Tsao's Cuisine authentic asian entrees are a hit with ‘westerners’

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FAIRBORN — En-Jung Tsao’s resume as a chef of Chinese cuisine sparkles with both quantity and quality.

Her restaurant career began at the age of 12 in Taiwan, where she worked her way up to the kitchens of some high-class hotels before coming to the United States in 1989. She cooked in Asian restaurants in Indianapolis, then came to the Dayton area to join Steve Kao’s, the now-defunct Miami Twp. restaurant that set a high standard for Chinese dining in the Dayton area through the 1990s.

She cooked for a handful of other local Asian restaurants in recent years but has now launched her own restaurant, Tsao’s Cuisine (Tsao is prounced “chow”), on Colonel Glenn Highway, just east of Grange Hall Road, near Wright State University. And it’s here that the chef-owner’s experience — and her talents — shine.

Most lunch diners come for the small buffet that delivers swift sustenance to WSU students in a hurry, although diners can order from the menu. But in the evening, the 80-seat Tsao’s Cuisine is a different restaurant entirely.

The most interesting dishes aren’t found on the printed menu, but are listed on a white board behind the restaurant’s cash register, hand-written in both Chinese and English.

It’s the type of cuisine that adventurous enthusiasts of authentic Asian cuisine hunger for, but too often can’t find.

The “chef’s recommendations” of dishes includes a perfectly cooked and meatless Japanese Eggplant ($9.75) accented by mushrooms, and an intriguing Shredded Pork with Shredded Bean Curd ($9.75), which uses thin strips of firm tofu that has a consistency and appearance not unlike shiitake mushrooms.

A Ground Bean Flounder entree ($16.95), presents delicate, flavorful, moist fish topped with tiny nuggets of tofu that appear similar to bacon bits and add an unexpected nuttiness to the dish. For a splurge — and a feast for the eyes — order the Sweet & Sour Red Snapper ($26.95), in which a whole fish is battered and deep-fried, served sprinkled with cilantro and topped with a tangy, complex sauce.

This dish’s sauce bears about as much resemblance to the candy-apple-red concoction that we know as “sweet and sour sauce” as Chateau Latour does to Welch’s Grape Juice.

Tsao said her frequent use of bean curd harkens back to her cooking days in Taiwan because, in Chinese cuisine, bean curd is often a major part of the main meal — not relegated to an afterthought in vegetarian dishes.

Tsao and her cousins Grace Peng and Steven Peng, who help manage and operate the restaurant, said they weren’t sure whether to put the English translations on the white board next to the signature dishes.

But the idea has gone over well, with many of the specialties growing in popularity among Tsao’s “westerner” customers.

And it’s easy to taste why.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2258 or mfisher@coxohio.com.