It’s 6 p.m. on a Wednesday evening and the front door to Yum Yum Chinese Restaurant is still locked; the “open” sign is sleeping on the job. Not even a shred of light is peeping through the blinds, but that’s how the place looks on any given day — unassuming and empty tucked between abandoned storefronts.
By 6:26 p.m., the door is cracked ever so slightly. Dim light and TV chatter spill onto the silent, rain-soaked street. Inside, Tom and Mei Li shuffle around slowly on the worn checkered tiles, readying their restaurant for dinner service. It’s not much warmer inside than it would be standing out in the rain. The furnace is just starting to yawn awake after hibernating over the long weekend. Yum Yum is only open from 6-9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and the business hours are regarded more as a suggestion than a rule. The restaurant is also cash only.
Tom doesn’t remember the exact year he and his wife cut the ribbon at their new restaurant. “Sometime the ’70s…or ’80s,” he guesses. A forty-year-old entry in The Cincinnati Enquirer announced that Yum Yum would celebrate their opening day on Mother’s Day 1975 and it would be Cincinnati’s first Sichuan-Hunan style restaurant. (Sichuan- or Szechuan-style cuisine comes from southwestern China and incorporates a lot of heat and garlic.)
The space has accumulated knickknacks, some may call it clutter, over the past several decades that have transformed this sleepy eatery into a museum of its own history. A boxy television set with lopsided antennae projects the evening news from the corner. It’s the only link to reality in a place that seems to be cemented in the ’70s and it’s certainly louder than the doorbell.
“Oh, you’re early!” Tom says, shocked to see customers in his doorway. “We just got here. Can you wait?”
Eating at Yum Yum requires patience. Tom and Mei are not as spritely as they were when they first opened their restaurant. When asked how old he is, Tom dryly replies, “35,” and chuckles at his own joke, laugh lines scrunching up around his eyes. He and Mei may have slowed over the years, but they continue to keep Yum Yum running. It’s what they love. Dining here is best enjoyed slowly to allot enough time to relish every quirky piece of history.
Tom leads the way to the dining room through a hallway plastered with hundreds of images of diners past with their feathered hair and double-breasted sport coats. They display the smiling faces of patrons ready to indulge in this new-to-them style of food called “Sichuan,” known for accommodating lesser-seasoned palates by giving diners the option to choose how spicy they’d like their dishes on a scale of 0-10. For the first time, American diners were sampling flavors — salty, spicy, umami — and textures — crispy, chewy, slippery — in combinations they had never before tasted.
Yum Yum opened just as Chinese cuisine of all types began gaining traction in America. Tom and Mei’s story isn’t unique. After the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, an influx of Asian immigrants made work for themselves by bringing their culture to the States in the form of restaurants, according to Chop Suey, USA: The Story of Chinese Food in America. The Lis immigrated to Cincinnati from Taiwan in the 1960s, although Tom doesn’t recall the exact year, and raised their two sons in the restaurant.
Once a chemist, now a restaurateur, Tom says the two fields aren’t so different. Cooking is chemistry after all, he says. But he doesn’t spend much time in front of the stove; that’s Mei’s specialty. She stays behind the scenes, doling out cups of hot and sour soup and steamy piles of egg noodles for Tom to pick up and deliver to the dining room. He singlehandedly runs the floor, taking orders, topping off water glasses and bussing tables throughout the three-hour dinner service, though it’s not common for Yum Yum to have a full dining room these days.
The wood paneling, crimson tablecloths and ornate, low-hanging chandeliers that made the photographs wallpapering the hallway look so dated are the same time-worn décor adorning the dining room today. The menus, which have sustained over 40 years of service, now have yellowed pages and price markups penciled in the margins to account for decades of inflation. The dishes that were typewritten into the menu decades ago are still served for dinner — Yum Yum Mein, Sichuan Pepper Steak, and Ding Dong Chicken are crowd favorites, and prix fixe dinners haven’t gone out of style just yet.
A prix fixe for two runs just over $40 and starts off with hot and sour soup with its mélange of textures ranging from soft tofu to crunchy scallions and an order of egg rolls fresh from the fryer. Tom suggests slicing the egg roll lengthwise, spooning a line of duck sauce down the middle and munching on it like a hot dog. Next comes the Yum Yum Jumbo Shrimp and an order of Ding Dong Chicken, both served in silver platters accompanied by a cup of perfectly domed steamed rice.
Ding Dong Chicken is described on the menu as “a spiced chicken dish, popular in China especially where people dote on spicy foods” and “is redolent with a sprinkle of peanuts and a variety of special authentic Chinese ingredients.” The jumbo shrimp are marinated are a house sauce and cooked in a typical “Szechuan style.”
Sichuan food is delightfully interactive. Pinching rice onto a plate and smothering it with saucy shrimp and veggies feels indulgently like making a mess of the plate, but it’s the proper way. Dessert is as expected — a fortune cookie for each guest. An after dinner cup of coffee will run you 40 cents if you can spare it, and if not, tea is half the price.
Other à la carte options include Szechuan Beef with rice noodles “in ideal proportions,” Pork Dou-Fu and Eight Treasure Mein, with egg noodles, shrimp, chicken, pork and pea pods. Dishes like Peking Duck are available with one day’s advance notice.
Guests don’t come for the quick service and Americanized Chinese food; they come for Mei’s cooking and Tom’s kind, attentive tableside manner. Together, the Lis gave Cincinnati its first taste of Sichuan cuisines and have remained relentlessly authentic for almost 45 years.
Why did they trade their original life plans to run a restaurant? “Because it’s fun,” Tom replies, smiling.
Yum Yum Chinese Restaurant is located at 909 Race St., Downtown. For more info, try calling 513-721-7705.
This article appears in Jan 30 – Feb 6, 2019.