Disney's new character

Chef Alan Wong has jumped into Shanghai Disneyland with the same enthusiasm he brings every day to the kitchen, Mike Peters discovers.

Months after securing the deal and weeks after opening his Hatsune restaurant at Shanghai Disneyland, chef-owner Alan Wong still lights up with a huge smile at the thought of it.

"I'm a big Disney freak," laughs the California native who grew up in Sacramento. "Listen, I can sing all the songs."

Hatsune founder Alan Wong couldn't be happier to have won a place at Shanghai Disneyland. Photos Provided to China Daily

Wong always finds the fun in anything he does - the man calls his top-flight kitchen equipment "my toys" - but if he was really planning to burst into song, the moment passes.

A waiter arrives with a platter of oysters, and Wong reaches for it eagerly. The food is an experiment, part of an imminent new menu at his upscale Haiku restaurant at Beijing's Chaoyang Park. Things get momentarily quiet as we slurp French Fin De Claire, each one bathed in a light beef broth and topped with black caviar and a roasted garlic chip.

"That's amazing," I say.

"That works," he says, nodding and grinning.

Having just created a menu for his Disneyland eatery, he's now ready to shake things up on the menus of his established restaurants - eight in Beijing and now six in Shanghai.

Why?

"I'm bored," he says. "I want to do some fun stuff. Funny stuff. And I have some new toys."

His favorite "toy" at the moment is a high-tech, high-temperature steak griller, a device that's been popping up lately in top Beijing kitchens. He's bought one for most of his restaurants, and he'll use it for a new beef roll and "firecracker chicken", a spicy bird that slow-braised for 10 hours before a quick finish on the hot-hot grill. He's making plans for new sushi rolls, too: "I just came up with two of them today."

After developing so many restaurants, does he fear he'll run out of ideas one day?

He looks startled by the idea.

"Man, I dream about food," he says. "Plus, I'm always around creative people who are doing different things and having fun with food. Some of us are on chat groups that are really nothing but food porn photos. Inspiration is all around."

Transplanting to Disney

You'd think inspiration was ready at hand at Disneyland, but that didn't mean his restaurant became Never-Never Land. There are no Snow White lookalikes dancing from table to table with platters of California roll.

"That's not what they - or I - wanted at all," he says. "The food courts inside the park are Disney-themed, and that's the right place for it. Our restaurant is just outside the park in "Disney Downtown", and the goal was to make it look and feel like Hatsune, not Disney.

The only requirement from Disney was to put some items on the menu that were exclusive to that site. Wong came up with an Iberian pork dish and a roasted crab leg with spicy aioli.

"Our other Hatsune restaurants have a per-person spend of 200-250 yuan," he says, "and we wanted to keep the Disney restaurant at the same price level.

There were "a few hundred" restaurants competing for the 18 restaurant slots, and only one would be Japanese.

"Hatsune has always been about California sushi - we have never aimed to be a traditional restaurant for a Japanese audience," he says. Disney apparently saw the concept as very approachable for its audience.

Since he arrived in Beijing 15 years ago, Wong has become one of China's most successful foreign restaurateurs, introducing tens of thousands of diners to his brand of California-style sushi. With the opening at Shanghai Disneyland, he estimates his workforce will grow to nearly 800 employees.

"It is pretty crazy," Wong recently said in an interview with his hometown Sacramento Bee. "Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say, 'What are you doing? How are you managing all these people?'"

Wong, now 40, told the California newspaper that he still loves the energy and bustle of Beijing, but he still has a soft spot for Sacramento.

"I miss people walking by you and saying, 'Hey, how's it going?' I miss the air," he said in the March interview.

Arrival in Beijing

His timing in China was good - he arrived in Beijing in 2001, when the city's restaurant scene was just taking off.

"I saw something missing right away - the sushi I grew up eating in Sacramento restaurants" he says. "So we were the first restaurant here to be serving spicy tuna rolls and California rolls. Now we are the most copied restaurant in Beijing."

He pays close attention to detail when visiting one of his restaurants, but he says no one in his kitchens will panic when the boss shows up to chat about food and service. Wong's big grin has become familiar to thousands of local diners, and that personal touch is one reason readers of the Beijinger magazine have named Hatsune the city's best Japanese restaurant for the 13th year in a row. They also named Wong "restaurant personality of the year."

Wong himself is always eager to reach across cultures.

When asked to name something interesting he's seen on the food scene lately, his face becomes slightly dreamy.

"You won't believe - imagine this: Foie gras, with some cotton candy fluff wrapped around it. It might sound weird, but it was good."

That may be what got Wong experimenting with his miso soup - the version he's planning to add to his Haiku menu arrives at the table in a coffee cup, frothy thanks to the savory addition of foie gras. (It's good.)

Wong's sense of adventure continues after working hours. He grew up a competitive snowboarder, and he still races his motorcycle - in fact he's heading to the US state of Texas in Austin this week to compete at a racetrack there.

"I've quit playing golf," he says. "I get busy for a few months with my restaurant and I've lost a few strokes. But I can get on my snowboard or my bike and be right back at the level I was.

"If you can't do something at your best level," he says, "I don't really want to do it."

Contact the writer at michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 08/09/2016 page9)