TravelsinTaste.com recently had the distinct pleasure of dining with Executive Chef Richard Chen, who prepared for us a special tasting menu at Wing Lei, the only Asian restaurant in Las Vegas to receive a Michelin star. Over dinner, he was gracious enough to explain the inner workings of each dish in detail. For that we were truly grateful, as his restaurant's name means "Forever Prosper" and our experience was, indeed, prosperous. More importantly, however, it was palate pleasing. Please read on for an in-depth discussion of our delicious meal. Meanwhile, if you'd care to read an interview with Chef Chen, please
click here. Or,
click here to read his bio. Finally, if you're interested in reading more about Wing Lei at Wynn Las Vegas, its coming soon, we'll post a link here.
We began our meal with one of Chef Chen's most requested dishes: Peking Duck Salad. In fact Wing Lei has its own unique Peking Duck Tasting Menu, which is described in more detail below. "We roast the duck in a very traditional way, in the Chinese oven," Chef Chen told us. "Usually it's the first course we serve, and usually we wrap it with a mo shoo pancake. We make these in the kitchen daily; they are like Chinese crepes."
"In this case, we served the second course of our Peking Duck Tasting Menu, the Peking Duck Salad, which we serve with a fried wonton skin that we make into a bowl. Then, when the server presents it, he will crack the wonton skin. It's very similar to a crouton; it provides that extra something crunchy in the salad. The basic ingredients are baby lettuce, toasted almonds, orange segment, plus a little bit of the duck skin. What I do is take the skin and place it between two sheet pans, with the weight of the pan on top of the skin, and then we roast it for about 15 minutes to bake off the fat and provide that crispy skin. We toss everything in the salad with a slice of duck meat and the crispy skin."