Jeff Kong is aware of the sweet-and-bitter pork he cooks at his restaurant looks distinctive.
For starters, there’s no fluorescent red sauce synonymous with the Chinese-American takeout classic. Alternatively, Kong builds the sauce from scratch for every single purchase. The sauce is basic — water, sugar, white vinegar, a little bit of soy sauce for coloration. Cooked right up until a little thickened and tossed with slim slices of fried pork and garnished with wispy curls of scallion, the dish is visually a lot far more subdued than the shiny crimson model, with a piquant flavor unburdened by the dish’s regular saccharine sauce.
At Mr. K Authentic Chinese, which Kong opened on Yadkin Highway in Fayetteville in mid-February, Americanized favorites like Basic Tso’s hen and beef and broccoli just take up only all over 20% of the menu. The rest is reserved for dishes from Kong’s upbringing in China, from the seafood restaurant his dad and mom ran in China and later, Oregon, and from his possess time controlling eating places in North Carolina due to the fact 2014.
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Dishes like braised pork belly, west lake beef soup and dry pot Chinese cauliflower usually are not commonplace at Chinese restaurants most places, let by itself Fayetteville. In addition to owner, Kong has had to perform the position of coach, guiding diners into trying an unfamiliar dish, with the guarantee that if they never like it, it is really totally free and he’ll prepare dinner them a thing else.
Kong stated there wanted to be authentic Chinese food stuff in Fayetteville, and it can be his goal to make it happen.
From China to Fayetteville
Kong was born and lifted in Dalian, a port metropolis in northeastern China. He moved to the U.S. at 17 to join his dad and mom, who experienced moved to Eugene, Oregon, a 12 months or so right before. He landed in San Francisco on Dec. 9, 2004, with just sufficient English to notify immigration officials where by he was likely. To begin with unwilling to depart his existence in China at the rear of, Kong created his way up to Oregon and then Iowa, wherever he studied nursing at the University of Iowa.
Right after a few months doing work at a hospital in Chicago, he resolved to leave the health care subject and returned to Oregon, the place his moms and dads had returned to from Iowa. There they ran a traditional Chinese cafe. Kong mentioned his father informed him that if he was likely to stay there, he was going to operate.
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Kong worked in the restaurant for a though, till his father connected him with an individual at Sarku Japan, which operates extra than 250 places throughout the region, like at Cross Creek Shopping mall.
“He claimed, ‘I got you a job. North Carolina. Fayetteville. Go,'” Kong stated.
And so he did. He managed the food items court docket cafe for about 6 years right up until 2018, when the itch to run his very own cafe was a single he had to scratch.
The system was to open in Durham, close to the Duke College campus. He experienced the spot and the lease prepared to indication right up until the coronavirus pandemic hit. Possessing lived via the SARS epidemic in China, Kong realized how critical the situation was and backed out from the get-go.
Speedy ahead to very last fall and looking at the mild at the finish of the tunnel, Kong was completely ready to give the restaurant a shot. Sadly, the spot in Durham had now been leased. Not lengthy soon after, a friend informed him that the previous Orchid Back garden location in Fayetteville was now accessible.
He was not sure what the marketplace would be for traditional Chinese foodstuff in Fayetteville but jumped at the likelihood. He opened the doors of Mr. K Genuine Chinese on Feb. 17.
Dedication to authenticity
Next to the massive wok burner that roars like a jet engine when ignited are many containe
rs and bottles of vinegars, oils, cooking wine, chili pastes, sesame paste, black bean paste, soy sauces and other components, as nicely as salt, sugar and MSG.
“That’s king of taste,” Kong stated of MSG.
He’s an unabashed MSG supporter, while notes that he will not have a hefty hand with the oft-maligned flavoring, which has been dogged by decades of racist stereotypes fueled by myth and flawed science.
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That MSG finds its way into the dry pot, obtainable with hen, pork rib, shrimp or Chinese cauliflower, which has lengthier stems and lesser florets than common cauliflower, making it durable adequate to stand up to the rigorous stir fry.
Sliced dried chili, chili paste and ground chili all go into the dry pot cauliflower, nonetheless in its place of an overpowering punch of warmth, each chili provides a thing different to the desk, ensuing in a remarkably sophisticated flavor that improvements as the flavor lingers. The addition of tingly Sichuan peppercorns numbs the mouth, giving a cooling result that balances the warmth.
The steamed hen in chili sauce tells a comparable tale. Served chilled as a starter, the deboned and sliced thigh-and-leg quarter are swimming in a brick-red oil studded with chilis. What may glimpse overwhelming for the initiated is basically a significantly milder, sweeter sauce.
Teaching the cuisine
Kong is aware of he is going up in opposition to common unfamiliarity from diners. You will find a purpose about a quarter of the menu is Americanized dishes, and even though he has plans to incorporate dishes in the future and make other tweaks to the menu, that share most likely will never transform.
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He encourages diners to try the braised pork tummy, the Peking beef and scallion pancake rolls or an additional classic dish in position of their common. Even if just 1 diner in a whole team attempts some thing new, Kong is joyful.
When diners are ready to try out it, they’ve appreciated it, Kong explained. He tells diners that if they really don’t like the authentic Chinese dish, it truly is on the household and he’ll make them something else.
So much, he’s only experienced to make the change as soon as.
“I enable my dishes discuss for me,” he said.
By early tumble, Kong plans to have devices in the cafe to make his own dumplings, a assortment of steamed bao and xiao prolonged bao, also called soup dumplings. The soup dumplings are his mother’s recipe.
Kong reported he strategies to open up added dining establishments in the foreseeable future, which includes a Japanese restaurant and a high-stop Chinese seafood restaurant reminiscent of the a single his mothers and fathers ran in Dalian.
But for now, his purpose is to get reliable Chinese food into the minds and plates of Fayetteville. He appreciates it will never be an simple job.
“I want to battle for it,” he claimed. “I want to perform my ass off for it.”
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The Particulars
Tackle: 5048 Yadkin Street, Fayetteville
Hours: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. Shut Wednesday.
Cell phone: 910-263-8439
Jacob Pucci writes on food stuff, dining places and company. Contact him by email at [email protected] or comply with him on Twitter at @jacobpucci or on Facebook. Like conversing food? Be part of our Fayetteville Foodies Facebook team.
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