There’s a Chinese language dish referred to as laziji, typically referred to as dry chili hen, and my crush on it was set at Miss Shirley’s Chinese language Restaurant on Journal Avenue in New Orleans.
Bits of fried hen are combined with an absolute avalanche of toasted crimson chilies, together with heroic doses of garlic and ginger. The flavour builds progressively, with spice that’s not searing however tingling and evenly numbing as your palate takes this pulsing journey.
It’s a dish you by no means need to cease consuming, and one you retain interested by when you need to.
It’s on the specials board, and personally I’m rooting for it to make the common menu at Miss Shirley’s, as a result of I really like the flavour but additionally due to the way it represents a exceptional comeback story for this restaurant and the household behind it.
On the heart of this story is Shirley Lee, a charismatic whirlwind wrapped in a kitchen apron, who stands about as tall as a bar stool and runs her eating room with the vigor of somebody half her age.
Many individuals know Miss Shirley and her husband Tang from the many years they spent working Royal China restaurant in Metairie. It was a low-key establishment over there by Doriginac’s.
They offered that restaurant in 2021 with the concept to retire. However retirement didn’t take. They missed their previous life, and their clients. The Lees have been missed too, as a result of ever since Miss Shirley’s opened on Journal clients have been pouring again in.
The looks of laziji on the specials board isn’t a one-off. The Lees have been going deeper into their catalogue of Chinese language flavors on this second act, for snow pea dumplings and soup dumplings, clams with black bean sauce, spicy squid and paper shrimp ( significantly better than that identify sounds, belief me on this one).
It’s an excellent comeback for a beloved restaurant household, one which shines all of the brighter figuring out how tough the restaurant enterprise has grow to be by daunting occasions of infinite value will increase and compounding stresses. We’ve seen too many eating places shut.
At present, I’m thrilled to have the pleasures of this spicy Chinese language hen dish readily at hand. Actually although, the thrill I get from a meal at Miss Shirley’s goes method past the peppers.