Monday, February 11, 7:00 P.M.
Members $95, guests $120

The story of how Philadelphia chef (and duckmaster) Joseph Poon got to where he is today could be the script of a Hollywood movie. Opening scene: the teenage Poon toils away in a Hong Kong restaurant, where he becomes fascinated by the intricate fruit and vegetable carvings sculpted by the chef. He begs the chef to teach him how, but the haughty chef refuses. Undeterred, Poon buys several hundred pounds of potatoes and practices, bloody-fingered, until he has mastered the Chinese craft of culinary carving.

Cut to Poon in the New World. Speaking almost no English and with just $8 to his name, Poon lands in Philadelphia. There he holds down a number of jobs: he washes dishes and waits tables; he works in construction and mixes batter at a fortune cookie factory (where any fortune cookie worth its wrapper would have read, "You will one day open several fabulous restaurants, and you will become a beloved Philadelphia personality").

Next, in our rags-to-riches adventure, Poon gets his big break: he goes to college, where he earns a degree in nutrition, then spends four intensive months at the CIA. In 1979, he opens Sang Kee restaurant in Philadelphia. Five years later, he truly makes his mark on the local culinary scene with Joe's Peking Duck. The restaurant is phenomenally successful-in 1989 USA Today names it among the 14 best Cantonese in the country. Poon eventually sells the business to oversee culinary matters at the China Coast Restaurants chain. But by 1997, he's back in the City of Brotherly Love, and a grateful population hails Joseph Poon Asian Fusion Restaurant. As citysearch.com put it, "This place makes culinary worlds meet with fiery flair."

Situated on the edge of Chinatown, Poon (the restaurant) "has one foot in the ethnic enclave and one foot out-and the foot that's out really wanders," Todd Pitock wrote in Hemispheres. Peking duck alone is available in more preparations than there are Buddhas in a Chinese tchotchke shop. There's Peking duck with rosemary polenta, Peking duck taco, Peking duck sushi rolls, and tortilla-wrapped Peking duck roll. As the ebullient, charismatic, unflagging Poon is fond of saying, "My kitchen is open and my mind is open."

Climactic scene: Poon's superchef status is confirmed in February 2002, when he cooks an astounding Chinese New Year's dinner at New York's famed Beard House. Get your ticket now.