This is episode seven of Robb Report’s series Culinary Masters, where we go behind the scenes with some of America’s best chefs to see how their iconic dishes are made. Watch the previous episodes here.
Growing up in Seattle as an ’80s and ’90s kid, Angie Mar got to enjoy traditional Chinese food with her family at home, and then visit chain restaurants that served an Americanized version of those same flavors. At her restaurant Le B in New York’s West village, she offers up her playful take on the ubiquitous Chinese chicken salad that populated the menus of mall eateries like California Pizza Kitchen and Uno’s Chicago Bar & Grill.
That original dish was created in Los Angeles by Sylvia Cheng Wu, who served it to Hollywood celebs who couldn’t get enough of it at her restaurant Madame Wu. It was adapted by Wolfgang Puck at his Santa Monica restaurant Chinois on Main and then chain restaurants across the country started making their own knockoff version.
Mar’s version is undoubtedly more elegant than the ubiquitous suburban restaurant version. In this episode of Culinary Masters she shows us how she takes the flavors in the original salad and uses the finest ingredients to make something wholly her own. Gone are the big hunks of chicken and fried wontons, instead there’s a tuile made from the drippings of a whole roasted chicken. And in the salad there’s a garden of crisp vegetables from haricot verts to breakfast radishes to orchid petals. Not only is the dish a nostalgic look back, it also shows how Mar has evolved as a chef, where the woman known for big, meaty dishes could making something so light and elegant at her newest restaurant.
