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August 4, 2008 3:19 PM

A Feel Good SARS Story

Paul Astephen has a booming business, a fourth restaurant opening up next month in Beijing and a cadre of Chinese chefs ready to ship out all over the world to cook his food. And to think that it's all thanks to SARS.

No, that's not a typo: Astephen, a native of Nova Scotia in Canada, wouldn't be the head chef or owner of Steak & Eggs in Beijing if not for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

See, in 2003, Astephen had just sold out his share of a restaurant in Daytona Beach, Fla., which was also called Steak & Eggs. He'd been working as a chef for 37 years -- dating back to his days creating pastries at Dunn's Delicatessen in Toronto -- but he wanted to travel Asia with his fiance, a Chinese woman named Yang Yang who he'd met in Canada.

So Astephen and his bride-to-be flew out to Beijing to visit Yang Yang's family in March. They arrived in the city just as SARS was sweeping through China. Officials allowed the couple into the country, but they wouldn't allow them to travel anywhere outside of Beijing.

Stuck in the city, Astephen started to crave his favorite dishes from back home. "I wanted to eat Western food," he said, "but there was nothing here. Nothing."

Even worse, the places that did serve the food he wanted were overpriced, in his opinion. He quickly realized that there was a market in Beijing for cheap Western food, so while the city was still in the midst of a massive health epidemic, he decided to open up a new restaurant in town.

"If I had been able to travel for four to six months, I wouldn't have been able to find the niche," he admits.

His first restaurant here opened in September 2003; the business the first couple of months was "astronomical." He didn't even need to advertise, and these days, it's easy to understand why the food seems to sell itself. The menu at Steak & Eggs is enormous: it spans from clam chowder to kebabs to an all-day breakfast. He's even got A&W root beer -- which I'd yet to see in the city.

The restaurant feels like a Chinese cover of an American greasy spoon. On the tables, they've got Log Cabin maple syrup, Heinz ketchup and Tabasco sauce, and even salt and pepper. That may not sound like much, but those items are rarities in China.

The food is very impressive. I had an enormous patty melt on rye for lunch, but after downing it, I found myself ready to try something else. I nibbled on a bit -- okay, half -- of a friend's meatball sub and sampled his clam chowder. And upon hearing of Astephen's former career as a pastry chef, I ordered a slice of apple pie.

And then a slice of chocolate monkey pie.

The latter you've never heard of, and for good reason: Astephen invented the definitely-not-for-dieters pie just this year.

"I wanted something different than your basic pecan pie or chocolate mousse or banana cream," he said. "So I asked myself, what is it that people like most about pie?'"

That's the kind of question that might make the staff at Jenny Craig nervous, but Astephen pressed on. He started with a graham cracker crust and added layers of chocolate mousse and banana. Knowing that the banana could potentially melt his new pie into goo, Astephen needed another layer to keep his dessert stable. So he sliced off a piece of chocolate cake and added it on top.

"Of course, you've got to top it with chocolate," he said. To be clear: he's referring to another layer of chocolate on top of the chocolate cake.

He gave a slice to one his regulars to see if it fit Astephen's strict standards for dessert. His regular gave him not only a thumbs up but also the chocolate monkey name (because of its banana filling).

But if you don't believe that the food could really be that good, consider this: Steak & Eggs caters to companies as far away as India.

Here's how it works: last year, an American businessman in Beijing moved to a remote part of India to set up a gas rig. He didn't want to leave behind the food at Steak & Eggs, though, so he set up a deal with Astephen. Once every three months, Astephen rotates out a new chef from his restaurant to work at the gas rig in India. Astephen usually flies out with the new chef, bringing along a couple hundred pounds of meat with him. The chef then operates a Steak & Eggs location remotely from the rig, cooking all of the dishes and desserts like he normally would from the restaurant in Beijing.

Astephen said the deal has been so successful, four other businesses -- two near Shanghai, and another two near the Chinese-TIbetan border -- will receive their own Steak & Eggs chefs in the coming year. He's already negotiating with one business in South Africa to provide similar services for them.

He does see an eventual end to the restaurant business. He wants to sell his restaurants in the next two years and retire, though he would want to be involved with the restaurants in some capacity.

But he's got bigger plans for retirement. He and Yang Yang were engaged when they came to China in 2003; they're still not married. Astephen said he's planning on changing that once he's out of the restaurant business.

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Steak & Eggs
Three locations in Beijing; addresses, maps and telephone numbers can be found here.

Posted by Dan Oshinsky at 3:19 PM | Comments (14)

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