I haven’t been writing lately because I didn’t quite know how much to divulge about what was going on behind the scenes.  And quite frankly, that’s all well and good.  After all, this blog is meant to illuminate, not stew, fester or track the divergent inner-workings of a lone mind.

That said, I do have some bullet points to share about things that have happened in the last few months.

In short, I veered from the law school path and took a good faith interest in pursuing restaurant-related business opportunities with my dad.  I took great pleasure in the idea of creating new things, building upon decades of his hard work and, in a sense, coming full circle with something that’s been a part of me for all of my life.  There were great ideas tempered by realistic financial limitations but fueled by optimism and passion nonetheless.  We crafted business plans and weathered a torrent of naysayers but found solace and greater hope from longtime supporters.  We got knee deep in it all.

Loved ones backed us up in selfless ways.

Then the whole thing fell apart.  And like any disorienting jolt — I found myself numb and motionless with nothing to do but plunge into deep thought.

I emerged with clarity and quite frankly — relief.  Becoming a restaurateur wasn’t the right thing to do.

Thankfully, I found myself living just a few blocks from the University of St. Thomas School of Law, an institution with a rising star here in the Twin Cities.  I applied and just accepted a tremendous offer to attend.  In the meantime, a fantastic mentor appeared to me and helped me sort out some of the reservations I had about a legal education.  Call it more due diligence.  I am eager to begin this path.  I will write more about my excitement about law school in another post!

Now, some of the random bullets from this experience and hopefully many new posts will follow.  Because now, there is nothing to hide.

• The Credit Crisis is [Still] Real: Banks are really hard to deal with.  If you lack deep pockets and a sterling record TODAY, there’s little hope in getting financial institutions to take a moderate risk on you, Mr. Small Bussinessperson.  We know.  We approached about seven.
• Due Diligence is King: You know that cliche about skeletons in one’s closet?  Whether it’s purchasing a piece of commercial real estate or musings about changing course in life: emotion, passion and desire should never occupy the top-wrung on a decision-making ladder.  NOTHING beats exhaustive, objective fact-finding.  You might just find that someone is about to saddle you with a couple hundred thousand dollars in judgments and liens!
• 

  Never ignore a stop sign. In my case, the figurative kind. No one was hurt, thankfully... and for the record, I was not at fault in this accident that totaled the vehicle you see here.

  Belief in Signs is Okay: If, on the way to a business meeting to discuss a new project, a red Mini Cooper with white accents (making it resemble a stop sign) pulls in front of you causing you to T-bone said little car at no fault of your own — it is okay to conclude that some greater power is trying to tell you “STOP!”

• Faith Yields Sanity: Amid the tumult, having faith in a higher power that good will come from a course you don’t seem to have much control in shaping is about all you can do to feel good.  And as things calm, that faith is typically rewarded.
• If It’s Pie you Desire, Get a Piece of This: The credit card processing fee business is the biggest racket I have ever seen in person.  Talk about getting something for nothing.  Every time you use a credit card at a small, family-owned business, just know that mom or pop behind the sales counter is crying a little inside with each swipe of a magnetic strip.  Once the vultures caught wind of a possible new business, the calls came pouring in.  Stop calling now.
• Community Stakeholders Rock: Despite the economy, some communities still have amazing cheerleaders working damn hard to lure new business and prop up the existing ones.  These people do thankless work.  If you think you’ve benefited from someone like this, I urge you to seek out that person and give her some thanks.  Though we won’t be part of one community, we felt welcome the first instance we showed interest.
• Nickels and Dimes Add Up: Soon I will be a lawyer-in-training.  But that won’t stop me from saying this: good grief, my heavens!  I have no problem paying for good judgment.  I’m just glad I now know personally what it costs to engage a judicious mind on the phone for  a matter of seconds.  I’ll be more judicious in making those calls in the future.

On Sunday, dad and I crossed the river (well, two rivers, since we live in Shakopee) into Saint Paul for lunch at Little Szechuan (422 University Ave. W., St. Paul, Minn.).  The restaurant features authentic Chinese cooking from Sichuan Province — known for spicier fare, to generalize.

I asked to go because I wanted to see how the fairly popular Chinese restaurant looked inside and I also needed to see what all the craze was about.  In the years I’ve been gone from the Twin Cities, Sichuan-style cooking has not only emerged but seemingly flourished here.  There are about a half dozen (or more?) restaurants serving it, which I think is a lot seeing as how you could barely find dim sum at six places here for a couple decades.

Little Szechuan's pork ribs and spicy black bean sauce.

We ordered pork ribs with a spicy black bean sauce and a plate of stir fried lotus root.  Here’s my dad’s review, paraphrased, of course:

Ribs dry and too greasy, they were old and deep-fry-reheated — the hot oil added to the black bean sauce for spice also soaked through the garnish to create a nasty-fatty looking pool by the time the ribs were half eaten.  Nothing to rave about.  (My review concurs.)  The lotus root’s great natural crunch was nicely preserved, the spicy sauce was nice and tasty.  A good execution.  But our dry mouths and [Ben's] headache later suggest that perhaps too much MSG was added.

My dad readily admitted that he doesn’t like Sichuan-style cooking.  He’s totally in the bag for his native Cantonese cooking.  Little Szechuan was nice inside and the menu was extensive.  I wouldn’t mind going back to try some of the other dishes.  It’s clearly different and thus, Minnesotans have excitedly grasped the opportunity to expand their culinary horizons.

But why do the food elite have to praise the arrival of these new opportunities in gastronomical adventure at the expense of the tried and true?

I have done a tremendous amount of Googling lately — in search of trends, fads, rants, raves and anything else the great Google is willing to crawl on the topic of Chinese food in the Twin Cities.

For some reason, I keep coming back to threads like this one on Chowhound, the site for “Those Who Live to Eat.”  That particular thread hailed the arrival of another new, Sichuan-province style restaurant in Chanhassen, Minn. about ten months ago.  Peppered amongst the praise, though, are quasi-slights against other Chinese restaurants like ours.  These online opinions tell me this: some of the Twin Cities food elite have written off Chinese restaurants like my dad’s as unauthentic and pedestrian.  If a lunch buffet is served — don’t even try it.  I’ve touched on some of the other things we’re up against in an earlier post.

Now, online food bloggers and commentators are going to surface the most in this quest, obviously.  So I take my findings with a grain of my dad’s beloved five spice powder — it’s only a fifth of the big picture (if that!).  We still have a huge audience for our food.  And we’ll never be all things to all people.

But I kind of yearn for the day when Red Moon’s food will be held in a bit higher esteem among these Twin Cities foodie folk.  Because I stand by this:  Red Moon’s food is what it is.  It is excellent.

Then again, I’m heartened by this fair-minded assumption:  the opinions of 20 bloggers and comment-suppliers on a foodie blog cannot even begin to reflect the opinions of society-at-large.  And who is spending money at our restaurant?  Oh yeah, the people who aren’t spending their household food budgets on a dozen new places a month.  They’re our regulars and they love our Chinese.  Call it pedestrian if you want… but that’s the kind of foot traffic that keeps folks like us in business.

Well, day one at the Red Moon is done — and yeah, I was a bit late.

I honestly cannot write much about day one because my mind is racing with ideas… and worries.  I knew this wouldn’t be an easy endeavor, but going through the motions today, I realized how much patience and persistence are going to be required to make improvements at the restaurant.

Keep it simple.  Stick to what we do well.  Repeat.

While I am most excited about using this blog to relay some of Tin Tat’s life stories — this is also going to be a place for raw restaurant ideas to spew forth.  Some will take root and sprout into something presentable.  Others will amount to waste.  Oh, Red Moon.

Because the business side of things has really got me all a-twitter… let me give you a preview of a forthcoming post.  It’s more up my alley.  It’s a story I knew I’d want to tell when my dad first told me about a neat customer of his a few months ago.

Lunch at the Red Moon -- a hoot and a holler -- as good people talk about how much they love another good person.. you'll meet him soon.

You see how happy they are?  That’s my dad on the left, A-yi (auntie Wan) in between, and Lok to the right.  They are gesturing, laughing and truly joyed to be telling me about this fascinating customer who has them all intrigued.  He’s a south Asian immigrant who is hearing-impaired — completely deaf.  Yet, somehow these three people with varying degrees of really broken English know so much about this guy.  How, you ask?  Some very inspiring communication, or so I’m led to understand.  As our family friend Frank (off camera to the left) said at lunch, “it’s an example of the possibilities that can arise if two parties are willing.”

Who knew friendship (the family-like kind, according to my dad) was truly available so freely?  We’ll see just how it can be yours and mine — as soon as I meet this guy myself.