Chowing down at Chew Man Chu

Finishing touches are being applied to Chew Man Chu, the pan-Asian restaurant opening on the ground-floor space formerly occupied by Du Jour in the Symphony House at Broad and Pine Streets.

Opening will be late next week. Marty Grims, who opened the Du Jour branch a little more than a year ago, told me that he envisions Chew Man Chu as a destination -- whereas Du Jour was more or less a default drop-in. The new concept is "good, honest, fresh, light food at a great price point."

By "great price point": check average will be about $25 a person.

Space will have a drinking bar and eating bar, and Buddakan-like house music. Management also will do curbside pickup on the Broad Street side.

While signage and decor pieces (such as the rice bowls for the wall behind the bar, a communal table, and light fixtures) are on their way, chef Tyson Wong Ophaso is working out in his kitchen, prepping the final menu.

The effervescent Ophaso, 37, is just as pan-Asian as the menu.

He identifies himself as a Laotian-born Thai whose mother, a retired college professor, is Thai and Chinese and father is of Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian ancestry. His father, a French-educated engineer for Shell Oil, uprooted the family frequently. When Ophaso was 14, he says, he resisted the family's planned return to Asia.

So he stayed in France.

Ophaso -- his chef's jacket reads "TW" and he answers to "Tyson Wong" -- says he went to work for Pierre Troisgros, the three-star Michelin chef,. who sent him to Lyon to study under Paul Bocuse. He says he wound up in New York under Daniel Boulud at Le Cirque, and then with Andre Soltner at Lutece, and then with Claude Troigros at CT Restaurant, followed by seven years at Jean Jacques Rachou's Le Cote Basque. In 2000, he opened Nong Restaurant and Spring Street Bakery, but closed both after 9/11. He cooked at Lotus and later opened Chinatown Brasserie. Two years ago, he took a job in L.A. as executive corporate chef for the Domaine Restaurant Group, which he says he grew to dislike (travel and administration). It landed him a challenge on Iron Chef America last year, where he competed against Masaharu Morimoto (secret ingredient: curry). Ophaso lost.

Grims found Ophaso cooking in New York, and auditioned him.

Grims is working to expand his restaurant empire, which includes the Moshulu, Du Jours in Commerce Square and Haverford Square, Daddy-O's, The Inlet, and Plantation on Long Beach Island, and the White Dog Cafe in West Philly. Construction just started on a second White Dog, in Wayne, and will start next year on another pan-Asian restaurant, in Commerce Square. Ophaso will cook there, too.

As for Ophaso, his work friends are named "Grizzly" and "Dragons 1, 2, and 3." Grizzly is a 48-inch steamer that turns out all manner of hot dishes, including rice. Dragons 1, 2, and 3 are 16-inch woks on which he fires most of his cooked-from-scratch-to-order menu.

He whipped up a few samples the other morning: crispy but not greasy scallion roti, savory steamed oxtail dumplings (which he serves in a soup bowl), luscious pork-belly buns, an appetizer called Burn Your Tongue (fried balls of ricotta and shrimp, tossed in a sweet-and-sour chili paste), chicken chow mein (served in an egg-roll wrapper cup, to be  broken up by the waiter at your table), and hot chocolate-and-vanilla-filled doughnuts, rolled in powdered sugar and honey.

Here's a draft of the menu.