Anita Feng | Occupation: grocer chef

The catering and gourmet agriculture worlds are full of stories, reflections and solutions. Once a month, we give the floor to those who make up the richness and diversity of Quebec’s food trades.

Eve Dumas
The Press

At the end of January 2020, we attended one of Anita Feng’s farewell meals at the Denise restaurant, in Parc-Extension. The chef was about to fly to China. You can guess the rest… Two years later, almost to the day, Anita has still not returned to the country of her origins. She did not open a restaurant. Instead, she welcomes us to her pretty grocery counter in Little Italy, J’ai Feng.

First serve

“At the beginning of 2020, I wanted to go to China, continue to learn a lot of things and, when I came back, open a restaurant. But I never left, in the end. When we were told that we had to stay at home, like many others, I took the opportunity to do lots of things that I hadn’t had time to do when I worked at Candide, then at Denise . I’m not a workaholic by nature. I like that, chilling. And I was in no rush to move on to the next project. But at some point, I started to get bored. And there, I had to find things to do. I studied design and I really like renewing myself, finding new ideas, new concepts.

“During COVID, I’ve been forced to stay creative and I like that. I had done a lot of pop-ups before working at Denise, so I started over. One of the last I did, at Cul-Sec, allowed me to visit the space next door, where there was Monsieur Crémeux. I went to see him at least five times! At first, I really thought restaurant, restaurant, restaurant, but the place lent itself more or less. Then I asked myself: do I really have to open a restaurant? »

“What is the purpose of my approach, basically? For me, the main idea is to talk about Chinese cuisine. Either way, that’s what I want to do. »

“So I started to brainstorm and I said to myself that a grocery store would allow me to showcase China even more. In a restaurant, people often have lots of questions, but in the kitchen, we rush so much that we don’t have time to chat. I came to tell myself that in a restaurant, you talk more about yourself than about the kitchen, sometimes. »

second serve

“There was a time when I really had a mission. I always wondered why Chinese food was always perceived as something a little garroched. Couldn’t it be as elegant as Japanese cuisine or French cuisine? I wanted to defend this idea and prove that Chinese cuisine could also be refined. Here, for a long time, we mainly knew chop suey and General Tao. Before I said: “Ark! that’s not Chinese food!” But don’t go crazy. These dishes represent one of the many Chinese cuisines, the one that changed upon arriving in America. My recipes aren’t ultra-traditional either. These are traditional flavors and methods, but adapted to the taste of the day. Even in China, things are changing. And it’s never feasible to reproduce exactly. The ingredients are different, the climate is different, the water is different even. »

“Until recently, I had mainly explored Szechuan cuisine. But I’m not Sichuanese. I am Cantonese. So, I started wondering why I would express only that region. China is so vast and the cuisines communicate a lot with each other from one region to another. »

“Soybeans, black vinegar, sesame are everywhere in Chinese cuisine. Today, I am much less award-winning and a purist. »

Third serve

“At first, when I started talking about my grocery store idea, people were really surprised. “Oh yeah? Are you not opening a restaurant?” Even my boyfriend and my sister didn’t really understand. But in the context of COVID, it was a concept that really made sense. »

“And who knows what it will become over time? It is quite possible that the grocery store is ephemeral, that it is transformed. »

“The first weeks of J’ai Feng, people wanted to come and eat, make reservations for 10 people. They didn’t understand the concept. But I only have four seats at the counter for people who want to eat the hot dish of the week on the spot. When it’s possible ! Then, there are people who come in and go straight to the take-out fridge. The first few days, I was well, well motivated and I had prepared way too much food. I was used to the rhythm of the restoration. The rhythm here is very different.

“At the end of the day, people come for the grocery side. There are some who leave with five jars of my red oil, others who only want a soy sauce. With COVID, many people have started cooking at home and trying all kinds of things. I had the opportunity to take part in Marina Orsini’s show a few times, Five chefs in my kitchen, and it brings me customers. There are people who want to replicate the recipes, like last week’s mapo tofu. They come in and ask me, “What am I buying?” So, I would say that all went well. I am very lucky.

“As I wanted, there are a lot of exchanges with customers. We have made small descriptive sheets for each product, with their origin and examples of use. People take pictures of it and have fun at home. There are also customers who know Chinese cuisine very well and come to buy everything. Some even ask me to include this or that product that is less easy to find. Maybe during the summer, I’ll collaborate with friends who have vegetable farms, like Parcelles and Le Rizen, which grows Asian vegetables. It’s stimulating.

“In my life, it always seems like it’s when things are going badly that things come out. In college, I always did my assignments the night before, because I was more creative. I had to get something out. Once again, I had come to the end of something. I was wondering what I was going to do after my pop-ups, in the middle of COVID. Then it gave J’ai Feng! »