Dining review: Still all about the food at East Coast Asian Bistro

For well over a decade, one of RTP’s best-kept secrets was East Coast Chinese Food Express, a tiny restaurant with just a handful of tables – inside a Kroger, of all places. Business was mostly takeout, and advertising was by word of mouth. The atmosphere was, you might say, grocery store fluorescent. But anyone fortunate enough to know about the place would tell you it was all about the food.

The standard Chinese-American menu was popular with the RTP lunch crowd, and deservedly so. But it was the supplemental offering of authentic fare that made the place special. Displayed on laminated sheets with a picture of each dish and descriptions in English – “chow fun w/curry flavor,” “chicken tofu skin roll” – these were native specialties of the restaurant’s Hong Kong-born owners, David and Annie Nip.

In January, the Nips finally did what fans had been urging them to do for years: They relocated to a dedicated restaurant site in nearby Greenwood Commons, where they now offer table service in an actual dining room. They changed the name to East Coast Asian Bistro, the reason for which becomes evident when you’re handed a menu that now includes sections devoted to Japanese and Vietnamese cuisines in addition to the Chinese-American offering.

But you’ll want to ask for “the real Chinese menu.” And if you’re overwhelmed by the selection – an extensive list that contains both “real” (mostly Cantonese) and Chinese-American dishes – then feel free to ask Annie Nip (she runs the front of the house, while her husband does the cooking) for suggestions. If the place isn’t too busy, she’ll even offer to walk with you over to the wall by the cashier counter, where those very same laminated menus from the old shop have been posted.

I’ve found it’s a good strategy to just order whatever she points to. That includes the tofu skin rolls, even though neither the name nor the photo is particularly appetizing. The reality – three plate-spanning deep-fried rolls of tofu skin (think wonton wrapper but more delicate) filled with a savory mix of chicken and mushrooms – works as a hearty entree or a shareable alternative to the restaurant’s unexceptional spring rolls.

“Salty ribs” is another name that doesn’t do justice to the dish, which features chewy-tender nuggets of pork on the bone in a crunchy batter crust (my wife nailed it with: “It’s like chicken-fried steak”) that’s well-seasoned but by no means excessively salty. The ribs are served over florets of steamed broccoli, whose flavor is enriched by the fatty juices dribbling down from the pork.

Annie Nip will tell you that her personal favorite is black pepper beef, a deceptively simple stir-fry in a brown sauce that turns out to be a spicy umami bomb of flavor.

If you’re looking for something lighter, she’ll no doubt recommend the Singapore mei fun, thin rice noodles tossed in soy or Chinese curry sauce (if pressed, she’ll say she’s partial to the soy). And if you’re trying to get in your daily vegetable requirement, she’ll suggest the Chinese eggplant or the aptly named “celery vegetable,” a colorful stir-fry of celery, carrots and onions glazed in a mere sheen of brown sauce. Both are available with your choice of protein (chicken, shrimp or beef).

At some point, curiosity will get the better of you, and you’ll ask why the Vietnamese beef noodle soup pho gets such prominent display in the storefront window and on the menu. The answer – that David Nip got the recipe from a relative who owns a Vietnamese restaurant in Hong Kong – may well persuade you to take a gastronomic detour. Take it, and you’ll be rewarded with a bowl of pho that, if not quite on a par with the best in the area, certainly won’t make you regret the choice.

If the “Asian Bistro” in the restaurant’s name conjures up images of sleek contemporary lines and colorful glass light fixtures, think again. The decor at East Coast Asian Bistro is a stylistic goulash of classic Chinese silk prints and pizzeria-style red check tablecloths against a backdrop of oak fireplace mantels, rough pine plank walls, and banquettes fashioned from church pews inherited from Papa Mojo’s, the previous tenant. Echoing the quirky charm of the place is a Big Ben chime that sounds (at a mercifully soft level) every time someone opens the front door.

Still, to say that the atmosphere is a huge improvement over the previous location would be an understatement. More to the point, the restaurant’s prime attraction didn’t change with the move. It’s still all about the food.

This story was originally published October 1, 2015 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Dining review: Still all about the food at East Coast Asian Bistro."