I learned how delicious a spicy Chinese cucumber salad could be at a spot in San Diego a couple of years ago. The dish balanced umami, spice, and a refreshing cucumber crunch.
This memory came to mind as my husband and I sat down at Wei (901 W. 6th Ave. Pronounced “way”), and it sparked a conversation about the central challenge for Alaskan chefs: they are limited by the ingredients available. Alaska has plenty of amazing local producers, but all are constrained by our cold climate and short summers. Despite our latitude, we can get a wide variety of produce and protein options, but most of it comes from thousands of miles away.
This big asterisk was on my mind as I evaluated our meal at Wei, and the spicy cucumber salad was a perfect example. Even with the most flavorful sauce, the dish relies on the cucumbers. A watery, mushy cucumber simply won’t allow this dish to shine, no matter how great its sauce may be.
I don’t pretend to know or understand the financial and environmental considerations that go into sourcing produce here. But I am mindful that we indeed live in the arctic. No one is wandering into the back garden for fresh herbs or crunchy cucumbers at the moment, and we have to accept that what’s on our plates is a reflection of that.
The Space and Service
After being seated and taking in the ambiance of Wei’s fairly cavernous dining room, my husband remarked, “nothing is wobbling.” Thinking about it, we do spend a couple minutes at the start of many meals correcting wobbly tables and chairs. Wei is new, and its upscale dining room is thoughtful, very clean, with extremely comfortable seating. (And being eight months pregnant, I feel very qualified to make this assessment.) Comfort, cleanliness, thoughtfulness are honestly qualities not all that common to many Alaska dining establishments’ ambiance.
We visited Wei during the dinner rush on a weeknight. Service was extremely attentive and the food was fast. Possibly too fast. Food comes out as they’re prepared and family style, but we weren’t able to taste each dish while it was hot and fresh because everything we ordered, including the appetizers and main dishes, came out together.
The Food
We ordered the “9 Grid Sampler Box,” which consists of cucumber salad, cabbage salad, seaweed salad, edamame, cold spicy noodles, fried shrimp, fried chicken wings, fried dumplings, and vegetable egg roll ($29). For entrees, we selected shredded chicken with pancakes ($35), and pork xiao long bao in curry sauce ($16). We left with a suspicion that we may not have tried the best they have to offer, especially after we kept hearing the next table over saying, “The meat is falling off the bone!” I assume this was in reference to the braised prime beef short ribs ($65).
The cucumber salad, unfortunately, proved my point about our food in Anchorage. The cucumbers were mushy and the sauce lacked any punch, making it a definite pass. The seaweed salad was too fishy for my taste, but my husband liked it. Chicken wings were soggy by the time we got to them because everything arrived at once, and their sauce didn’t help them out.
I ordered the shredded chicken with pancakes anticipating it to be like moo shu chicken, which is one of my favorite Chinese dishes. In moo shu, meat is usually stir-fried with egg and crunchy shredded vegetables in a sweet, hoisin, soy, sesame oil sauce. It’s served with pancakes, which are like Chinese tortillas. Usually, the dish is all about texture and the sweet hoisin breaking the saltiness of the soy sauce. This is where Wei’s rendition fell flat for me. The chicken was flavorful but was served solely on a bed of shaved chives. Not a bad pair, but I missed the texture of the traditional preparation.
The pork xiao long bao in curry sauce redeemed the whole meal for me. In English, these are commonly called soup dumplings and are known to squirt out a flavorful broth if you try to bite them in half. These are made in house and were served on a coconut milk-based curry sauce and had savory, tender pork wrapped in house-made dough and basket-steamed. Also, the cold spicy noodles in the sampler grid were perfectly garlicky umami and delicious, and the fried shrimp had just the right crunch. The presentation of all the food was considerate — everything was beautiful to look at.
Should you go?
We’re rooting for Wei, but not yet sold. The restaurant clearly has ambition in its bones, and highlights like the curry xiao long bao and very flavorful cold noodles show a kitchen with real potential. For now though, it feels like a place still figuring out its identity, based on its paper menus and nothing on the walls, and is perhaps constrained by the same challenges all Anchorage chefs face. I won’t be going out of my way to return immediately, but if invited, I’d accept, both to try those dumplings again and to see how, and if, Wei has found its way.
Jenny Weis writes for a variety of Alaska nonprofits and causes in between keeping up on Alaska's doughnut scene, sliding on snow, and gawking at cool plants and rocks along local trails.
