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All of this fits easily into the rest of the menu at China Harbor, their crispy pork belly in shrimp sauce goes well with the classic twice-cooked pork, but it stands out on the plate. She likes strong flavors, adding Szechuan peppercorn versions of crab and lobster that are already on the menu, and lemongrass butter with garlic to the shrimp. Even with more modest dishes, Hwang stands out: Her fried chive dumplings are the size of the flat of a hand, with a crisp, frilled skirt over them. For a bigger serving of luxury, she also makes a version of the classic deep-fried taro ball, replacing the meaty center with abalone. But the generous blob placed after steaming only increases the price from $ 5.99 to $ 9 a cheap thrill. On the dim sum menu, she added black truffle paste to the Xiu Mai, the kind of flashy addition that often seems over the top and expensive for no great reason. But here it comes with fluffy rolls instead of thin pancakes, and a more impressive detour from the classic presentation with a two-tone sesame paste sauce and grilled lemons, which are supposed to defy the richness of the duck, supported by a range of herbs and sliced watermelon radishes. The Forbidden Duck looks like the peony version of the traditional Peking duck – the same glassy skin, shiny and shockingly crispy, lies over the tender meat. Some of the menu items will be familiar to Peony customers – she started planning the menu out of Zhao’s own love of eating there. While she is busy with the event business, she keeps adding her own accents to the menu. “I want customers to feel new, come in and trust us,” says Hwang. But she wanted to try and said, “You never know!” As events picked up again, Zhao needed her help as often as possible, and Hwang wanted to give the dining room a new reputation to make sure it wasn’t the China Harbor they remember from their uncle’s wedding 20 years ago. “It’s an old place and no one will want to go,” they told her. In contrast, when she told friends that she was going to launch in China Harbor, they were surprised and called her brave. Then she teamed up with restaurateur Paul Choi from Peony and spent a year traveling and researching to develop the menu before the upscale Bellevue restaurant opened.
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But she practiced cooking what she saw and eventually grew into a catering company. “After they went to school, all I had to do was watch the Food Channel,” she laughs. She married and raised her sons in Seattle.
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Hwang grew up in Guangzhou, considered by many to be the birthplace of dim sum, before moving to Seattle, where she graduated from high school and fell in love with the area. Originally, Zhao Hwang had been hired to work on an upcoming new project, but when pandemic-related delays began, he asked her to help part-time in China Harbor, where he had just launched a dim sum menu. Hwang’s version of honey walnut prawns, lightened with the sharp bite of green apple cubes that slice through the sweetness, rises high off the plate and fits right in with the impressive but borderline aesthetic of the China Harbor dining room. With events back on and the spacious room with panoramic views of Lake Union welcoming customers again, their menu updates are bringing new audiences looking for a taste of their creative cuisine. In search of ways to revive the iconic space, he reached out to his friend Hwang, former chef at Bellevue’s Peony Kitchen, for help.
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Thomson Zhao bought the restaurant less than a year before the pandemic events closed, cutting off China Harbor’s main source of business. “So many people used to complain about the food,” says chef Danna Hwang, who joined the team at the 27-year-old restaurant this summer. Relatively fewer people stopped by for a casual dinner. But most of those who know China Harbor are familiar with the interior of the huge banquet hall on the second floor: from weddings, salsa dancing, political fundraising, 500-person mega-events or “Gung Haggis Fat Choy”, the combination of Burns Night and Chinese New Year celebration it has held for more than a decade. Even those who have never set foot in the huge, glossy black building that towers over the west side of Lake Union will recognize it immediately in conversation.