April 7, 2006

Asian Bistro offers tantalizing Chinese food with a smile

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

A cornucopia of Asian delights greets the newcomer to the Asian Bistro. Customers come from all over the south bay, including Almaden Valley, eating in and taking out.

Virginia Wright, who lives in Gilroy and teaches in south San Jose, dines at the Asian Bistro at least once a week. “They cook to order and make food the way I ask,” she says.

Located in the Foxworthy Center at Cherry and Foxworthy, Asian Bistro’s delights are not limited, as the dishes are many and varied.

Everything is made to order. Vegetables are crisp and the meats are succulent. The sauces are delicious, and none of the food tastes greasy or heavy. One reason for this is Asian Bistro’s chefs. They gained experience while working in successful Hong Kong and California restaurants.

The restaurant, which is not quite two years old, has been steadily building clientele. For example, recently a group of senior citizens came in because the area’s other major Chinese restaurant was too crowded. They discovered that they not only liked the food, but they were also very pleased with the service because servers allowed them to take as much time as they wanted. They told us they’d be back, they were happy to have ‘such a good restaurant’ in the neighborhood,’” said Simon Cheng, who works part time at the bistro.

Other customers also were quite effusive in their praise. Virginia Wright, who teaches second grade at Hellyer School and lives in Gilroy, comes in once or twice a week.

“The only Chinese place I’ll eat is here,” she said. “The waiters are excellent. They have a special sauce they make the way I ask. I truly love their vegetable delight with garlic sauce. They cook food to my order, and now they know exactly what I want whenever I come in, and that’s at least once a week,” she said.

Wright had been in the previous Saturday when we visited, but had returned a few days later because she was hungry for Chinese food again. “The waiters treat me very well,” she added as they brought her dessert.

The menu is extensive, and the restaurant also offers catering. The menu and the waiters stress that there is no MSG added to the food. In addition, the food is not at all greasy and the breading on items like lemon chicken is crispy and tastes fresh.

“That’s because we don’t bread anything until it’s ordered so that the food is quite fresh,” Simon Cheng said. He added that vegetables are bought daily because otherwise they lose their freshness and can ruin the dish.

Simon picked a feast for us to sample. We started with Chinese chicken salad, which was tasty, crispy, crunchy and fresh. It’s dressing is a peanut sauce that lends a tang to the food without being overpowering. A sampler of appetizers containing crispy potstickers, spring rolls and two grilled chicken satays followed. The latter was seasoned just right and heated to perfection. However, the chef is always pleased to add spice to the food.

Lemon chicken followed the appetizers. Often, this dish can be overpoweringly sweet with the breading soggy and greasy. The Asian Bistro’s lemon chicken was quite the opposite, the sauce complemented the crispy fried chicken, which tasted of lemon and was not over sweetened.

Dinner also included honey walnut shrimp, which was especially tasty; vegetable fried rice, spicy green beans—with the right amount of spice tickling the tongue, cashew chicken—with large pieces of celery, pea pods and huge cashews—Kung Pao chicken and Thai red curry chicken, which was quite spicy.

Sharon Cheung manages the bistro. Her resume includes work at a Thai restaurant and she also worked as a project manager for Yan Can restaurants. Project managers set up the dining room and teach the staff how to deal with customers. They also recruit new business. Sharon’s job at Asian Bistro is similar, but she insists that she’s not planning to go anywhere else for at least 10 years.

“I plan to stay here after this place becomes settled and successful,” she said.

Sharon Cheung stands near the register to greet customers at the Asian Bistro.

While Sharon was born in Hong Kong, she spent most of her childhood and teenage years in La Paz, Bolivia. “I moved there when I was 2 years old and spent the next 21 years there.”

Fluent in Spanish and Chinese, as she got older she noticed her school friends were disappearing. All of them were going to America, she said, so she decided to come here too. She moved here in 1982 and worked in electronics companies and helped a friend who had a restaurant. She’s been in the restaurant business ever since.

The staff has worked hard to ensure the restaurant become part of the community. For example, when Shallenberger Elementary School held a fundraiser, Asian Bistro donated $150 in prizes and gift certificates to the school. Sharon laughs as she tells the story, because they had no certificates.

“But one of our customers came in about that time and told us she wanted to buy gift certificates. When we told her we didn’t have any, she and her husband designed them and gave us two packs. This is a wonderful neighborhood; people are so friendly,” she said.

Asian Bistro is open seven days a week for in-house dining or food to go. It offers a special lunch plate from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday with soup, appetizer and fried or steamed rice along with an entrée for $5.95 to $6.95. Dinner is served seven nights a week from 4 to 9 p.m. and the restaurant is open on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Asian Bistro is located at 1431 Foxworthy Ave., San Jose. To order take out, call (408) 978-0226.