Charlie's Bakery

I met a friend for a late lunch at Charlie's Bakery today. Charlie's is one of those Anchorage gems hidden in an ugly strip mall. One doesn't expect good, authentic Chinese food at a place called Charlie's Bakery that has French bread in the window. We all see places and people and unconsciously categorize them, and often we don't easily let them out of that first impression box. Just as the facade of the bakery hides a lot, I suspect that Charlie's appearance hides a lot for many people.

I first met Charlie and his wife Jade when we came back in 1990 from a year in Hong Kong and I was looking for real Chinese food. People steered me to the Golden Pond. I wanted to set up a real Chinese dinner and an audio conference meeting with a university program I'd gotten to know in Beijing.
That was when I learned that Charlie was a trained chef, not "just" an immigrant who started a restaurant. He'd gone to a good culinary school in Taiwan and came out with some of his cookbooks when we started to plan the menu.


What a true delight it was to share with my Anchorage friends some 'real' Chinese food right here in Anchorage. At that time, Jack Dalton (Jack comes at the bottom of the post, so scroll way down), was a student who worked as a waiter at Golden Pond. I mention that because Anchorage is a small town in many ways and there are all sorts of connections like that. We were able to have several special, six or seven course dinners at Golden Pond, including a few fund raisers for worthy causes. Well, at some point Charlie left (sold?) Golden Pond and I didn't know where to find real Chinese food in Anchorage. There are lots of Chinese restaurants, but only a couple are actually owned and run by Chinese, and fewer by any who have actually been professionally trained in Chinese cooking. (And if I'm wrong in that perception, please let me know.) Chinatown Restaurant is another good Chinese restaurant owned and run by people from Beijing that I found out about when I learned they'd taken the Chinese Consul General from San Francisco to dinner there. And if you get their fancy menus, you can order very good, authentic Chinese food - they even serve the same kinds of cold appetizers they serve in Beijing.





Anyway, after leaving Golden Pond, Charlie eventually opened Charlie's Bakery which does also offer French bread and and pastries along with Chinese pastries and a long list of lunch specials. But I too was deceived by the French flag imagery of the sign and didn't realize it was the same Charlie for a while. They are mainly open for lunch until early dinner. And the fancy Chinese dishes aren't on the menu. By the way, you can click on the menu to enlarge it and you should be able to read most of it. And while Charlie's name is on the sign and he's the person responsible for the food, Jade plays an equally important role managing the business.

So today I learned about another interesting facet of Charlie's life. In the late 80's he spent a month wandering around India and Nepal. He just rode trains and buses mostly and got off where things looked interesting. It takes a special person to go to India for a month, especially traveling on his own, and Charlie was well past the typical
backpacker stage of his life. I know he must have a lot more interesting stories to tell. So if you stop by for lunch, ask him.