Art Feast—Bamboo Asian Cuisine

Santa Fe, the capital city of New Mexico, is a premier tourist destination for the southwestern part of the United States. The city mingles the cultures of Spain, Mexico and indigenous Native Americans harmoniously. It is an ancient city known for its marvelous arts, fabulous adobe buildings and mouthwatering delicacies. But among all Santa Fe’s splendors, the one that will make you book your return flight is the scrumptious food at the Bamboo Asian Cuisine restaurant. The eatery is located at 2400 Cerrillos Rd., Santa Fe, New Mexico, on a bustling commercial boulevard, with an area of 6,000 square feet and the capacity to accommodate nearly 130 guests. Perhaps not the most famed attraction of Santa Fe, the restaurant is nevertheless a unique and inspirational destination.

The Décor

Taking the restaurant’s name to heart, Bamboo Asian Cuisine is adorned with bamboo decorations in many forms. The bamboo-screen corridors, which surround the establishment under the eaves, isolate the eating-house from the noisy road. In the main dining room, all the tables are adorned with a bamboo basin of water, inspired by the Chinese art of feng-shui.

Stepping inside the restaurant, you’ll stand face to face with a stone phoenix placed by the entrance, vividly welcoming you. While walking inside, in the right corner you will notice a breathtaking sleeping buddha made of stone embedded in the wall. In front of the statue sits a cobblestone pool where a school of carp wanders about the rockery and water bamboo. The natural settings are intended to create a relaxing and soothing atmosphere. Being greatly inspired by the artistic atmosphere of Santa Fe, the owner, Kevin Zheng, beautifies his establishment with an aim of adding some modern elements to traditional Chinese culture. For example, in one corner of the establishment stands an irregularly shaped shelf that displays various kinds of pots and jars from different historical periods. Similarly historical traditional dresses from the Tang Dynasty are hung in frames on one wall, and the display of calligraphy carved into a shoot of bamboo could not be more Chinese. A huge polished granite table is set in the middle of the dining hall and is the social and decorative center of the restaurant.

There are some journeys that must be made by yourself. Kevin Zheng moved in America by himself twenty years ago. In order to survive the rough times he faced, Kevin had to work long hours as a busboy, dishwasher, and assistant to the chef. This period of working experience laid a solid foundation for his future career. Kevin affirms, “those days have hammered my character of enduring hardships and conquering obstacles. This ability is the key point for the friends of my generation to get somewhere. Unfortunately, I can’t find it in the young generation.” When the first restaurant was established seven or eight years ago, the Zheng family, including his wife and son, always worked overtime after all the staff had left for the day. Eventually, their work paid off and the café of 3000 square feet was no longer able to accommodate the masses of enthusiastic customers. As a result, Kevin launched this new, larger Bamboo Asian Cuisine restaurant to replace the former one.

With several years of business experience under his belt, Kevin believes in serving diners sincerely and treating employees generously. Some diners come so frequently, they don’t even have to read the menu, and Kevin can present them with their expected favorites. Such kind of familiarity is formed not in a single day. Like his customers, Kevin treats employees like his family members.

After so many years of operation, Kevin has found a secret for spreading Chinese culture, promoting the restaurant and maintaining the clients at the same time. His secret: a free feast on Chinese New Year’s Eve, to which Kevin invites his old customers and friends to celebrate this traditional Chinese festival. In this way, the restaurant will work as a bridge to connect Chinese culture with American culture. Such an event is often covered by the local media and gains the restaurant considerable publicity. Kevin generously shares this secret to all his friends and relatives who are involved in the restaurant business, and when they take his advice they find that it benefits their business.

In Focus

In Santa Fe, whenever Bamboo Asian Cuisine is mentioned, its Mongolian BBQ dishes never fail to receive praise from its diners. The guests are allowed to choose all of their favorite meats, vegetables and sauces at the Mongolian buffet section, then they hand their choices over to the cook. All the ingredients in this dining-house are fresh and under no circumstances will the chefs use canned food. The joy of creating food to one’s own taste ensures that the BBQ is perennially popular.

Along with common dishes like General Tso’s Chicken, Sesame Chicken and Sweet & Sour Chicken, Kevin strongly recommends House Special Ginger Shrimp to first-time customers. The shrimp is first mixed with potato starch and egg, and then fried. Egg, onions, and ginger are stir-fried together, adding a little salt, soy beans, sauce and cooking wine. The last step is to garnish a circle of baby bok choy along the plate. The best part of the Ginger Shrimp? It’s healthy! The dish not only provides diners with rich protein from the shrimp, but plenty of vitamin C and other nutritional elements from the baby bok choy.

Another innovation that Kevin has pioneered is the Hong Kong Noodles, and this unique noodle dish has won countless compliments from its fans. The slim egg-based noodles are boiled first, and then fried with stirred egg, vegetables, and five different sauces. After that, the chefs fritter the chicken, beef, shrimp and winter mushroom together, and this blend will be dry-fried with scallion and onion, and dotted with some green beans and adzuki beans. Finally, this concoction is combined with the noodles. This colorful and mouthwatering dish will make even the pickiest food critic lick his chops.

While the food is exceptional, the staff members are worthy purveyors and inventors themselves. Kevin now keeps seventeen or eighteen employees bustling about the dining hall and the kitchen. Kevin maintains a diverse staff of both American and Chinese employees, each having their own strengths and weaknesses. In order to balance their advantages, Kevin applies flexible strategies in organization to provide the best service to every customer. Taking language skills and communication into consideration, he deploys American employees on phone duty so they can write down orders accurately, and finds American waiting staffers are strongest at serving the dinnertime guests. Meanwhile, Kevin deploys his Chinese employees in a busing capacity during dinner and a serving capacity during lunch hours.

While tracing the history of his restaurant, Kevin smiled and said: “I’m most proud of my customers telling me face to face that my offerings are delicious and my restaurant’s decoration is extraordinary beautiful.” He also appreciates his old customers for their persistent business through all these years. Not only has the food ingratiated his restaurant into the community, but Kevin has already integrated his family into the community harmoniously. He often donates coupons to local schools and churches, and in return, his business grows bigger and bigger. Just like its bamboo namesake.