Photograph by Robert Scheer
Brandon Ngu, 2, gets a mouthful of noodles at Mai Lan Restaurant in Sunnvyale.
Do Chinese restaurants serve only Chinese food?
Not the Mai Lan Restaurant in Sunnyvale.
It serves Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai cuisine, a unique offering that brings customers back, said co-owner Irene Kim Chew.
"People like the idea they can get dishes from three different countries in one place," she said. "My customers like to rotate. One day they eat Chinese. The next day they eat Vietnamese. The next day they will eat Thai."
The same concept is employed at the Thanh Da Restaurant, another establishment she and her family own in Sunnyvale.
Each business has three cooks who specialize in dishes from each country, Chew said. The idea is to ensure quality and authenticity, she said.
But diners also can mix the dishes.
And Chew is happy to guide them through a menu that offers 120 entrées.
Some dinnertime favorites are salted fried shrimp, Mongolian beef and catfish in a clay pot.
Lunchtime favorites are combination plates composed of Vietnamese teriyaki beef with fried rice, and chicken curry over steamed rice.
To reduce the fat content, Chew said, she uses water to cook vegetables and meat.
Chew, 35, said she loves to cook and has been at it for 25 years.
She learned how to cook Vietnamese and Chinese food while growing up in Vietnam. She moved to California in the early 1980s and worked as a waitress at the Lodge of Pebble Beach restaurant for 10 years. She also worked as a food server at the Doubletree Hotel in Monterey.
With money she and her family saved, they bought the Thanh Da Restaurant for about $120,000 in 1991.
The former owners of that restaurant served only 40 Chinese and Thai dishes. When Chew took over, she learned how to cook Thai food and added Chinese and Vietnamese dishes. Three years ago, she opened Mai Lan.
She said she is thinking about adding other Asian cuisines later.
Mai Lan seats 136 patrons.
Mai Lan, 1205 Wildwood Ave., Sunnyvale; MondayWednesday, 10 a.m.9 p.m.; ThursdaySaturday, 10 a.m.9:30 p.m. 735-1999 or 245-1342.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, March 12, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.