After a mouthwatering discussion of Chinese food with one PF concerning wok hay and ancillary concerns (partially inspired by the recent NYT article, “The Well-Tempered Wok,” unavailable for linking as I write this), I dragged Viv down the block to my favorite Chinese place in Capitol Hill, the Broadway Wok and Grill.

Located at the northern end of Broadway, more or less across the street from the Deluxe, I always enjoy eating here immensely for two big reasons. First, some of the dishes they serve remind me closely of the Chinese food I first tasted as a pre-schooler, prepared under the supervision of one Harry Liu.

Second, the interior of the restaurant is divided into bays, and at the end of the ‘public’ space, someone whom I take to be the proprietor has turned one of the bays into his office, and he holds court in front of a 12″ TV/DVD player combo all night. His pals drift in and out, everyone has a couple of drinks, and they animatedly discuss real estate prices in the Seattle metro region, who is in the hospital, who is opening what new place, gambling, basketball, and for all I know, the price of rice in China in an excited, blurry mixture of Chinese dialects and English, with English strongly predominating. It’s a very down-homey kind of thing, the pot-belly stove and the cracker-barrel transmuted like lead into a higher, slightly stranger substance.

Harry was the black sheep of a distinguished family of restaurateurs. The family’s flagship operation was a joint on the river Mystic in Boston, called “Peking on the Mystic.” Harry split after a dispute with his old man and didn’t return until after his dad had died, as I understand it. My family ate in Harry’s restaurant as long as we lived nearby, probably for five or six years, and he taught me how to use chopsticks.

Harry’s place featured hundreds and hundreds of items on the menu, most listed in Chinese and with a western-alphabet phonetic rendering on the same line. I still have a copy of the menu somewhere amidist my treasured remnants of early childhood. Some items also recieved a translation, but not all. The dishes I recall most clearly were moo shu pork, steamed dumplings (more commonly known on the west coast as potstickers), and a dessert which was almond-based gelatin cubes and mandarin orange slices in a light syrup, the name of which escapes me. To this day I seek out places whose potstickers or moo shu remind me of Harry’s. The Broadway Wok and Grill has a fine moo shu which is similar in my memory to that which I first tasted, learning how to use chopsticks, and maybe a thing or two about ethnicity, culture, and emigration.

Oh, and his potstickers? The number on the menu by which they were known was “182.”