RECIPES:
Mangosteen Yogurt Panna Cotta
(Serves 4)
Blueberry Coulis
Coconut Love Letter Roll
Chef Eunice Lee is the Pastry Chef at STRAITS in Westfield SF Centre.
Straits
845 Market Street, 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-668-1783
Website:: http://www.straitsrestaurants.com
About Chef Eunice Lee:
Corporate Pastry Chef Eunice Lee credits her father for instilling a sense of experimentation and adventure into her cooking by always trying many unusual ingredients and tastes. Before moving to the United States in 1985, she grew up in Korea where she often watched him cooking in the family's kitchen-a rare event in Korean culture as men are not typically allowed in the kitchen. Her love for using fresh produce and blending Asian flavors with Western techniques serves her well in her role as the lead pastry chef for Straits Restaurants and SINO Restaurant & Lounge.
Lee prides herself on creating desserts from scratch, seldom using ready-made products for her dishes. "It would be easy to take shortcuts, but it's important to me to be honest to myself and our guests that the desserts at Straits and SINO are made with the freshest ingredients and are purely my creations," she says.
It is a passion and a pleasure for Lee to incorporate the bounty of local fruits available in the Bay Area into her dishes, such as mangos, blackberries, raspberries, bananas and passion fruit. Delicately melding the flavors of her ingredients, Lee ensures that each guest's meal is complemented by a plethora of sweet endings, with seasonally-changing desserts such as the Coconut Kaya Genoise with Pandan Oil and Crème Anglaise; Kalamansi Sherbet in Mango Soup with Sago; Chocolate Banana Caramel Tart with Blood Orange Gelato; and Warm Apple Crepes with Crème Fraiche Ice Cream. Whether finishing a Singaporean feast at Straits Restaurant or a contemporary Chinese meal at SINO, Lee offers desserts to satisfy a variety of discerning palates.
Joining Straits Restaurant Group as a pastry chef at SINO Restaurant & Lounge in March 2006, she was quickly promoted to be the corporate pastry chef in November of that year. Lee began her professional pastry career as the owner and baker of a small bakery in Emeryville, where she served for four years. She then spent five years at Oliveto Restaurant in Oakland, followed by a short stint at Zibibbo in Palo Alto.
Lee holds a bachelor's degree in German from Sung Shin University in Seoul, Korea, and a basic culinary degree from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, California. She also holds an associate of science degree in Baking and Pastry from the Culinary Institute of America.
In her spare time, Lee enjoys watching soccer and gardening. While at home, one of her favorite desserts is freshly-churned chunky strawberry ice cream. She has a teenage daughter and lives with her husband in Berkeley, California.
