Culinary pioneer Susanna Foo helped bring gourmet Chinese food to America and is once again making her mark in Philadelphia with her son, Gabriel, and their latest restaurant, SuGa by Foo, 1720 Sansom St.
Foo originally made her mark on the Philadelphia culinary scene with her popular eponymous Walnut Street restaurant. But after running it for 22 years, she needed a break from the business and closed in 2009. Now Foo is back, and from the looks of things, she hasn’t missed a step.
The interior of SuGa by Foo is modern, mysterious and a bit stunning. It’s easy to see why this restaurant easily converts into a nightspot with a dance floor on the weekends.
The menu is another pleasant surprise, offering various Chinese traditions with some global twists to keep things interesting.
If you want to start off your meal with something familiar yet adventurous, order the dumpling sampler for two ($22), which serves up an array of the popular appetizer in varieties like vegetable, pork, lamb and shrimp. The stylistic standouts among the pack are the chicken curry dumpling, which has a heartier feel akin to a small empanada, and the wild-mushroom dumpling, which has the most distinctive and least traditional — but still very interesting — flavor profile on the menu.
Other influences start to pop up on SuGA’s small-plates menu, if only in a departure of look and feel. The yellowfin tuna taco ($10) features the best sushi-grade tuna in the city, piled high in a crispy wonton taco shell with avocado, jalapeño and a chili soy glaze. The effect is a crispy, cool, spicy, silky playground of taste and texture that is so enjoyable, you’ll wish you had ordered a half-dozen of them. The goat-cheese wonton ($15), which we were told was from the Mongolian side of the Chinese culinary spectrum, was a clear standout. We can see why it has become a house favorite.
We then plunged into some of SuGa’s spicier dishes. The Szechwan chili prawns were massive and well-cooked with a glaze on the sweet side of the spice game, but altogether pleasant, served on a bed of red rice and bok choy. The buckwheat Dan Dan noodles ($13) were a bit more assertive, with saki-poached calamari and a Dashi broth adding a delightful, well-rounded kick to the hearty earthiness of the noodles.
The food at SuGa by Foo more than lives up to the reputation of the critically acclaimed, award-winning chef and innovator for which it is named.