Jade

The Scene
Located at the rear of the colorful and labyrinthine Midtown Global Market, this open-to-view restaurant is separated from the comings and goings by a hip-height wall. The sprawling, clean-lined space houses a cocktail bar, a stainless steel grilling/sushi counter, and a collection of blond wood tables. Exposed ductwork and contemporary takes on traditional Chinese red lanterns are suspended overhead. At the lunch hour, groups of employees from the nearby Allina complex line up for the buffet. In the evening, the casually attired crowd includes inhabitants of the adjacent Sears condominiums and word-of-mouth cognoscenti.

Our Take
Co-owner Carl Wong and I go back at least a decade. For the past three years, he has been patiently waiting out a noncompete condition of his sale of Seafood Palace. Wong has always been the consummate entrepreneur and is taking on a challenge by moving into the short-lived Chang Bang space. He has the sushi front well covered with Tony Tuy, a talented veteran of Crave who has developed some inspired creations; the kitchen is in good hands with former Seafood Palace chef David Doan, who moved back from San Francisco. The challenge here is attracting diners to what many view merely as an ethnic market. Fans of Seafood Palace will find that Jade’s menu is almost a mirror image of Wong’s Eat Street iteration’s. Devotees of the wonderful sweet-and-spicy fried eggplant, beef baby short ribs, exemplary fried dumplings, and baked salt-and-pepper quail will find the quality undiminished. Another virtue worth noting is the kitchen’s flexibility. When I asked to have kung pao chicken prepared only with chicken, peanuts, scallions, and hot peppers—that’s what I got and it was great. We also requested that the chef create a dish with stir-fried chicken and seasonal baby bok choy, which was equally pleasing. Since there wasn’t much competition for the servers on our visits, we got plenty of attention.

East Meets East
The tale of how a Japanese sushi bar and Chinese restaurant came to coexist is interesting. Prior to taking over the space, and owing to his knowledge of the seafood and import trades, Wong was enticed by the market’s management to take over a floundering fish market called Sea Port. He concluded that in order to boost revenues he needed to provide something that would appeal to the fast-food–oriented lunch crowd. He settled on sushi, hired Tony Tuy from Crave, and the pairing proved to be a hit. Wong sold the market before taking on Jade and took Tuy with him. On the drawing board? A Japanese yakitori bar.