POT OF GOLD

Tammy Wong and the Rainbow Chinese Restaurant.

Talk to Jacque Pepin and you'll learn how he decided upon his life's profession at the age of three, while absorbing equal doses of skills and passion at his mother's knee. Aquavit's Marcus Samuelson never once veered from his childhood career path either, schooled in his family's reverence for cooking.

Tammy Wong tells a different story — and tells it like it is. In a traditional Asian family, you do what your dad dictates, no questions asked. So for 18 years she's worked in (and now owns) the Rainbow Chinese Restaurant — the first, and still the most authentic Chinese restaurant in Minnesota, as many a foodie will maintain. Once involved, however, she soon found the dedication necessary not only to lead the pack as an anchor of Eat Street but to assist neighborhood novices with a leg up.

Born in Vietnam to Chinese parents originally from near Canton, she followed her family to America in 1979, settling first in New York. But her father had nine kids to house and feed, a whopping challenge for a new, non-English-speaking arrival in any city, never mind on Manhattan's high-rent real estate. Following friends' advice, he moved his brood to Minneapolis in 1983, when Tammy was 20. He first acquired a home via Project Pride in Living in the Whittier neighborhood and then a Chinese restaurant nearby on Nicollet, long before its renaissance as a delightful eating street. He enlisted Tammy, along with all the other kids.

"As the oldest daughter, and second-oldest child, I'd been like a second mother to the family. Now, I wasn't sure this career was what I wanted, but you don't ask questions; there's pressure to do as you are told."

"For me it was 'learn as you go.' I realize that we needed to make this a going business, so I gave it all my energy. I did all the bookkeeping and Dad did the cooking. Because he spoke no English, I dealt with the vendors, the landlord, chose the signage, made the business decisions."

"Our customers were nearly all Asian. They loved our noodles (there weren't places serving this back then) and that we cooked authentic dishes—food that would never make it to the menus of The Nankin and Howard Wong's, where the towns' Germans and Norwegians ate chow mein and chop suey."

Still, a few old timers managed to find the place. A neighborhood AA group chose it for its Sunday meetings, and one of them let the Star Tribune's restaurant writer know that he'd better get over there if he wanted some outstanding eats. Jeremy Iggers raved about unfamiliar dishes like pickled mustard greens (hidden under a vague listing as "salted vegetable"). Foodies got the message, and from then on, the Rainbow has been firmly on the city's dinning map. Because in those days the café was open until 2 a.m., it became a popular hangout for cooks and waiters once their own doors were locked for the night. "But after my two boys were born, I couldn't keep those long hours anymore," says Tammy with a half-apologetic smile.

By now, she was writing the menus, too. "I've never had formal training, but I've cooked since I was little and I have a keen interest, I really have: I'd worked in Chinese restaurants when we lived in New York, and researched cookbooks and Asian markets. We'd live in Hong Kong as refugees when I was 14, so I'd also worked in restaurants there." But mostly, she built her menu around even earlier memories. "I recalled the street stands when I was a child in Vietnam, each with a single specialty — meatball soup, or an old woman who only made congee with dried fish and scallops." Many of those singular dishes found their way to Rainbow's list.

Being a woman made it a bit harder to earn respect as a decision maker from vendors and staff, but it worked to her advantage when building return business. "I interact with my customers, because you need to explain some dishes and hand-sell them. Some things they liked and some they didn't. I'm not as stubborn as a man chef, so I could accept it if some things needed changing. The key is not only to have good ingredients, but to communicate with people in a successful way."

That's perhaps why, unlike in many a cafe, there's little turnover among her staff of 30 and no hurling of cleavers, or verbal abuse, in her kitchen. "Here, I set a good example, so the chefs don't yell. I don't like confrontations, so we settle things really fast."

She's equally adept at pleasing the neighborhood, to which she's truly committed. "I try to set a good example. In the late '80s, the Hispanics starting coming for the fried rice — they loved it! — so I made sure the place was not intimidating and offered good value." The average dinner check for a twosome these days is $25.

One sister owns the grocery store across the street, another plans to open a restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis later this year, and a third, who used to handle Rainbow's personnel, has moved out of state. As family members bow out to pursue other ventures, Tammy has learned to assume even more responsibility. She now interviews and hires all employees, explaining in advance the stress, and yes, the fun, of working in such a fast-paced environment. She then throws them on the line or the floor on a Friday night (when the 80-seat restaurant often feeds up to 400 people) as a litmus test. "I love it when they question me," she says, in a break from her father's example, "It shows they're interested."

Tammy continues to handle the scheduling of catering and special events, which grow by word of mouth. She recently catered a meeting of Asian-American journalists ( a huge success, as she overcame the challenge of serving piping-hot shrimp toast to hundreds from the sole range in the host's kitchen). For a group of businessmen arriving from Taiwan, she chose "comfort food after that long plane ride: a whole fish — Chinese love that — a pork tenderloin with stir-fried vegetables, a nice soup. Casual food, not sharks' fin or birds' nest, just to prove we can do fancy, expensive dishes. That's not our image," she insists.

When a local food critic brought in a writer working on a "world's best" book of Chinese restaurants, again no glamour treatment: She fed them amid the clamor in the heart of the kitchen on homey fare like steamed squid with plum chutney; jellyfish salad; oyster pancakes; and winter melon soup.

What do we Germans and Norwegians vote for? Best sellers remain the same noodle dishes her Chinese neighbors have adored from the outset, as well as the legendary walleye in black bean sauce, which can never leave the menu. "These days, people are more willing to experiment," she's glad to report.

That's no accident. "I'm on the board of the Special District Services of the Community Development Commission. I want to make sure the street are safe and clean and well-lit and not intimidating. As new places open, we try to educate them in this direction, too. There's a lot more competition these days, but competition's good," she maintains. "There are also a lot more opportunities, with the nearby Convention Center, the Institute of Art and Children's Theatre. I'm asking the state for funds for beautifying the neighborhood. It's got to be a destination, where people feel it's worth the trip: comfortable places offering good value." Tammy also donates space and product to fund-raisers for worthy causes as another way of giving back.

These days she no longer defers to Dad in making business decisions. "He's an amazing man, and he likes to be involved, but his eye and my eye are different," she allows. "When we started across the street, he'd come in in the middle of the night and rearrange the place; it drove me crazy!" she confesses.

So did the landlord, who didn't return her calls. "He never fixed the roof. One day in 1997, there was a foot of water on the floor and people were holding umbrellas while they ate. That was it! The next day, I bought the furniture store across the street. It took half a million [dollars] to repair it — remove the asbestos tile, put on a new roof, install bathrooms, put in a kitchen. I consulted with a company in San Francisco to build special stoves for us. (In the old place, we had only one stove for 100 seats, so we learned to be really efficient and really fast.)

"For the dining room, I choose slate tile flooring (against my mother's advice) because I loved it. I bought some stained glass and french door from a savage place, because a nice door creates a good first impression. And I painted the back wall red because I personally love the color."

"We moved on November 21 and, with no advertising, we had a full house the very first night. We have," she says, "ever since."

— WBM