Michelle and Wong in Hamburg-Langenhorn

Some friendships begin at the till. This one began with a black scooter, with rose gold, and with a question I only thought to ask while she was paying.

The woman on the black scooter

It was during the pandemic. A woman pulled up outside my shop on a black scooter, came in, and knew exactly what she was looking for: something in rose gold. Not just anything. It had to be rose gold. We searched, she chose, and it was only at the till that I asked her what she did for a living. She told me she had a Chinese restaurant.

That landed well with me. Chris and I had just lost our Chinese local, the Happy Garden in Winterhude, which had closed, and we had been looking for a replacement ever since without any luck. So we drove out the very next day, to Langenhorner Chaussee 131. I had passed that building many times before. I probably would never have walked in on my own.

Michelle had remembered my name. She greeted me with it as though we had been expecting each other for weeks. It made such an impression on me that I still tell the story. Anyone who has ever stood behind a counter knows how rare that is.

Michelle is the heart of Wong

With guests, Michelle is a force. She remembers people and she remembers what they like. She knows who will not touch coriander and who ordered the sesame ice cream last time. She listens to what you want, she makes suggestions, and she loves to surprise you. Good service matters enormously to her, and you can feel it at every table, including the ones she is not standing at.

She runs Wong together with her business partner Trong. For my story, though, Michelle is the one who matters, because she is the person through whom I came to know the place, and through whom I still experience it today.

Two menus, and I always take the Chinese one

There are two menus at Wong, a German one and a Chinese one. I like to let Michelle recommend something from the Chinese side. That is how I have come to know dishes I would probably never have ordered myself. One thing struck me on that very first visit: Chinese guests eat here regularly. For me, that was a good sign from the start.

What you see on the plate

There is one thing you notice again and again at Wong: the handwork. Vegetables are finely cut and shaped, dim sum arrive at the table in different colours, and even the smallest starters are arranged with real care.

The tuna arrives in a cloud

What matters more to me, though, is something else: at Michelle’s, things happen at the table. The tuna sashimi is the finest example. It comes on a glass plate set over dry ice, layered with cucumber and mango, with a sprig on top and a small bird perched on it. Water is poured on at the table, and in that same moment the whole table disappears into a white cloud that spills over the edge and sinks slowly to the floor. Until the smoke clears, nobody says a word.

It is not the only thing of its kind. There is the hot black stone, where the food keeps cooking while you have already started, and there is the Chinese hot pot, where everyone cooks for themselves. A plate is rarely just set down in front of you here.

Michelle’s birthday: hot pot at one long table

I was invited to Wong for Michelle’s birthday. There was Chinese hot pot, and everyone sat together at one table. Gas burners with pots stood down the middle. Raw prawns and salmon lay on silver platters, next to them wafer-thin beef, chicken, fish balls, spinach and salad. On a wooden board there were hand-pulled noodles, and a small golden sieve for lifting your own portion out of the pot.

That evening I saw Chinese cooking from an entirely different side: everyone together at one long table, each person cooking their own portion, and everything shared. For me it was a different and far more authentic side of Chinese food than the one I had known until then.

And once, the bowling lanes downstairs

That is a different birthday story, and it belongs to my daughter. She celebrated hers at Wong as well, and the restaurant’s own bowling lanes downstairs were exactly right for it. Dinner and then bowling is not something you would ever guess from the outside of this building. Which is precisely why it works: eat upstairs, bowl downstairs, and nobody has to break up the evening to move on.

Michelle has cooked at our house too

This is the part I would have expected least. Michelle once cooked for our guests at our home in Hamburg. She arrived with her slate boards, with radishes she had cut into small flowers, with pickled ginger, mint and fans of cucumber that she laid out in circles on the slate.

And then she stood at our grill. Our guests were thrilled. Not politely thrilled, but thrilled in the way that means nothing else gets talked about for the rest of the evening.

Just how personal all of this has become showed on one of my birthdays. Michelle simply appeared at our front door. Not with a small present, but with a complete menu she had prepared for me. I had not seen it coming at all. That is not something you forget.

The things you do not see coming

There are a few dishes at Wong I had never come across anywhere else. Korean chicken with a waffle and walnut ice cream, for instance. It is not a dessert, it is a whole dish: savoury and sweet on one plate, and it works surprisingly well.

When it comes to dessert, there are three I come back to. The black sesame ice cream tastes toasted and nowhere near as sweet as it looks. Beside it there is often a second, paler scoop: yuzu, made with the Japanese citrus fruit, sharp and floral, served with a macaron. Those two scoops next to each other are the picture I carry of Wong.

And then there is pandan with coconut. Pandan is a leaf from Southeast Asia; it turns things green and tastes of vanilla and freshly cut grass. Michelle serves it in layers, green and white, cleanly sliced, and on other evenings turned out in the shape of flowers, each piece on its own small plate.

Hong Kong, Australia, and an evening in Winterhude

Michelle brings something back from every trip to Hong Kong and Australia, and from her family. Not as a souvenir, but as an idea. A dessert she ate there. A way of colouring dough. A dish nobody here has heard of. On my next visit it is suddenly on the table, and I am curious every time to see what she has come up with.

These days Michelle and I sometimes go and try new restaurants together. Once we went to a Chinese restaurant in Winterhude. Michelle had chosen the dishes, and I still came away disappointed. It took that comparison to remind me what I find so special about Wong.

If you go

Restaurant Wong, Langenhorner Chaussee 131, 22415 Hamburg-Langenhorn, telephone 040 5317260. Monday to Friday from 12 to 3pm and from 5 to 10pm, Saturdays and Sundays straight through from 12 to 10pm. The kitchen closes at 2.45pm at lunchtime and at 9.45pm in the evening. Monday to Saturday there is a lunch menu between 12 and 3pm. The cooking is Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese. Everything else is on wong-restaurant.de.

The bowling lanes can be booked by the hour for up to fifteen people, with your own indoor shoes with pale soles. And my advice: ask Michelle what she would recommend. Then something will arrive at your table that is not on the German menu.

The woman on the black scooter, who came into my shop during the pandemic determined to find something in rose gold, has become my friend Michelle. Which is why Wong has long been far more to me than a restaurant tip.

Warm wishes from Hamburg
Trixi