths to vibrating like tuning forks.

Now, we were "off and running" on an endless float from pleasure isle to pleasure isle, an almost flawless journey. The first gift was Vegetable Soongs — delectable lettuce boats cupping a mixture of black mushrooms, water chestnuts, rice, tasty vinegar, carrots, and green onions topped with yummy plum sauce. (In Chinese, lettuce translates as "life vegetable." These raised iceberg to new heights.) The second gift was Chinese Monk Chicken — a steamed bean curd skin wrapped and rolled around a black mushroom in a light brown sauce. It had Stephen purring with glee, as it created "the appearance" of chicken, bespeaking tofu’s versatility and Chinese cleverness. The blindingly white Vietnamese Soft Spring Rolls seemed too bland until we discovered the lime fish sauce, which elicited the crunch of chopped peanuts and morsels of shrimp. But from then on the dishes just got better and better — with no missteps and lots of subtle footwork.

This menu is like a Chinese palm reading where the heart, head, and life-lines continue for a long journey. The vegetarian entrées were one surprise after the next. Reportedly invented by an old Chinese woman, Ma Po Tofu is a trembling plate of soft tofu laced in a fermented black bean sauce and garlic. It was so creamy, we couldn’t stop licking our chops. It also evoked Lao-Tzu’s wisdom: "The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world." The Harvest Baby Bok Choy glimmered with big earthy black mushrooms set beside tender baby bok choy — simplicity itself. The Crystal Choice is another winner — tasty, nutty ground mung bean noodles, peppered with carrots, broccoli, water chestnuts, and peapods sprinkled with vinegar. As for the Garlic Eggplant with its sumptuous fresh tomato sauce, an aged Dowager Empress must be savoring it in the afterlife at this very moment. If Ethel could only have one dish, this would be it.

Among the nonvegetarian entrées, we opted for the Shandong Shaoji — a Cornish game hen marinated in secret spices. The whole hen is simmered, air dried, lightly fried, sprinkled with sesame seeds, shredded, and served in a soy/red wine vinegar sauce. It arrived as a nest of shredded poultry, skin, and cracked hen bones. Elegant it is not, but the taste is great, perfect for princes who want to play paupers. We’ve yet to experience the Hot Pot, where you poach your own ingredients in stock (not oil) at the table — choosing among vegetables, tofu, chicken, beef, lamb, and seafood. The technique dates back to the age of Genghis Khan.

Fish signifies abundance in Chinese culture, and Du Yee’s Formosa Fish is clearly designed for the dainty — lightly breaded sole mixed with perfectly done broccoli florets, all bathed in tamarind sauce with a pinch of sugar — our best sweet-and-sour dish ever. The Thai Pan Fried Fish Filets zing with fire: lightly pan-fried sole dappled with toasted garlic flecks, then cooled down by a fresh Thai salad bathed in a sweet and tangy sauce. Meanwhile, the Malaysian Shrimp Vegetable Soup is a dish from Charlie’s childhood. This invigorating chicken broth floats with glassy vermicelli noodles, which, in our opinion, resembled the beard of an ancient Chinese scholar who swam out to sea and got tangled up with sumptuous shrimp, napa cabbage, baby corn, and straw mushrooms. (This is an amusing dish, too, if you’re a slurper.)

We tried two Japanese-inspired lunch specials, both set over rice and accompanied by a deeply textured, comforting miso soup. Teriyaki Unagi was our singular adventure in eel. It is basted in a deeply toned teriyaki sauce, with yellow pickled radish adding tingle and a robust soy sauce enlivening the rice. The delicious Seafood Combination relies on festive colors and symphonic crunches: golden brown fried shrimp, plump white scallop, pinkish fish cake, sprightly peapods, pale napa cabbage, and vibrant yellow pickled radish.

As for desserts, so far, we’ve only sampled a Philippine-inspired Banana Pineapple Roll. This lightly fried pale apricot-colored wrapper is filled with pineapple and sweet bananas — a charming and simple sweet. We’re eager to try the fried Sticky Rice Ball — it’s sure to bring a happy ending, as the Chinese ascribe completion to roundness.

Ultimately, we keep leaving Du Yee feeling like lucky diners — guided partly by chance and partly by fate — to have an adventure of just the right dishes, each of them decidedly one of a kind.

Du Yee is located at 3203 N. Clark Street. Telephone: 773-549-5698. Appetizers run $1.95 to $6.95; entrées run $6.95 to $13.95; dessert $3.95. Lunch specials are from $4.95 to $6.95. Business Hours: 11:00 am to 10:00 pm seven days a week. Plates can be specially decorated for parties and special occasions if you call in advance. Carry out available.

Stephen’s Five P’s:

1. Palatability: Du Yee’s unique culinary fusion using Chinese cuisine as the anchor, mixed with dishes of Thai, Malaysian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese origins, creates a distinctively original taste that will expand your palate for Asian cuisine.

2. Presentation: The presentation is pretty standard except that many dishes are served in little ceramic boats that are divided in half with the sauce served separately from the food.

3. Portion size: At Du Yee the portions are abundant but not excessive. All the courses are ample. Appetizers are satisfying. Entrées are abundant and generally large enough for at least two to share. Dessert was the perfect size to top off the meal. You’ll probably be taking home a doggy bag.

4. Price: This is definitely one of the best deals in town. An unforgettable plethora of unique flavors for about $25 for two, depending how and what you order.

5. Pleasure quotient on a scale of 1 (no pleasure) to 10 (ultimate pleasure): Be prepared for a delicious evening of Chinese fusion cooking at Du Yee with a pleasure factor of 9.5. We highly recommend this one! Enjoy.

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