Review: Chef Ma’s Chinese Gourmet

This small restaurant (a former Taco Bell) was opened in Overland last year by King Ma, a chef from Hong Kong with a very impressive resume. Most recently, he headed the banquet kitchen at the renowned Mandarin House, known to cater some of the bigger Asian American events in town.

He also placed first in an Austin, Texas, version of the Iron Chef competition in 2008 (although the menu states 2009). Both credentials, and his 40-ish years behind the stove, have earned him the right to add the word ‘gourmet’ to his restaurant. Two menus are offered, one he calls traditional Chinese, which has the dishes less familiar (and in some cases less palatable) to Western tastes. It features items with bone-in hacked chicken, braised pigs’ feet, Chinese sausages and the like. The other menu contains dishes we’re more likely to recognize, but many get a special touch from chef Ma.

The best example of this that we tasted was Walnut Shrimp ($11.95). The shrimp had chef Ma’s version of ‘breading’ —a light tempura coating—along with sticky clumps of sugared walnuts and dabs of a distinctively non-Chinese cream sauce tasting of honey mustard and mayo. It was delicious and quite rich, between the fried coating and the sweet mayo sauce.

Much more traditional was the Eggplant Szechuan Style ($7.95), the cooked vegetable coated with red pepper flakes and a sweet brown sauce that balanced the hot and spicy very well. The heat was mild, as you’d expect for Western palates. The sweet—the element that might be Ma’s ‘secret weapon,’ since just about all the dishes we tasted had sugary undertones—was noticeable. Another familiar dish was Hot & Sour Soup ($5.50), done well here with plenty of ‘sour’ and big enough to feed up to four.

A soup on the Chinese menu, Seaweed Egg White Fish Fillet Soup ($6.95), relied on texture for its interest. It was a frothy white broth swimming with bubbles of hardened egg white and akes of white sh. The avor was bland and in my mind didn’t compare to the symphony of taste in our Hot & Sour Soup, but it was exotic in its texture; imagine the feel of puffy balls rolling inside your mouth.

A starter of Salt & Pepper Calamari ($8.95) had the same cornstarch coating as the shrimp, but in this case, it overwhelmed the thin strips of calamari. The bits of salty fried crust that sat underneath the calamari was the ‘salt and pepper’ in the dish, and it was very tasty, but I would have preferred that it come stuck onto the calamari. Important to note is that the dishes here, in general, have a high oil content, which of course adds avor but can also come across as greasy.

The Pot Stickers ($5.95) were an exception to this trend, with nice, thin dough skins and good pork filling. They were served pan-browned and quite tasty. One disappointment was Beef with Scallion ($8.95), which came with several pieces of meat undercooked, almost raw, in places. The kitchen was very busy at the time, and possibly rushed. Which brings up another point worth noting: This can be a very crowded place, especially weekends at dinnertime, so avoid 6:15 to 7:30 p.m. if you don’t want to wait.

amuse bouche
the scene | Modest Chinese spot with specialty dishes
the chef | King Ma
the prices | $3.50 to $9 appetizers, $7 to $25 entreesthe favorites | Eggplant Szechuan, Walnut Shrimp, Hot & Sour Soup

chef chat » king ma
culinary pedigree | I have worked in kitchens for about 40 years. I started at The Marrio in Hong Kong, worked all around Asia, and then in San Francisco and Los Angeles. When I moved to St. Louis, I was at Mandarin House.
favorite ingredient | Ginger sauce
favorite cookbook | I don’t have one, it’s all in my head.
favorite st. louis restaurant | The Cheesecake Factory or Maggiano’s
most memorable dining experience | At a restaurant in San Francisco called Kitchen Story; it was very different.
guilty pleasure (food) | Garlic bread