Su-Mei Yu Takes a Hands-On Approach To Life
t’s a warm summer morning in a bright, sparsely furnished office-apartment along India Street in West Mission Hills, and Su-Mei Yu is describing a lunch she’ll prepare for herself that day. There will be rice, vegetables and a Thai, salsa-like sauce called chile water.
“It’s wonderful,” she says, “and it really depends on the ingredients. My favorite is shrimp paste. It’s very strong, very sea-tasting, salty and pungent.
” Then, you match that with something very, very spicy, which is hot chile. Then you match it with something very, very sour, so you have three primary tastes.”
For most, it’s idle conversation. For Yu, it’s an art form.
A restaurateur famed for her Saffron Grilled Thai Chicken take-out eatery and Saffron Noodles & Sat & #233; restaurant, both located below her Mission Hills office, Yu deftly combines purpose and passion as she later tells a tale of a life first imprisoned by culture and then empowered by it.
Yu is also known for her community work. She’s a former member of the San Diego Convention Center Corp. board and has been involved in several organizations, many of which involve women’s and Asian issues.
They include the Union of Pan American Communities, Planned Parenthood, the World Affairs Council and the American Institute of Wine and Food.
And, in upcoming months, she’ll be known as an author. Yu’s Thai cookbook, “Cracking the Coconut,” will be released Aug. 1.
Chinese Roots
In a way, it’s the newest chapter in a story that began in 1945, when Yu was the much-anticipated, first-born child to a hard-working merchant father, Hung Been, and an ambitious seamstress mother, Li Kwei Chi.
The Chinese-born couple moved to Bangkok to escape the Japanese invasion of China in the late 1930s.
Through networking and a reputation for her dressmaking and embroidery, Yu’s mother often entertained the likes of local diplomats.
Exiting from flagged limos before the family’s one-bedroom warehouse home, guests would sit on ever-changing boxes of merchandise, from Hung Been’s store, and would relish dishes cooked by Li Kwei Chi.
Li Kwei Chi never taught Su Mei to cook. Allowed to sit at one end of the kitchen and watch, though, Su Mei was mesmerized. It was better than watching a movie, she recalls.
At age 5, Yu had been sent to an exclusive Thai boarding school. It was expensive, but her mother wanted her to have the best possible education.
Because her family was Chinese and lower-middle class, Yu was ostracized , beaten and taunted from the start.
Coming To America
It took 10 years, but Yu found a way out. Through friends of friends, she and a cousin were sent to a boarding school in Midway, Ky.
It turned out to be a problem-ridden school, but laden with her parents’ sacrifices to get her there and their expectations, Yu couldn’t leave.
She found happiness, however, in small pleasures, such as occasional cooking experiments , first fried rice and then more complex dishes.
Enamored with California since she had first arrived in San Francisco and visited Los Angeles years before, Yu moved to Orange County in 1965. She studied political science and social work at Chapman College.
Using family friends as models, she dreamed of being a diplomat, but her parents didn’t think it was realistic. Following a professor’s suggestion, she became a social worker.
It was a blessing in disguise, Yu recalls, for the education taught her about how her upbringing affected her.
“It put the whole context of who I am together and really taught me to appreciate and understand myself,” she says.
It also gave her direction, she says.
After earning a master’s degree in social work at San Diego State University, Yu married and had a daughter. The family moved to Ventura, where Yu counseled on women’s issues.
After her divorce, in 1979, Yu was hired for a professor position at SDSU. She worked at the university for a few years and volunteered with South Asian refugees who came through Camp Pendleton at the end of the Vietnam War. She organized targeted English classes for people too shy to learn in regular groups.
Tradition
She would end the classes by asking the students what they wanted most. The answer was always the same: to find a way to preserve traditions for future generations.
Following the idea, Yu found funding for a nonprofit cultural crafts center where women could learn skills or make money from their handiwork. Whether art or food, culture was a way for each group to be understood, she recalls. Yu left the university to run the center.
She found a site on India Street in Middletown, having convinced the property owner, Raoul Marquis, to rent it to her cheap.
Marquis admired Yu’s pluck, and the two fell in love. They had planned to marry.
In the meantime, with several cultural centers having opened in San Diego, Yu closed hers. She persuaded Marquis to rent her a 700-square-foot store space in which she’d sell Thai food. A bank loan of $9,000 covered start-up costs.
In 1985 it was one of the first Thai restaurants in the city, if not the first.
After day one, Yu carried home a paper bag filled with the cash from her sales. She and Marquis excitedly counted $550.
Yu’s profits and reputation grew from there, buoyed by favorable press coverage and a commitment to serving quality food, she recalled. She opened the noodle shop in ’98.
Now called Saffron Inc., the restaurants and catering currently generate sales of $500,000 a year, Yu says.
Sadly, Marquis would only see some of her success. Walking with Yu in front of the shop in 1989, he died of a heart attack.
The loss of the man whom Yu still calls her “sweet” rocked her.
“Life is very short,” she says softly. “You never know. When Raoul dropped dead, and I saw somebody that one split second I could say something to him and in the next second he was completely gone, I couldn’t say another word to him at all
“There is no guarantee,” she continues. “Life is precious, and it’s yours.”
Since then, she has found love again. Yu shares her La Jolla home with one of the city’s renowned artists, Italo Scanga. Recent renovations, including a new fa & #231;ade, won the pair’s house an award from the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
She’s made news in other ways as well. Yu was a member of the Convention Center Board, starting in ’92, appointed by a then-recently elected Mayor Susan Golding. Among her efforts was keeping the control of the Civic Center away from theater groups from outside San Diego, and maintaining the local art community’s access.
In 1996, she left in distaste for what she calls the group’s “old boys’ club” mentality.
Passion For Charity
Yu’s passions run strong for charitable work, such as the San Diego Foundation. In its earlier days, the organization had given her the funds for her crafts center. Yu, on the grant committee, wants the group to stay humble.
“If you forget that your goal is to do good, then nothing else matters,” she says.
Yu believes in involvement. “To be part of the city or community you live in you need to participate. I like to participate and be a part of all that; I give back, and I take.”
The new cookbook, published by New York City-based William Morrow, was Yu’s most recent way of doing that, she says. She bucked the “For Dummies” trend, focusing instead on the traditional Thai approach to cooking. She explains techniques that use the original equipment, such as a mortar and pestle.
Yu doesn’t plan to expand Saffron. She once tried having a La Jolla shop and found it an administrative hassle.
But she’s not leaving the game either. “Competition is very fierce,” she says. “In order for you to be in the business, you have to really stay on top of it.” The key is a combination of good food and items that are unique and memorable, she says.
Friends such as Fat City restaurant complex owner Tom Fat, public relations executive Nikki Symington and community volunteer Brenda Baker describe Yu as a deeply spiritual person remarkable for her success amidst unusual challenges, a superb entertainer, and a woman who shares for the community’s sake.
Yu’s philosophies valuing life are so simple, they almost sound clich & #233;.
“We are allotted the exact same time when we get up in the morning, 24 hours,” she said. “No matter how rich you are or how poor you are, how smart you are, how stupid you are, you get the exact same amount of time. What you do with it is up to you. If you want it badly enough, you’ll do it. It’s your time.”
