Scallion Waffles and Fried Rice Come Together at Houston’s New Asian American Diner

An ice cream sundae laced with herbal Chinese cough syrup, crawfish egg foo yong, and al pastor fried rice — here’s what to eat at Agnes & Sherman

After working behind the scenes at some of Houston’s best restaurants and hosting pop-ups around town, chef Nick Wong is back, this time at the forefront of his own restaurant. The UB Preserv veteran has partnered with his longtime friend and business partner, Lisa Lee, to open their first restaurant: Agnes and Sherman. Named after Wong’s parents, this Asian American diner is an ode to Wong’s very American upbringing and Asian American heritage, while also leaning into some of Houston’s most prominent cuisines.

Here are some of the best dishes that reveal Wong’s fresh lens on Asian American cuisine.

Annie Mulligan

Scallion waffle with sambal honey butter ($14)

Wong’s scallion waffle can stand in as an exceptional bread service. The chef admits he’s not a big breakfast person and certainly not a huge fan of sweets. However, because most diners offer some variation of pancakes or waffles, and scallion pancakes are a popular Chinese dish, he sought to create something new that could be defined as both Asian and American cuisine. Enter, the scallion waffle. Wong mixes and ferments the batter overnight, then covers the waffle iron and batter with scallions, searing lacey pieces of scallion visibly into the savory waffle for a fun pop of flavor and texture. Then, he tops it with a scoop of vibrant orange sambal honey butter, which adds a hint of sweetness.

Al pastor fried rice ($18)

The al pastor fried rice is inspired by a dish Wong used to make for family meals at a previous restaurant in hopes of appeasing servers and staff. “It is something nice that I can bang out real quick,” says Wong, adding that staff quickly fell in love with it. “It’s just regular to me, but it has all of these different influences.” Wong marinates and cooks the al pastor in-house, then combines it with egg-fried rice, along with chopped onions, pineapple, and cilantro. It’s like an al pastor taco but in rice form.

Crawfish egg foo yong ($26)

Wong recalls his time working in New York, where egg foo yong, a quintessential Chinese American dish composed of protein (such as chicken, shrimp, or beef), egg, rice, and gravy, was especially popular. The version on the Agnes and Sherman menu is prepared in a very Bayou City way: Wong tops white rice with a Thai-style omelet, crawfish, and a gumbo gravy made with a dark roux, corn starch to make it tighter, and the Cajun trinity (onion, celery, and green bell pepper). The result is a plated mishmash that doesn’t always photograph well but evokes some of the most comforting aspects of Chinese and American — and more specifically, Southern — cuisine, featuring rice, eggs, crawfish, and gravy.

Wedge salad ($17)

Many restaurants have capitalized on the popularity of a dependable wedge salad. At Agnes and Sherman, Wong makes it his own, covering hunks of lettuce with his homemade ranch infused with ginger and scallion, and then topping them with tomato; shards of youtiao, Taiwanese doughnuts that stand in for croutons; and miniature slices of Chinese sausage that resemble pepperoni. “It’s a little more complicated than I would like it to be,” he says of the salad. The sausage has proven challenging to crisp, he says, due to its high-fat content and the small size of the pieces, which can cause them to burn. “But I like to do things the hard way.”

Ice cream sundae ($13)

Agnes and Sherman’s ice cream sundae features one of the most unexpected ingredients. Milk & Honey, an Asian-owned business that Wong says he frequented excessively during the height of the pandemic, supplies chrysanthemum ice cream for a cooling, floral base that pays homage to chrysanthemum tea, a popular beverage within Chinese culture. The scoops are topped with roasted salted peanuts, coconut cream, and a chocolate shell. The key ingredient, however, is Chinese cough syrup. Wong incorporates Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa, the syrup his mother gave him for sore throats while growing up, which is composed of honey, herbs, and loquat, an orange-like fruit that originated in China.