Asian Fuzion Cafe Opens

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Young, who is a mix of Southeast Asian nationalities, mainly Thai and Laotian, speaks five languages. She speaks English rapidly and urgently, tossing away the smaller words and syllables that get in her way. She's lively and gregarious, unlike her husband, who is so shy she refuses to even give his name. "He say, 'Don't put me there!' He so shy. He real shy guy, but really good cook!" Of mainly Chinese ethnicity and raised in Cambodia, he too is a Southeast Asian polyglot.

Once their Saline lease was up, Young (whose first name is more or less pronounced Pat--"just don't call me 'fat'," she says) and her nameless husband loaded up their three kids (ages fourteen, thirteen, and eleven) and moved to Ann Arbor to open a restaurant that people could find. Their Asian Fuzion Cafe opened at the end of September in the former Greeko's Coney-Grill, in Pittsfield Plaza on Washtenaw next to Falsetta's Market. They did some smart and strategic redecorating--a soothing fountain in the tiny foyer, potted orchids, a paint job, and gentler lighting all signal a step up from Greeko's clattering diner ambience. But Phet Young is no aesthetic purist. A projector beams TV shows to a seventy-two-inch screen high on the wall behind the counter. "I wanted a big TV, but they don't have that big. So, I go for the projector," she shrugs.