Crystal Wise
Rare is the restaurant where the person who greets and seats you also walks you through the menu, takes your order, cooks your food, delivers your food, chats with you while you eat, then clears off your dishes, and brings you the check.
But that’s exactly what happened when my wife and I made our first trip to Megu, a new fine dining restaurant in the TCU area that serves dual cuisines: Japanese and French. It’s not fusion; there’s a full menu of Japanese dishes and a separate menu for French food.
Opened late last year on the ground floor of the Campus Tower building on University, just a few steps from TCU, this unique restaurant is owned and run by chef Peter Liang, often the restaurant’s one-man show, as was the case during our visit. On some days, he’s alone, running front of house, back of house, and everything in between. Other times, there’s a server or two, plus longtime service industry worker Crystal Richey, who acts as both server and manager.
Between Liang and Richey, you might not find better service, as both deliver highly personal experiences that match the white-tablecloth setting. That level of attention is all but a necessity at a restaurant with a dual personality.
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The French menu is actually a combination of French and global cuisine. Here you’ll find a handful of classic French dishes, such as foie gras, French onion soup, and steak au poivre, along with pan-seared ostrich, scallops in a housemade Hawaiian sauce, and, when it’s available, Kobe beef carpaccio, made with Japanese A5 wagyu steak.
A more expansive Japanese menu is made up of dozens of sushi rolls and sashimi, made with fresh fish imported from different parts of the globe. Fish is flown in daily, Liang says, and accompanying sauces are made in-house.
Some of the more interesting sushi rolls include the Winter of London, comprised of apple and fried oysters wrapped in soybean paper, and the Dream & Dream, a layered mashup of Alaskan king crab, radish sprouts, cucumber, and tempura lobster.
It’s the Japanese menu where Liang stretches his imagination, he says. During our visit, he pointed us in the direction of steamed buns filled with crispy pork. We also noticed the Caviar Rainbow sushi roll, which, at $21, is a real steal, as it comes topped with three kinds of caviar.
Megu isn’t Liang’s first dual concept in North Texas. Three years ago, he partnered with Weatherford inspirational speaker Dana Bowman to open Ginza, a French and Japanese fine dining restaurant on Main Street in Weatherford. The two eventually sold Ginza, and now it operates solely as a Japanese restaurant.
Liang hails from New York, and it was there, he says, where he fine-tuned his skills as both a Japanese and French chef, working in and, ultimately, owning his own restaurants.
But Texas offered more opportunities at half the cost. “It’s very expensive to maintain a restaurant in New York,” he says. “You can get more for less here — bigger spaces for less rent. It’s why so many people are moving here now to open restaurants. It’s a good time to be here.”
