By Tien-Shun Lee
King Yum Restaurant, a Chinese restaurant in Fresh Meadows that opened when St. John's University was still a golf course and the Long Island Expressway did not exist yet in Queens, celebrated its 50th anniversary Monday with two whole roast pigs and karaoke.
“This is the local hang-out where we all used to celebrate when we came home from summer camp,” said Lois Schechter, who commuted from her home in the Bronx to attend King Yum's invitation-only anniversary party at 181-08 Union Turnpike. “The food's always been consistent. If you're a regular, they know who you are. They make you feel special.”
Like most of the invited guests at the restaurant's anniversary party, Schechter has been dining regularly at King Yum for years. Her mother, Edna Auerbach of Bayside, was one of the restaurant's first regular customers when it opened in 1953. She recently celebrated her 70th birthday at the restaurant.
“All of the people in the restaurant – the customers, the patrons – are all my extended family,” said Mimi Lam, the daughter of restaurant owner James Eng, who is now 82.
When Lam got married, many of the 1,200 guests who attended her wedding were staff and customers of the restaurant.
Lam, who came to the city from Taiwan when she was less than a year old, recalled working at her father's restaurant when she was about 7 years old.
“It was always very busy,” said Lam, who commuted back and forth with her family from her home in Manhattan to the restaurant. “It started at a quarter of this size and kept expanding.”
According to Eng, the restaurant was started 50 years ago after he saw an ad in the newspaper that someone was selling a Chinese restaurant. Eng said he shelled out $8,500 for the place, with the help of his uncle, and began selling Chinese food in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood.
“At that time, we had a seating capacity of 52 seats, two waiters, my wife and the cooks in the kitchen,” Eng recalled. “I was the only Chinese around.”
After a few years, during which Eng nearly gave up and sold the restaurant, business began to pick up as many customers, including local politicians and the Trump real estate family, became regulars of the business.
About 11 years ago, the restaurant started its Wednesday and Friday karaoke nights. Now, those nights are packed with 150 to 200 people, from infants to elderly, who sing and dance, Lam said.
Between greeting longtime customers with handshakes and hugs, Eng took time out to get up on the karaoke stage and sing a Chinese song, followed by “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”
“He is a ham,” said Schechter, dining on chow mein as she listened to Eng. “Within the community, he is extremely giving and caring.”
Auerbach said Eng used to pick her up from her home in the Pomonok housing complex before Chinese New Year and bring her to the restaurant so that she could help address invitation envelopes for the three-night, invitation-only New Year's parties.
“They party big time,” said Ted Laguercia, who munched on baby spare ribs as his wife, Carole Laguercia, described some of the highlights of the restaurant's food.
“This restaurant has the best hot-and-sour soup in the world,” she said. “No one makes it the way they do. It is really phenomenal.”
Other noteworthy dishes are the dim sum, the butterfly shrimp wrapped in bacon, the crab with black bean sauce, the egg foo young, the steak kew and the yang chow fried rice, Carole Laguercia said.
The food at Monday's party included some of the restaurant's regular dishes, served buffet-style, in addition to two crispy-skinned, whole roast pigs, egg tarts, lychees and a five-tiered cake with yellow frosting.
“He's showing his appreciation for his 50th year,” said Jimmy, the restaurant's longtime maitre d', of Eng, as he greeted longtime patrons. “He wants to thank his customers.”
Reach reporter Tien-Shun Lee by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
