CAN YAN COOK!!
Yanyu
[from June 1999 issue]

Chef-owner of one of Washington's newest Chinese restaurants, Yanyu, Jessie Yan, quietly revolutionized the local eating scene a few years ago. To whit: She's the main brain behind the immensely popular Oodles Noodles restaurants (downtown DC and downtown Bethesda), which have changed the way many Westerners in Washington regard Asian cooking and its fast-food options. As anyone in the area must know by now, her pan-Asian noodle concept has had many local imitators in the recent past, but none has ever captured the spirit of the noodle quite like Yan and her recipes.

Soft-spoken and reticent, Yan prefers behind-the-scenes work, happiest in her kitchen with her woks. But we continue to benefit from her innovative ideas. Not only did she start off with Spices (see, Reservations Recommended, InTowner, February 1999, page 12), a Connecticut Avenue eatery that blends Japanese sushi with some robust dishes from elsewhere in Asia, she has now introduced locals to classic Chinese cooking, strongly influenced by Cantonese traditions. (Even though many of the menu's influences are Cantonese, Yan has chosen dishes that represent many of China's major cities.) This isn't the eggroll-lemon chicken-egg foo young mix that beefs up many local menus. What Yan offers is pure bliss, honed with her own special interpretations and influences. Yan, after all, grew up and apprenticed in Hong Kong, and to create and refine her Yanyu menu, has returned often to Southeast Asia to watch, to learn, to eat, and to eat again.

I was lucky enough to watch and sample as the final menu took its final shape and her flavors, cooking style, and presentation recalled my four years in Hong Kong, during which time I ate at some of Asia's finest.

So for me, Yanyu is a little like going home. For other Westerners, the dishes will probably be a bit unfamiliar and perhaps even more than a trifle exotic. For example, Yan says that no one else in Washington serves fresh abalone steaks, slow-poached for many hours to soften and tenderize the flesh of these succulent shellfish. In Hong Kong, even, abalone is considered banquet fare and is often either unavailable or prohibitively expensive. To get around that, many restaurants there turn to the canned or frozen meat, with a decidedly inferior taste and texture. So how extraordinary to find someone here who dares to offer these rarities in their fresh, unsullied form.

But her classic dishes certainly don't end there. Take her "Big Duck," for example. You may think you have found duck bliss elsewhere, but I'll wager no one in this city goes to the same extremes of duck preparation: After sampling dozens of different duck brands from many different sources, Yan finally selected a free-range duck from Long Island and has her supply shipped down from New York. "The skin is thicker," says Yan, "and the ducks are less fatty and more tender."

Following the traditional steps to prepare Peking duck, Yan developed her extraordinary recipe by marinating, washing, and re-marinating the skin, then sealing the exterior with a sugar-vinegar mixture. She let the duck air-dry for two days, then put it in the cooler for 10 hours. "I tried many different marinades," she says, "and counted the perfect amount of time [needed] for air drying. I prepared the duck maybe 120 times." That meant she tinkered with her recipe nearly every day until she found just the right marinade (If it's too strong, she says, it destroys the skin and meat) and just the right amount of air-drying time for the perfect size of duck. "If it's over six pounds, it's too big," she says.

Such attention to detail has resulted in a stunning menu that stars lobster roll appetizers, shark's fin and crabmeat soup in Superior Stock (a traditional Chinese stock that requires lengthy cooking and preparation), steamed Chilean sea bass layered with ginger medallions, a tropical salad of shredded papaya and green mango, jumbo prawns in crispy shells, and a sensational lobster stir-fry laced with garlic and ginger. Plus, of course, so much more.

The menu may again undergo other changes and refinements. But you can expect to always find gastronomic nirvana at Yanyu And you will find a quiet elegance in both decor and dinnerware. Yan spent both time and energy perfecting the whole setting. It really works. What you won't find are the hackneyed, oily, and boring dishes and predictable decor that have come to define much of Chinese restaurant cooking and eating in this country.

Yanyu, 3435 Conn. Ave., NW; 686-6968. Hours: Mon.-Sat., 5:30pm-11pm; Sun., until 10:30pm. Entrees: $12 to market price. All major credit cards.