Chu Mai, the new restaurant by Chef Billy Ngo, excites on every level. The space pops, the dishes wow. With casual dining and take-out dominating restaurant openings these days, this elegant spot stands out.
Ngo is a force with three award-winning Japanese restaurants: KRU Contemporary, Kodaiko Ramen & Bar and Fish Face Poke Bar. Ngo’s lineage, however, is Vietnamese and Chinese. Chu Mai celebrates that lineage. It celebrates Ngo’s mother and the Asian American culinary experience.
Located at 17th and S streets, the restaurant is all windows from the outside. As part of the new ARY Place building, the space feels fresh and inventive. It looks like a major metropolitan dining destination rather than just another restaurant in a corner of Midtown.
The ceilings are high with artwork on every available surface. Scenes that startle and soothe. Portraits of the chef’s mother next to images of Koi fish floating in space.
Tables are well spaced, trading between high-backed booths and four-tops. The small but elegant bar seems almost unobtainable in its modernity. This is one of the most striking eating spaces in town.
The menu extends Ngo’s ambitions. From the whole fried snapper to the egg salad, every dish is an artistic delight.
The snapper comes beautifully crisp in a bent articulation as if turning to check for predators. Surrounded by a pungent slaw and swimming in one of the finest green curry sauces I’ve experienced, it’s a perfect friends-and-family dish.
Diners use spoons, chopsticks and fingers to collect every bit of flaky white fish. Your hands will be redolent of fish and curry. You’ll love every bite.
The egg salad is a challenge, gorgeous to look at, intimidating to eat. A bed of steamed egg props up a funky century egg, marinated quail egg, trout row and generous dose of chili crisp. The flavors are intense, the textures unexpected. This plate has everyone at the table looking at each other with puzzlement as they dive in for more.
The finest bite I experienced at Chu Mai was a crispy rice cake topped with beef tartare and cilantro. The rice was crispy and chewy, salty and nutty—a perfect accompaniment to an intensely flavored tartare. The flavors spoke to a mastery of seasoning. I will be back often for this dish.
The bar is as creative and elegant as the food from the kitchen. A seasonal approach to cocktails brings an array of ingredients. And the focus on Asian ingredients rarely found in mixology is exciting. Lemongrass, Thai chili, fish sauce and MSG turn up in fascinating drinks.
It’s heartening to see a new restaurant that plays with the traditional and the modern, the elegant and the rebellious. Chu Mai is a special place that deserves special recognition. Ngo and his team should be proud of their creation. I’m looking forward to enjoying it for years to come.
Chu Mai is at 1829 17th St.; (916) 553-7096; chumaisacramento.com.
Greg Sabin can be reached at saceats@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
