The plate that lands in front of you looks like any old bowl of hotdish, topped as it is with crispy tater tots and radiating heat like it just emerged from a 400-degree oven. But there’s another kind of heat here, too, a distinctly peppery scent that tickles the nostrils—and is that a small square of tofu you see, peeking out from among the ground beef base?
This is the Mapo Hotdish from Jook Sing, a playful popup from chefs Tony Gao and Mike Yuen that takes Chinese-American classics and gives them a Midwest twist.
Gao and Yuen met working at Union Hmong Kitchen around the time it debuted at Graze in the North Loop. Yuen was a manager looking for his second-in-command; Gao ended up being his guy. The chefs bonded over their experiences as Third Culture Kids growing up in America, as well as their love of Chinese-American food. “We immediately clicked, both from our style of cooking and our backgrounds,” Yuen says.
That was almost four years ago, and even back then, the two talked about teaming up to make food inspired by their appreciation for “your run-of-the-mill kind of takeout shop,” Yuen explains. (It’s an appreciation that’s as personal as it is universal; Gao grew up in Robbinsdale, and his parents owned Canton Garden, where he worked early in his kitchen career.) They bounced around to a few different kitchens together over the years, always with the idea in the back of their minds.
“You’re seeing a lot of second-generation Chinese Americans either taking up the mantle of their family’s restaurant or reimagining it in a sort of way. But that’s happening on both coasts, it’s not really being seen in the Midwest yet,” Yuen explains.
Finally, last September, they launched Jook Sing with a popup at Picnic in Linden Hills. Other popups quickly followed—at Steady Pour in Northeast, Juche on St. Paul’s Payne Avenue, Near North’s Bar Brava. In February, Jook Sing landed at Steady Pour for its first extended residency, and Gao and Yeun have been there each Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night since.
“Jook Sing” is a Cantonese term meaning “bamboo rod,” which colloquially describes someone who creates their own identity while honoring their roots. “All of our food comes from our memories, our experiences,” Gao says. “A lot of it is based in what we ate as kids, and there’s a lot of Chinese food, but we’re also mixing that with our experience cooking in kitchens around town.”
That’s how you end up with dishes like that Mapo Hotdish ($16), with its Sichuan spiced ragout dotted with soft hunks of tofu and gooey Ellsworth cheese curds. The fatty cheese and tingling spice work together, creating a culinary covalent bond that centers the dish—and there’s just something fun about picking up tater tots with chopsticks.
A tartare inspired by "fuqi feipian" or "couples beef," a cold Sichuan appetizer with thinly sliced beef and offal, appeared on Jook Sing’s first ever menu at Picnic, and you’ll still find it at Steady Pour today. The Couples’ Beef Tartare ($16) arrives in a perfect circle, topped with little half moons of pickled celery and peanuts that make each bite simultaneously soft and crunchy. It’s a textural delight even before you spoon it onto the puffy prawn chips that accompany it to the table.
Not everything on the menu is so half-and-half; Jook Sing’s Orange Chicken ($22) trends closer to the traditional dish. But even here, fresh-squeezed orange juice and orange zest lend a flavor that’s fresher and more citrusy, with calabrian chilis bringing spice to a classic that can sometimes be overwhelmingly sweet.
“I think we’re trying to take those very traditional, very nostalgic flavors that you can expect at a takeout restaurant and just kind of… I don’t want to use the word ‘reimagine’ them, but kind of put them through our lens,” Yuen says.
That’s certainly true for the Crab Rangoon Dip ($14), which had self-serving enough origins: “We wanted to put a hot dip on the menu and also didn’t want to roll 1,000 wontons every week,” Yuen chuckles. The dip, which arrives at your table at approximately a million degrees Fahrenheit, is like a spinach and artichoke dip with crab, scallion, and cream cheese, served with fried wonton chips to give it that Chinese takeout feeling. At the risk of blaspheming, it’s almost an improvement on a crab rangoon, as you can get crabby cream cheese in every bite, with no sad, filling-less corners to contend with.
And everything has such a nice heat running through it: the briny, fresh spark of pickled jalapeños in the rangoon dip, the tingly, warm red chilis in the hotdish, the calabrian coating that sticks to glossy chunks of orange chicken. Well, everything except the Milk Tea Panna Cotta ($9) we had for dessert, which offered a gentle sweetness highlighted with pops of brown sugar boba.
Jook Sing’s Steady Pour residency has been extended through the end of April, and after that, they’ll be back to pop-ups, with lots of stuff on the calendar for AAPI month in May. Another residency is in the works, and the pair are actively searching for a brick-and-mortar space where they can bring their reimagined Chinese-American fare to the Twin Cities on a regular basis.
“At the end of the day, it’s just trying to make something that’s familiar but also kind of new and exciting—just bringing people comfort, hopefully,” Gao says.
Jook Sing
Address: Steady Pour (2125 E. Hennepin Ave. Suite 205, Minneapolis)
Hours: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 4-10 p.m. through the end of April
More info and updates: @jooksingmn
