BEHIND THE RAINBOW

A hidden culinary talent whose work you might have sampled around town.

One of the more talented chefs in the Twin Cities is a woman whose name is rarely seen in print. Nonetheless, she's the one Levain's former star chef Stuart Woodman chose when he needed a catering for his wedding reception.

Tammy Wong is also the person that a surprising number of executives turn to when they want to have a "home-cooked" meal prepared for business travelers from Asia. She laughs as she tells a story about her low profile, in which a local restaurant critic—who had no idea Wong supplied the fresh wontons at a popular spot hew was reviewing—declared that the dumplings served there were better than any Chinese chef in town could prepared.

The irony is that Tammy Wong, the energetic owner of the Rainbow Chinese Restaurant and Bar, is not only Chinese, but her Eat Street mecca (612-870-7084, 2739 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis) is perpetually at or near the top of every reader and critic poll for best Oriental dinning spot in the Twin Cities. Food lovers flock there when they need a fix of her incredible Szechwan wontons slathered in black bean sauce, her incomparable Singapore chow mai-fun, or here superlative fresh fish steamed in bean sauce.

Unlike so many top chefs, Tammy Wong never attended a cooking school or worked under the tutelage of top Asian chefs. As a very young girl living in a Chinese community in Vietnam, she was responsible for preparing the food offerings required on special holidays. Her family immigrated to New York when she was 15, and she found work in a Chinatown sewing factory, where she learned about simple elegance of Asian cooking from the lunch routines of her coworkers. Her family eventually relocated to Minneapolis, began operating a restaurant, and finally moved into their current Rainbow digs in 1997.

There's a handsome banquet room on the Rainbow's second floor, and there are few things Wong loves doing more than preparing a tasting menu for a small group of diners.

— Peter Lilienthal (plilienthat@mm.com) is a restaurant critic and president of Minneapolis employee-feedback firm In Touch.