The An Family burst on to the American dining scene in 1975, when Helene An opened Thanh Long on San Francisco’s western fringe with mother-in-law Diana. They eventually translated their Crustacean concept to Beverly Hills. Now Helene’s eldest daughter Elizabeth has led the family to South Coast Plaza for their latest venture, a sleek Euro-Asian bistro called AnQi.

The An Family can trace their cooking to Vietnam, but they’re by no means dependent on the past, or even Vietnamese cuisine. Helene An developed AnQi’s menu in conjunction with an on-site chef (Daniel Barron) who has a penchant for experimentation. He even offers molecular gastronomy at the chef’s table. At a recent AnQi preview, one of the better pan-Asian dishes involved Steam Bao Bun with braised pork belly and scallions. Due to the denser-than-necessary buns and limited caramelization, this version didn’t meet Ippudo’s gold standard, or even the revered version at David Chang’s Momofuku, but it’s hard to argue with slabs of pig stomach. The steamed clam shell buns hosted meat with satisfying layers of molten hog fat and crisp cuts of scallion that took the edge of the richness.

Dose of Vitamin P spotlights my favorite pork dish from the previous week.

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1. ravenouscouple, December 10, 2009:

   i’ll be interested to try this as we made it ourselves recently.

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