EMei remains one of Chinatown’s best restaurants as the neighborhood faces uncertainty

On a busy night at EMei, so many whole fish roll into this contemporary dining room, where robot-driven carts weave around its port hole-pierced walls to big tables brimming with international students, that you’d never know that Chinatown has been in turmoil.

The plump sea bass here cooked by chef Yongcheng Zhao, crisped into the popular “squirrel fish” whose deep-fried fillets are crosshatched like pine cones beneath sweet and sour sauce, or steaming in pans of crimson “spicy sauce” beneath fistfuls of chilies and cilantro, focus diners completely on a Szechuan feast with few peers in Philly.

With a dozen other dishes on the table, from shredded beef with peppers to wok-blistered string beans, wood ear mushrooms, crispy coils of fried squid, and a bowl of mapo tofu cubes dusted with so much freshly ground Szechuan peppercorns it tickles my nose as I approach, this meal is an immersive pleasure that easily distracts from the challenges lingering just outside EMei’s Arch Street door.

Chinatown has been under exceptional duress for the past couple years, from the hateful wave of anti-Asian sentiment that shadowed this neighborhood from the outset of the pandemic, to the early citywide dining room closures that impacted its 75 largely destination restaurants, to the exodus of many skilled Chinese staffers who left the city in the face of uncertainty. The lack of daytime foot traffic from half-empty offices nearby has reduced business, too.

Now comes another major threat: a new 76ers arena proposal to replace the neighboring Fashion District shopping center. Depending upon whom you ask, an arena could be a revival engine for Market East or an “existential threat” for Chinatown, a neighborhood that’s faced so many challenges in its 150 years.

“There can be a crisis for Chinatown, but there can also be an opportunity — we really don’t know yet,” says Dan Tsao, who co-owns EMei with wife, Tingting Wan, who founded the restaurant with her mother, Jinwen Yu, 11 years ago.

Tsao, also publisher of the Chinese language Metro Chinese Weekly and its WeChat PhillyGuide account, has become a central figure in coordinating Chinatown’s 40-some associations into a committee to negotiate with the Sixers. Tsao has chosen to remain neutral and let his media platforms be a forum for dialogue.

But as we pondered the possible ripple effects of a new arena, including skyrocketing real estate costs that will ultimately favor chains over independents, it becomes easy to imagine losing Dim Sum Garden to a Chipotle.

I happen to be a devoted Sixers fan who also wants to see Market East thrive. The Sixers say they promise they will build “ethically and equitably.” But will it be sustainable? I’m a skeptic. Arenas come and go every 30 years. But Chinatown is irreplaceable, a still-vital legacy from 19th-century Philadelphia thriving at the city’s geographical heart that is one of the last remaining enclaves of its kind anywhere in America. Its demise would be a tragedy for everyone.

And EMei’s sustained success as one of Chinatown’s best restaurants shows just how relevant this neighborhood remains. Tsao and Wan were right on point in dramatically transforming their dated dining room in late 2019 into a crisp, modern space that can attract the well-to-do international students that now make up 30-50% of its business. The same population has pushed the entire neighborhood over the last decade to evolve from its Cantonese roots to include other regions like Szechuan, Shanghai, Taiwan, and Xi’an, as was well as other cuisines.

When the pandemic struck, the ever-entrepreneurial Tsao created RiceVan to repurpose sidelined staffers from his media business to regularly shuttle food from EMei and 30 other Chinatown restaurants to 4,500 predominantly Asian customers in the suburbs.

Delivery has waned as suburban customers have returned to Chinatown, and this month Tsao put RiceVan on pause. But the takeout operation remains so robust EMei has two employees dedicated to packing orders, and revenues have rebounded to beyond pre-pandemic levels. A continued staff shortage explains the recent appearance of the food-running robots (”Little White” and “Little Yellow”) which allow servers to spend more time on the dining room floor. (Tsao is now Pennsylvania’s exclusive distributor for these machines.)

The kitchen staff has withstood its own attrition by promoting from within, including Honduran-born Andres Aleman, a longtime former dishwasher trained by Zhao to be a chao guo (wok chef). They produce dozens of intricate dishes, balancing not only Szechuan’s famous numbing spice, but also the myriad textures, temperatures, and precision knifework that are the hallmarks of a well-tuned kitchen.

Just look at the perfectly uniform threads of shredded beef whose oyster sauce-sweetened meat tenderly yields against snappy green ribbons of spicy long hot peppers. Or the intricate diamond cuts that help keep the meaty tubes of salt-and-pepper fried squid so tender.

The steady presence of Zhao in EMei’s kitchen since its founding in 2011 represents rare longevity for a non-owner in Chinatown and speaks to the remarkable consistency. Zhao is one of Philadelphia’s great unsung chefs, with over half a century of experience in his 69 years. The unwavering excellence of a feast prepared by his crew in his absence on my recent visit is a testament to his leadership.

The silkiness of the diced soft tofu and ground beef in West Lake beef soup (from Tsao’s home coastal province of Zhejiang) sparkled with white pepper, fragrant sesame oil, and the herbal burst of fresh cilantro. The anise blaze of chili oil and peppercorns lit the vivid orange crusts of perfectly fried shrimp, the crustacean counterpart to the Chongqing diced chicken tossed with dried chilies that’s a nod to Wan’s home region. The delicate snap of cold tripe and beef salad, fu qi fei pian, was as much about contrasting textures as it was the punchy marinade, while the tang of sesame noodles offered a cooling balm with just enough sesame cling for its sauce to coat the lips.

There’s a reason EMei’s cucumber salad delivers a resonant crunch — each cuke is cut to order before it’s tossed with the layered savor of lightly fried scallions and smashed raw garlic, a no-shortcuts ethos that extends to the fresh scallion pancakes and dumplings, items often outsourced as a time-saver in other restaurants. The vinegar-tanged wood ear mushrooms are also all about the crunch, and so are the “fish buckles,” a cup-shaped round of cartilage retrieved from the gullets of larger fish whose snap amplifies the stir-fried heat of tiny peppers.

The spicy dishes are especially popular with younger crowds, but Wan notes that Szechuan cuisine is more dynamic than just the unbridled fire and numbing peppercorns. You taste that subtlety in the popular squirrel fish, whose sweet-and-sour sauce carries a soft noticeable back note of spice. I taste it in the measured heat of the kung pao and its milder cashew variation. It’s evident in the sour ping of mustard greens that poke through the savory pork crumbles and sesame paste of dan dan noodles. .

No EMei dish, though, exemplifies the spirit of this kitchen quite like Zhao’s mapo tofu. Philly’s best rendition of the classic dish deftly melds both the boldest and most nuanced traits of Szechuan cooking into one magnetic tureen. The flame red pool of hot and numbing “mala” broth bobs with silken cubes of mildness punctuated by crisply fried pork crumbles, a radiant dusting of fresh ground peppercorns, and an unexpected undertow of sweetness from bean paste, fresh ginger, and just enough cornstarch to make it cling.

It’s so good I ate it as leftovers for days. But I wonder if it could be a hit with future Sixers fans on their way to a game, along with Chinatown’s other wonders? I hope we never get to find out.

915 Arch St., 215-627-2500; emeiphilly.com

Entire menu served Sunday to Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, until 10 p.m.

Entrees, $13.95-$35.95 (whole sea bass)