Five years after opening Olivette bubble tea and dessert shop Share Sweet, Jennifer Chen and Horace Tang have expanded west to Chesterfield with Urban Kitchen by Share Sweet (17409 Chesterfield Airport Road, Suite C). With a grand opening scheduled for October 20, the restaurant is serving up traditional Chinese fare, including hot pots, along with myriad milk teas, bubble teas, smoothies, slushies, and bingsu (a Korean shaved ice dessert with sweet toppings).
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Chen and her husband, Horace Tang (whose parents owned the former Tang Palace in U. City), are currently offering four varieties of hot pots–Spicy Beef, Korean Kimchi, Japanese Miso, and Thai Tom Yum-and plan to introduce four more soon. “We went to California, and the lines for these hot pots are so long,” Chen says. “We don’t know why hardly anyone is doing them here.”
Likewise, with Urban Kitchen, the couple hope to fill what she perceives as a culinary void in the area. After moving to Chesterfield four years ago, Chen says, “If we wanted to find real Chinese food, we’d have to drive all the way back to U. City.” Now, with Urban Kitchen, they hope to solve that dilemma and expand the brand’s footprint and offerings. Tang says that customers add on the milk teas, bubble teas, smoothies, slushies, and bingsu, and notes “that they’re no longer novelty items in St. Louis, but some of the savory food we’re serving–like the hot pots–is. For us, that’s where the growth will be.”
Guests enter the pristine 40-seat shop and immediately encounter a self-order kiosk, an increasingly common tech gadget that’s both a convenience and labor saver. Appetizers include the usual suspects (edamame, crab rangoon, egg rolls, crispy potstickers, scallion pancakes, seaweed salad) with more to come, according to Horace.
While hot pots (cooked individually on tabletop propane stoves) are the signature item and the likely draw, other options include a dozen wok-cooked items, including Mapo Tofu, Salt and Pepper Pork, Sweet and Sour Fish Filet, and Seafood Bird’s Nest. Another menu section lists 10 soup, rice and, noodle dishes, including five kinds of fried rice and Vegetable Fried Noodle Soup.
Tang notes that the existing menu provides an adequate snapshot but is by no means complete. “We’re just getting started,” he says. “We haven’t even had the grand opening yet.”
