MAKAN
130 Clairmont Ave., Decatur. (Inside the Courtyard Decatur Downtown Hotel.) 404-996-6504, makanatl.com. $$$
Inventing a cuisine broadcloth can be an exciting process, but also fraught and tricky. It’s a bit like inventing a personality.
But a cohort of Asian-American chefs across the country has been doing just that in recent years. Add George Yu, who recently opened Makan in Decatur, to the list.
Yu, who was born in Taiwan and grew up working in his immigrant Chinese family’s restaurant in Milwaukee, tells his own story through the menu at Makan, along with those of his partner, Michael Lo (whose family emigrated from Hong Kong), and their two Korean-American wives.
The meal begins with a rolling banchan cart filled with tea eggs, lemon cucumber pickles, fresh tofu with pecan pesto and slivers of delicious cured pork jowl. Then, move on to Taiwanese-style beef noodle soup, which comes with massive, meaty, delicious cross-section of bone-in oxtail, or kimchi-pumped Korean-style ramen.
It’s a work in progress here, but I’m all too happy to chart the course.
