East Asia

A tiny restaurant near Tufts takes the doctrine of freshness to heart. Now let's hope it doesn't get overrun.

868 Broadway (Powderhouse Square), Somerville; 666-8282
Open Mon - Sat, 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.;
and on Sun, 4:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
AE, MC, Visa
No liquor
Up one step from sidewalk level

by Robert Nadeau

We're going to have a problem here. I knew it the minute I tasted the chili eggplant at East Asia. It's always a problem when a six-table restaurant has some of the best food I've tasted in years. I once began a column like this by proposing a four-week schedule for readers to try the restaurant by turns, according to the initial letter of their last name.

In the case of East Asia, what I really wish I could do is restrict reservations for a week or two to working chefs of Asian restaurants. It would greatly reduce the pressure on this small kitchen if the other chefs would notice -- "remember" is really the word -- how much better the food can taste if one observes a couple of basic principles. As far as I can tell, what's special about East Asia derives almost entirely from a little more attention to selecting fresh produce, quicker cooking over higher heat with less oil, and only a couple of new ideas.

This little restaurant near Tufts is, I am told, the project of three economics professors from China and their families. The cuisine, North Chinese and Thai, would seem to have a split personality by thousands of miles. But actually there's a considerable ethnic and culinary connection, and the combination works well in the kitchen and on the table.

We started with a new idea, which is a complimentary plate of fried wonton skins with duck sauce and cole slaw as accompaniments. Also somewhat new is the use of tomato sauce in the hot-and-sour soup ($1.95) which makes something fresh out of what can easily become an off-the-shelf soup. With the tomato background, the tofu and tree-ear mushrooms also seem like fresher ingredients than they really are.

Homemade Thai dumplings ($4.75) are the shape of Peking ravioli, and are thin-skinned, in the manner of northern Chinese dumplings. They come with two fillings, vegetable and meat; the vegetable is shredded with a lot of ginger, and the meat is chicken or pork with ginger that's merely noticeable.

Our main dishes were all slightly hot; most came from the Thai parts of the menu, but were notable more for the freshness of their main ingredients than for overpowering sauces. The Thai sauces mostly came without too much coconut milk or other thickening, and were nicely balanced with sweet and hot flavors -- and, of course, major garlic.

What was most impressive in "royal tofu" ($6.25) was the tofu, which the menu says is homemade. It's certainly made or doctored in some interesting way to make it more porous -- an exciting vehicle for red-curry sauce, and a contrast with the accompanying carrots and peas. Hot basil fried rice ($5.95) is a nice version of white fried rice with chopped pea pods and green bell peppers replacing the usual green peas. There's less oil than we usually get in fried rice, and a fascinatingly pervasive aroma of Asian basil, of which we see only a few leaves.

Now for the chili eggplant ($6.25). I couldn't stop eating these buttery wedges, nor the cooked tomato wedges that came with them. The sauce was a sweetish, thin Thai curry not unlike that on the tofu, but the dish was carried by the eggplant flavor rather than the sauce.

A more garlicky variation of the same sauce powers Siam duck ($8.95), a mix of mostly boneless slices of duck with a variety of Chinese vegetables, notably baby bamboo shoots. Back on the Chinese menu, Mandarin squid ($8.25) has a thicker spicy sauce with another hint of tomato. The squid is score-cut with finer "dragon scales" than we see in Chinatown, and the first bite tells why: more scales hold more sauce, and also tenderize the squid. I never thought I'd describe a squid dish as "meltingly tender," but here we are.

Portions at the East Asia are of average size, despite below-average prices. Four of us ate almost all of five entrees, partly because we went easy on appetizers and partly because everything tasted so good. There are no desserts at East Asia other than the usual fortune cookies, but there is an interesting beverage, described as "Iced haw fruit juice" ($1.25). It looks like iced tea, but has a tart flavor reminiscent of tamarind, with maybe a hint of kiwi. The menu also lists Thai iced tea and iced coffee; a request for hot tea gets you a fresh pot of thin, earthy-tasting Chinese-style tea.

The appearance of the restaurant is nice enough, but gives no hint about the food; there's a tank of goldfish and one fine piece of framed calligraphy. Our servers had a certain unusual confidence, possibly because they'd eaten the food, and knew how unusually good it is.

So how can I share the discovery of this wonderful little kitchen without having all you readers flood it to death? I could stress the remoteness of Powderhouse Square, though it's really just a few blocks east of Davis Square. I could omit to mention that the restaurant is around the back side of its building, and really seems to front College Avenue. I could suggest not only that a crowd will ruin the sense of discovery, but also that a small kitchen may not be able to handle the crowds it deserves. I could warn that this isn't a "great restaurant" in service or breadth of menu or complexity of sauces or rarity of ingredients -- just a small place that manages to make the food freshly and with a personal twist. But after all these years of telling you that true greatness in food is about exactly that, who would believe me?

No, let's go ahead and test the character of this kitchen with outrageous crowds. But at least call and ask for a reservation, or you may have to settle for takeout.

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I am writing in Black History Month, so let us have a few words from Robert Roberts, the Waltham butler who in 1827 wrote the first cookbook published by any African American: Robert's Guide for Butlers & Other Household Staff. Mr. Roberts was not himself a cook, and frankly admits that he took most of his recipes and advice for cooks from others. But this, from the final page, has something of Roberts's own voice: "If vegetables are a minute or two too long over the fire, they lose all their beauty and flavour." Would any Chinese chef of today disagree?