Pu Pu Passes up Flashier Restaurants by Pleasing the Palate

The brightly lit blue and white restaurant sign on the corner of Mass. Ave. and Main Street in Central Square is not very remarkable.

But if passersby slow down to read the words printed on the sign, chances are they will take a second look.

The Pu Pu Hot Pot is a rather curious name for a restaurant, and after initial surprise, passersby likely realize that the words have a different connotation in Chinese than they do in English.

Still, "pu pu" is a phrase that can hardly attract customers in an English-speaking country.

It takes repeat customers for a restaurant to keep its doors open, and you just don't become a repeat customer at a place called the Pu Pu Hot Pot if the culinary benefits don't outweigh the social losses you face every time someone asks you where you had dinner last night.

But strange name aside, good food had to back up the restaurant, which has been in business for five years.

Catering to the Curious?

En route to the restaurant, the warehouses and gas station nearby don't help to ease potential customers' worries.

But five blocks from the Central Square T station, the small but tidy Chinese restaurant with pleasant pink walls and lots of windows greets the eye, belying the strange name.

Steven Chen, the owner's son, waits by the door to greet customers. With a smile, he ushers customers to one of the restaurant's ten tables, about half of which sit by the floor-to-ceiling windows.

While customers ponder the extensive menu, which is five jam-packed pages long and appropriates the entire lower third of the front window, they are served tea from an ornate china pitcher.

Traditional Chinese decorations grace the walls and ceiling, though waitress Andrea Liu says that she is not especially fond of the paper lanterns and the enormous centerpiece hanging from the ceiling.

"It's not that elegant here," she says, adding that the decorations are on the inexpensive side.

But Liu is quick to add that the lack of luxury doesn't seem to bother the customers.

"People come here for the food," she says.

But first, of course, something must lure the customers in, enticing them through the front door.

And the Pu Pu has plenty to offer.

The pale pink walls and carpeting in a subdued multicolor pattern, with the same shade of pink woven in, make for a soothing atmosphere.

The restaurant's closely placed ten tables give it an aura of intimacy.

And the restaurant is remarkably clean. The decorations and windowsills show not a trace of dust; nary a crumb blemishes the carpet.

The Pu Pu also offers the customary trappings of a Chinese restaurant that caters to non-Chinese customers: Chinese horoscope placemats, chopsticks alongside silverware on every table and complimentary fortune cookies for dessert.

The restaurant does offer a couple of potentially nerve-wracking elements, though.

The pulse of the city is hard to escape, as the Red Line, directly beneath the restaurant, shuttles back and forth from Central to Kendall and blaring fire engines issue forth from the station across the street.

And the ringing phone doesn't ease the nerves, either. Liu says the Pu Pu does the vast majority of their business in delivery and take-out, and it shows. The phone, located in the front seating area, seems to ring every three minutes, and the loud tone reverberates throughout the restaurant.

But somehow, those calm pink walls and courteous employees prevent the commotion from becoming overwhelming.

"Lousy Name, Perfect Food."

Thus reads a review from the Boston Phoenix, displayed prominently on the restaurant's front counter.

According to Liu, the Pu Pu's most popular dishes include the crispy aromatic jumbo shrimp and all the tofu dishes.

And the general consensus is that, no matter how ambiguous your feelings on your way to the Pu Pu, you should refrain from stopping in at McDonald's for that just-in-case Big Mac.

The Phoenix reviewer also writes that the Pu Pu carries a variety of types of Chinese food, from Taiwanese to Mandarin-Szechuan, and a list of hard-to-find cold appetizers.

The Chen family, the Pu Pu's owners, also runs the larger Taiwan Cafe on Broadway. Liu says the other restaurant carries the same kind of food, but also specializes in the Mongolian hot pot, a kind of vegetable-and-meat stew that is cooked in a large pot and then dipped in special sauce before eating. Liu says the dish is "typical in northern China during the winter."

The Pu Pu doesn't make the Mongolian hot pot because the restaurant is simply too small, Liu says. And she adds that the Pu Pu gets some customers who mistakenly think the restaurant carries the dish, given that restaurant's name contains the phrase "hot pot."

According to Liu, the customer base is a "pretty typical" mixture of Chinese and non-Chinese, made up mostly of young people. She says the dining room is packed during the day with the Central Square lunch crowd, and at night the students and locals begin to filter in.

The Pu Pu has long hours, staying open until 11 p.m. every weekday and 11:30 on weekend nights, and it seems the area's student population takes this into consideration.

"Lots of students come here and hang out for a long time," Liu says.

She credits the establishment's success to its family-based ownership.

"This is a very efficient place," she says. "It's owned by one family, with no one else interfering."

"They do things the easiest and the best way possible, without having to consult anyone else," she continues. "It's a very pragmatic place.

And as for that nagging name question, Liu tells me the phrase "pu pu" in Chinese means "cute little treasure," and is often used, for example, as a diminutive term for babies. So "Pu Pu Hot Pot" means "cute little treasure hot pot."

Finding out just what motivated the Chens to adopt their unique name proves difficult. Liu explains that the restaurant's Chinese name, printed underneath the English letters on the sign, means "Number One Inn."

When asked whether customers ever commented on the name, Liu mentions the Chinese translation again, then points to the Phoenix review's analysis and repeats "Lousy name, perfect food."

The Pu Pu Hot Pot is located at 907 Main St. in Central Square.