At the end of March, chef Brandon Jew parted ways with Bar Agricole, where he’d been the chef for all of the restaurant’s three years. And as reported earlier, he’s plotting a restaurant of his own that will be Chinese in nature, but sounds like it won’t be like anything we currently have in the S.F. food scene. He tells Zagat that the plan is to serve “the cleanest, purest Chinese food that I can,” and that means using all homemade ingredients, and doing it in “soulful,” casual environment. He thinks most Americans have skewed ideas of what Chinese food is because of so many restaurants with 300 things on the menu, most of them overly greasy. “That’s not what I experienced living in China or eating my grandmother’s food,” he says. So, he’ll be making his own tofu, soy sauce, fermented bean pastes, and rice vinegar, and reinterpreting recipes from old, traditional Cantonese cookbooks. By way of example, at an event last week, he served a soymilk custard with hot and sour consommé, pickled shiitakes, and spicy XO sauce. There’s still no location or ETA for Jew’s new venture, but stay tuned. [Zagat, Earlier]
