Szechuan celebrates 15 years in Abilene
Tum Dam (left) hands off plates to the wait staff Friday at Szechuan Chinese Restaurant.
Photo by Nellie Doneva
Nellie Doneva/Reporter-News
Cooks at Szechuan Chinese Restaurant prepare meals for the lunch crowd Friday.
Photo by Nellie Doneva
Nellie Doneva/Reporter-News
Byron Huang (right), owner of Szechuan Chinese Restaurant, carries a soup pot Friday. Huang says the kitchen is his office.
As he celebrates 15 years as owner of Szechuan Chinese Restaurant, Byron Huang can’t help but recall everything he’s overcome to pursue his dream of owning a business in the United States.
His sprawling restaurant seats 165 customers, most of them within view of a wall-to-wall glass partition that allows guests to see almost every aspect of the food preparation. The heavily decorated restaurant boasts manicured landscaping outside, complete with a pond and traditional Chinese shrubbery.
It’s a far cry from Huang’s earliest days in the U.S. restaurant business.
Huang, who arrived in the U.S. at age 29, described himself as “poor and inexperienced” even though he had more than seven years of restaurant experience under his belt as a cook in Hong Kong. He was born and raised in China, but maintained a dream of coming to the U.S. and owning a restaurant of his own.
“America is the land of opportunity,” he said. “In China, I could do nothing like this.”
He began to see his dream come true when he went to work in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant in San Jose, Calif., in 1987. However, he didn’t stay long.
“I worked for four months,” he said. “Then the chef embarrassed me in front of everyone, made me cry. I left California.”
From there, he moved to South Dakota, then Georgia and Michigan before landing in Texas.
He said that in “every state I learned more about combining my food with good service.”
With a limited English vocabulary, Huang said he was taught to judge a Chinese restaurant by its ad in the Yellow Pages.
A full-page ad meant it was a big restaurant with a good cook, he said. He traveled the country with that in mind, looking for restaurants with the best cooks from whom he could learn.
Even with his experience in China, he said he still had a lot to learn about food service in the U.S.
“You need to know the regional tastes,” he said. “I spent almost 10 years traveling, making my recipes.”
In early 1995, he went to work for Abilene’s Chinese Kitchen. It was there that he met Kim Dam, another cook from China, who had been in Abilene for about five years.
Less than a year later, Huang and Dam decided to go into business for themselves. Chinese food was a competitive business in Abilene at the time, Huang said, with more than 15 Chinese restaurants.
Still, they managed to open Szechuan, a small restaurant at the corner of South First and Willis streets.
For 10 years in that location, the pair managed to not only be successful among more than a dozen local Chinese restaurants, but to win a variety of awards and recognitions for their food and service.
The were so successful, in fact, that by the end of 2007, they had built and opened a new restaurant about two miles down South First Street, with more than triple the seating of the original restaurant.
“A lot of people said, ‘Byron, you play a very dangerous game,’ when I opened this new restaurant,” he said, smiling. “I always work hard day by day. I have vision.”
The waiting area of his restaurant is littered with the awards the eatery has received in the Chinese restaurant industry — a total of 33 honors, Huang said, from local Reader’s Choice Awards to a small statue of a golden bull he received from the Chinese government for his success in the United States.
He said he’s learned a lot since he got his start in a Hong Kong kitchen, adding that the most important lesson is that the food is the most important part of a successful business.
“The food is key,” he said. “No matter how beautiful the restaurant, the food is key.”
He said he realizes that the menu at Szechuan doesn’t read much differently from that of any other Chinese restaurant.
“We have the General Tso’s chicken, the beef and broccoli,” he said. “But people say to me, ‘Byron, you serve the best.’ The food doesn’t belong to me, but I work hard to make it the best.”
To put the best Chinese cuisine on the tables at Szechuan, he said, he hires only the best Chinese cooks.
“In China, you don’t go to school,” he said. “You graduate from the restaurant.”
The restaurant “graduates” are the ones he hires. He said he requires that cooks have 20 years’ experience before they come to his kitchen.
“The wok is heavy and quick,” he said. “It’s only a job for a man. It’s a special skill.”
A cook works in front of two woks — one filled with boiling water for vegetables and another filled with boiling oil for meats.
There are no tools for measurement, but each cook holds a ladle, which, according to Huang, is all they need to ensure accurate measurements.
Next to a collection of spices and sauces, each dip of the ladle brings a new flavor to the dish.
Chinese cooking is unique, he said, because almost all dishes cook in just 45 seconds on the wok.
Because of the open cooking style created by the wok, the kitchen is as hot as it is fast-paced. Guests at the restaurant can experience the controlled chaos of the kitchen via the glass partition.
Huang said he learned early in the business that customers appreciate being able to see the cooking process. The first Szechuan restaurant had a small window, as well, he said.
Even with a full staff of cooks, Huang said he spends a significant amount of time in the kitchen himself.
“I’m not in the office counting money, you see,” he said. “My office is that kitchen.”
However, with all the time he spends in the kitchen at Szechuan, he said he doesn’t cook at home.
It’s his mother and mother-in-law who do the cooking at his house, he said. He and his wife live with their mothers, a common practice in China.
They also share the house with Huang’s two children — an Abilene Christian University graduate who works at Chili’s and a third-grader at Austin Elementary School.
Dam and Huang run the restaurant together, but Huang takes care of most of the day-to-day operations during the week.
This fall marks Dam’s second year as an Abilene Independent School District employee and first year as an advanced placement U.S. history teacher at the Academy of Technology, Engineering, Math and Science.
The two will celebrate 15 years in business with a community reception, ribbon-cutting and cooking demonstration at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday at Szechuan, located at 3425 South First St.
