'Greatest' tag sees struggling restaurant damned by success

Vancouver

The quality of chef Sam Lau's high-end Chinese cuisine stands out in Richmond, where every other shop is offering cheap noodles or an all-you-can-eat buffet.

But his acclaimed menu shares one thing with those of many other Vancouver restaurants - a wafer-thin profit margin. In fact, Mr Lau's Zen Fine Chinese Cuisine was on the verge of closure when he got the biggest break of his life.

A New York Times reporter, who has trekked around the world eating in Chinese restaurants, this month named Mr Lau's eatery 'the greatest Chinese restaurant outside China'.

So unassuming is Zen, which is on the second floor of a mini-mall, that author Jennifer 8. Lee - and yes, that's how she writes her name - says she drove by the place twice before finding it. 'I thought that was part of the charm, part of what people love about Chinese restaurants: the secrets, not the obvious ones,' says Lee. 'The food was really quite good, very creative.'

But what prompted Lee to label Zen 'the greatest' was the chef's skill in getting Chinese people to try his cutting-edge food.