First Look: Cate Zone Chinese Cafe in University City

The restaurant’s name, in Chinese, Shu Du Kong Jian, means… Okay, not easy but let’s go with “A place of dimensions in eating.” In English, it’s called Cate Zone Café. Which means?

“I think we got it wrong,” the owner admits. “We thought “Cate” means something like “delicious” in English.”

But, by the time they’d discovered the mistake, there was the restaurant’s sign already made and erected and all those t-shirts for the servers, one of whom joked that Cate was his former girlfriend...

Doesn’t matter. The most exciting developments in the local restaurant scene continue to be the opening of Chinese restaurants featuring authentic regional cuisines. More than half a dozen alone are found along the stretch of Olive Boulevard just east of I-170. Cate Zone Café is among the newest and while it might be among the oddest-named, it is outstanding, presenting some of the classics of the cuisine of China’s Dongbei region.

Dongbei is China’s northeast corner. The region that shoulders up against Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea, along the same latitude as Saskatoon and other places with, shall we say, attenuated swimming seasons. It’s cold much of the year. Really cold. Cold enough the Manchu warriors (its old name was Manchuria) got sick of the place and invaded the south, creating the Qing Dynasty in the mid-17^th century, mostly just to warm up. It’s the kind of cold that can be addressed properly with the sorts of thick and rich stews, the luxuriously caloric dishes that typify Dongbei cuisine.

The frozen winds that whipcrack down from Siberia into the provinces of Dongbei aren’t all that different from those we get from the Canadian Arctic here in St. Louis that make winters the non-stop fashion show of fleece and fur, parka, and padded jackets.  The fare at the Cate Zone is the perfect, steamy antidote.

There are a few non-regional dishes on the menu, apparently to appeal to diners who might be unfamiliar with Dongbei’s food. Salt and pepper squid. Yang zhou fried rice. Szechuan spicy shrimp. Forget them; there are dozens of other places in town with these on their menus. You are here for some of the specialties of Dongbei which are authentically, delightfully prepared.

Like Chinese Sour Cabbage with Pork Belly (pictured above). The menu’s reasonably well-translated but as with many of the dishes, this one doesn’t convey the down-home comfort of a soupy stew that captures much of the flavor of Dongbei. Suan cai is literally “sour cabbage;” you can find varieties of it—essentially it’s like a very mild sauerkraut—all over China. But in the northeast, the preparation is exacting, time-consuming. Often Chinese restaurants in the West that prepare their suan cai use a prepackaged recipe that’s added to chopped napa cabbage. Here they’re using the real thing, painstakingly made. It’s delicate, just slightly sour, finely shredded in a rich soy sauce and oil broth with fragrant slabs of fatty roasted pork belly and emerald leaves of bok choy and quartered potatoes (rice doesn’t grow well as far north; potatoes are a common element in Dongbei dishes) with slender glass noodles that soak up the broth in a satisfying way.

Another regional classic, equally homey and heartwarming is the Chicken and Mushroom Soup (pictured above). Nitpickers will notice the lack of zhenmo, a wild mushroom from the northeast forests that grows only on hazel trees and which is a fundamental ingredient in the soup. Instead, they use mo-er, gelatinous “wood ears” minced finely that make a perfectly palatable substitute. The soup is a powerfully concentrated, chickeny broth spiced with rice wine that sings with a whole melody of those mushrooms, along with star anise, peppercorns, green onions, and ginger. The chopped chicken and little, tofu-like cubes of pressed pork blood with their mineral tang add the body, along with glass noodles made of sweet potato starch. Noodles are very difficult to eat, with chopsticks or a fork or even with a spoon. Which is supposedly on purpose with this dish.

Chicken and Mushroom Soup is traditionally served to a new groom on the third day after a wedding in Dongbei, by his in-laws. It puts him on the spot. He will almost certainly look like a klutz, fishing the long, very slippery noodles from his bowl, embarrassing himself and enforcing the sort of humility that in-laws like in a newcomer to the family.

Dongbei kitchens are famous for massive portions. They get that right here, too, with dishes arriving to the table in heavy ceramic Japanese donabe pots that hold in all the heat beautifully. A serving of sliced ribeye with jinzhengu or “golden needle mushrooms” (pictured above) is easily big enough for two, with leftovers. The broth is garlicky, deep brown with soy sauce, redolent of five spice power and—unusual in most other Chinese regional cuisines— a touch of curry. The ribeye should have been a touch fattier, the only concession we tasted in this remarkable dish. The mushrooms (at right) add much, threadlike little fingers with tiny button tops better known by their Japanese name, enokitake, or the English, enoki.

Chitterlings are deep-fried so the outside is crispy, the interior pungent and tender, then added to wheat noodles with braised bok choy in a glossy, soy sauce-based broth (pictured below).

An appetizer not to be missed are chilled noodles (pictured below), with slivered cucumber, cabbage, nibbles of pork, carrots, and mushrooms, all tossed with a sesame seed sauce for dipping. (Don’t dip. Dump the sauce all over the dish and give it a stir.) The noodles are broad, flat, pleasantly chewy, particularly when they’re coated with that lovely sauce.

Xinjiang lamb is actually a dish with origins on the other side of northern China, brought to Dongbei where it has become a specialty; the spices, cumin, chili powder, and white pepper reflect, along with the lamb, the Muslim influences on food of the region. Made with ribs here, this is the same preparation used for the street side stands peddling skewers of meat,  a mandatory stopping place in Dongbei for all food-travel shows so the hosts can flaunt their identification with the little people.

The inspiration for Cate Zone Café began with a pair of owners who sought to capitalize on the number of Chinese university students with appetites for home here, a strategy of several other of the recent spate of more authentically-oriented Chinese places in town. The location was, until recently, J&W Bakery, a Hong Kong style bakery and snack bar. The interior has been completely reworked; it’s pleasant and inviting, completely devoid of nearly any “Oriental” décor. There is a chalked signboard with specials, all in Chinese. Aside from that, it looks so much like a sort of little boutique diner you wonder at first if you’re in the right place. Then you’ll notice, if you’re there much past 11:30 or again much past 5:00, the tables filled with Chinese diners. As with Tai Ke, just down the street to the west, featuring Taiwanese food, Cate Zone is still filled primarily with customers whose first language isn’t English. And as with Tai Ke, expect more and more serious non-Asian diners to become regulars. The food and the surprisingly affordable prices are just too good.

And about that sign on the wall in front of the restrooms, all in Chinese except for the single question, “Why are you so diao?” Diao is “cocky” or “self-satisfied.” All the other stuff is about how someone has recently had all kinds of good fortune with their stocks and promotions and stuff and the answer to the question is “Try this place and you’ll see.”

Yeah, it doesn’t translate gracefully and it’s a reminder that for many of us, eating in a restaurant like this is a bit like being in a foreign country and there are subtleties that are difficult to see—or taste.

The characters for what’s rendered as “Chicken with Mushrooms in Chicken Soup” in English, for instance, convey something entirely different in Chinese. They refer to a small, young chicken, tender, and with the connotation of freshness that, in fact, is instantly noticeable with your first bite.

The Chinese characters for the place, Shu Du Kung Jian, so awkward to put into English, have an unmistakable connotation in their original of hip and fashionable that defy translation.

And we couldn’t understand when a waitress and a whole table she was serving started laughing when they addressed her as “Cuihua,” a common female name and somebody had to explain that a few years ago a pop song about Dongbei came out with the catchy phrase, “Cuihua, shang suan cai”—“Cuihua, serve the pickled cabbage,” and so the name’s become synonymous with “waitress” in the region. (You can listen to the song here: Nice beat; hard to dance to.)

There are those things that are just difficult to turn into familiar idioms and meanings. As the owners of “Cate Zone Chinese Café” can surely tell you. There are other matters, however, that rise above the need for translation. Like those succulent broths, tasty noodles, the tendrils of aromas that spin up off the bowls on the table here. They might benefit from some explanations, but they certainly don’t need much to be enjoyed. A frigid evening in Harbin or Shenyang isn’t all that different from on here in St. Louis. And it’s doubtful anyone there will leave a restaurant on one of those wickedly cold nights any more satisfied than you will be with this absolutely Catelicious new eatery.