Shun Li Chen Seeks to Bring "Quality" Chinese to Boston

In a city full of late-night crab Rangoon and General Gao's chicken, Shun Li Chen thinks there's still room for some really good Chinese.

"I think, in Boston, we need quality Chinese food," the 33-year-old dishwasher-turned-restaurateur said.

Last winter, Chen closed down Jae's Grill – a Beacon Street Asian-fusion restaurant in which he owned a stake – stripped many of the Thai and Korean dishes off the menu, tore out the upholstery and re-opened two months later under the name Buddha Chen.

Chen, a Chinese immigrant who got his start in the Boston restaurant scene washing dishes on the South Shore, said Buddha Chen – or "Buddha C" as it will soon be called – is unlike most other Chinese restaurants he's encountered in the United States.

"We are focusing on presentation, taste, and how we would prepare dishes is very different from other Chinese restaurant too, because we use free veggies, not canned," said Chen.

Gone are the stir-fry, teriyaki and spring rolls from Chen's Beacon Street kitchen. Instead, the chef has built a menu on two very different cuisines: Chinese, which is meant to deliver strong flavors; and Japanese, which focuses more on freshness of ingredients and presentation.

Chen has even brought in the Spanish concept of tapas – small appetizers eaten together as a meal – to help diners explore Asian dishes outside their culinarly comfort zone.

While the restaurant still features a full sushi bar, and even offers the obligatory pad Thai dish, but the rest of the menu is rounded out with Chinese favorites, prepared under Chen's directions.

The son of a chef in the south of China, Chen started his first restaurant at the age of 15, serving traditional Chinese food on the patio of his sister's convenience store. He moved to Boston shortly a year later, in 1993, and took a job as a dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant in Braintree while he took language classes and attended community college.

It was while washing dishes that Chen first discovered how American's understanding of Chinese food differs from what he had served at home.

"I was watching and learning the way they cook here, the way they serve here, " he said.

By 1995, Chen had landed is first job at a restaurant in Needham and within five years owned his first restaurant in Billerica. More restaurants followed, including an ownership in Jae's Grill in Brookline, as Chen experimented with various Asian-fusion models. He now owns five restaurants total,  but still spends six days a week at Buddha C.

"This is the one I have to really focus on," he said. "For all the menus I create, I want to make sure every is all right."