Grub StreetNew York

• New York
• Los Angeles
• San Francisco
• Chicago
• Philadelphia
• Boston

When former Chinatown Brasserie chef Tyson Wong caught the last train for the coast, we knew that his new employers wanted to draw on his experience. But from the look of Red Pearl Restaurant’s menu, they’re doing everything to replicate Chinatown Brasserie but cloning the waiters and cooks from pirated stem cells. This has to be one of the most naked ripoffs since David Coverdale decided to make a career of imitating Robert Plant.

From a distance, the two menus are indistinguishable, right down to each having a special Peking Duck section floating in its own oval, in the exact same part of the menu. It’s the perfect food crime! Though Chinatown Brasserie has name recognition in New York, only the most ardent bi-coastal foodie will detect the fraud. Is Tyson Wong cooking in the Truman Show of restaurants? An obsessive sham, like the guy who reenacts movies on YouTube? We can’t tell, but it definitely gives us the creeps. Maybe you should come on back here, Tyson. You seem to have fallen in with some very odd folk.

Related: Tyson Wong Ophaso Heads for the West Coast