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Chopstix
by Cliff Johnson

To slip through the front door of Chopstix’s foyer is to travel back in time, away from Atlanta, into mystical provincial China. I blinked and almost missed the culinary accolades showering praise on Chopstix’s walls since it’s 1984 opening. The door latches behind me. The room erases my day. The iron oxide dragon winks at me, then nips at my heels, prodding me toward a gracious staff collected around islands of crisp white tablecloths bathed in petite candlelight.

Still, I wasn’t ready for Alvin. A graceful, soft-spoken 6’2” figure, Alvin Yin is the working proprietor. Born in Shanghai, he moved to Hong Kong at age five, then to the states in 1975. He tours you through the place in effortless motion, as if your table has been waiting for you for a year.

We sit and exchange fragmented phrases about restaurant philosophy. Alvin catches my audible pant over the menu. I’ve heard he feeds you well. He soon retreats down the long dark row of linen four-tops amid red décor and returns with a large steaming earthenware bowl, filled with orange broth—a beet and carrot puree mused with a small strip of grilled sirloin atop potato dollop.

Stop me here and I will bore my neighbors into comas with stories of soup. Yet I’ve barely breathed when he vanishes again, returning with Mandarin Orange Shrimp on a wide green banana leaf, steamed snow peas, candied orange peel and a Gran Marnier sauce. It’s a party—really! Shrimp and the French liqueur have an affair going—who knew? I finish and Alvin warms up like a big league pitcher, producing another appetizer. My reporter’s notes turn to scribble.

“The most popular dish right now is this Jumbo Shrimp Stir Fry with Lemon-Lime Juice,” he says. “Nobody in China uses lemon-lime. We mix garlic with lemon-lime, cilantro and red chili peppers.” One bite and I swear the sauce is grilled—can you do that? He hints at its base—soy & oyster sauces mingled with fresh garlic—but there he stops cold.

Chopstix’s ingredients are mysterious, like the winding evolution of Chinese history. “We use regional Cantonese bases, blending new ingredients with rooted methods to reinvent.” Alvin begins a brief tutorial the Sung dynasty’s demise, where the first Imperial chefs migrated from North to South as emperors rose and fell. They adapted skills for epic rulers, then to new regions in exile.

“Hong Kong, an east-west trade seaport infused French and English influence into Cantonese.” As we talk, a requisite bowl of Jasmine rice appears at the empty placemat. Alvin segues into wok preparation. Having worked in kitchens, I’ve seen Chinese masters get mystical with wok acumen. Avlin’s secret weapon is head chef Ting. “We have crispy Duck, seasoned with salt and Szechuan peppercorns, steamed two hours, then pan fried.” All this in iron wok temperatures hotter than Mars, combining sealed-in crisp skin from natural duck fat with melting meat underneath. I’m an archeologist for this stuff—somebody stop me.

Alvin says his wife works with him on weekends, since he’s taken an ownership role after years with Philip Chen, the Executive Chef menu designer. As I dip a julienne of duck shamelessly into deep sweet lacquered sauce, I ask Alvin what his wife does here on weekends. “Mostly complain,” he says in a heartbeat. My duck pauses mid-esophagus. Then he cracks a deadpan rise of the cheeks. I suspect he’s a pushover for her. So I interrogate once more about the sauce’s early stages. He confesses nothing. I eat. I have to find a way to make this stuff. Chopstix’s sauces are the kind of thing you’ll chase around the placemat like an ocelot to sop up, even if CEO’s and stars like Whitney Houston and Kenny Rogers eat here. As you eat, centuries of flavor soak in like over-the-counter morphine.

By now I’m shoving plates aside like some yahoo with a shrimp fetish. Alvin offers everything. His heart is bigger than my stomach. Customers gawk. Plates stack up. It’s my last supper—honest. That’s when it happens. Wok seared, glazed chicken with toasted pine nuts and crispy spinach, the texture of—I can’t begin to say—show up on the table.

“How do you get the spinach so light, yet so crunchy with sprinkled sugar?” I say. He peeks out from behind impeccable service. “We fry it.” A true fan of irony, the tuxedoed Alvin chuckles the old cliché about ancient Chinese secrets. To mention the grouper in opulent saffron broth would be piling. So I won’t.

As the tour progresses, Alvin spills scant clues about kitchen incantations or how he gets stocks to do things French chefs would whimper to accomplish. You can feel these real deal sauces deeply. Alvin follows Taoism, Lao-tzu’s Wu Wei, and action-less action. Mr. Yin to me, he manicures every turn of the meal with balance, making you want to stay. With under a hundred covers on weekends, Chopstix Canton influence brings out the best—not the most—of your night out. Where Szechwan’s etymology is pepper and spice, Canton’s, one of the former states of the Swiss confederation, is milder. The Swiss aren’t really hot people, I guess.

Don’t ask for a faxed menu. Just go and ask Alvin to choose for you. He’ll read your mood in microseconds. Chopstix is available all seven nights.

Chopstix is located at 4279 Roswell Rd. Atlanta, GA 30342. (404) 255-4868. www.chopstixatlanta.com.

From top: Lemon lime shrimp; Flounder with ginger and soy. Rib eye stir fry;