CCK Restaurant, Albany, NY

There are moments for delicacy and eating a piece of roast pork that has just been sliced from a hanging mass of golden crispness in the CCK Restaurant kitchen is not one of them.

My first bite closed in around the crunchy skin and soft layer of half-melted fat beneath it. Chef Peter Chan shook his head.

"No," he said. "You have to take it all in one bite."

I was standing in the back of the kitchen in the CCK Restaurant on Central Avenue. To my left was the body of a pig that had been roasted whole and was now swaying upside down in all its headless glory awaiting the chef's knife. The roasted head sat on the counter in front of me.

The night before, I had finished reading Heat, Bill Buford's account of his ventures into professional cooking. The second half of the book follows him to Tuscany where he apprentices with a famous Italian butcher who drinks and quotes Dante while Buford learns to dissemble and use every part of a pig.

Now, I was having my own intimate pig moment, although I assure you that Chef Chan seemed perfectly sober and there was no mention of infernos in any language (that I know of.) Still, there I was with the pig and the plate and the chef urging me to take it all in one bite.

"It has layers," said Chef Chan. "You must have all of it together."

I put a full slice in my mouth.

First there was the crunch of the skin, golden and light, then a soft moment of fat that warmed the mouth without coating it with grease. This was followed by a firm piece of meat and then the final part, which I can't describe except to say that it was like the best of all the other layers put together.

I closed my eyes and floated away for a moment.

Then it was time to head back out to the dining room and order lunch.

This was my third visit to CCK. My mom and I were joined by Aaron Zhou and Aijun Nie, who together just launched a regional Chinese-language newspaper. They are friends of Chef Chan and Aijun told me that he thinks of the place as his "other kitchen." Both of them say CCK is their favorite Chinese restaurant in the area.

I handed Aijun the menu and told him we were in their hands.

The first thing to arrive at the table was a pickled duck egg.

Layers. And more layers. It takes months to make a pickled egg, Aijun said.

The outside of the egg was translucent brown with a firm jello-like texture. The yolk was layered in shades of deep green, gradually softening toward the center, which was so creamy it started to run.

I popped a slice in mouth.

Again, the textures played foil for each other, the firm gelatin mixing with the cream. The flavor had echoes of egg and whiffs of smoke. It was delicious in a delicate way that the words "pickled egg" don't evoke.

After that the food started to pile onto the table. A large plate of roast pig and roast duck.

Snow pea shoots sautéed with ginger and garlic.

A seafood and tofu casserole. And, my favorite, salty squid with hot peppers.

The menu called the dish "salty baked squid," but it is lightly fried, although not at all greasy. I took the dish to another table for a moment to photograph it and was tempted to stay there and finish it. What more can you say than salt, oil, and heat all wrapped around perfectly tender morsels of squid. Yeah, I'll be ordering that again.

I asked Aaron and Aijun for suggestions for future visits. Aaron loves the spare ribs with bitter melon. The melons are bitter and intense on the first bite, he said. And then after you start eating it gives way to this clean wonderful taste. I have to try that next time. I tend to like bitter foods in general.

They also recommended baby octopus with black bean sauce and anything with lamb in it. I've sampled the tofu hot pot and the stir-fried Chinese greens and both were delicious. One note, Chef Chan uses less salt on his greens than you might expect. Instead they are aromatic with hearty pieces of ginger and garlic.

The conversation was as interesting as the food. Aaron is a theoretical physics graduate student at RPI. Aijun is the president of Maxmind Group, Inc., a media company he recently launched. The newspaper is one of the Maxmind's first ventures. My mom is fascinated with all things Chinese. It was fun to listen to the ideas bounce from Chinese history to economics to the relationship between food and passion to business to the multi-cultural potluck menus of RPI's physics department.

Chef Chan cooks Hong Kong style Chinese food. He is one the three partners in Ocean Palace, one of the area's better known Chinese-food-for-Chinese-people restaurants. In October, he took over the kitchen at CCK. He makes the whole roast pig as a special on Fridays and Saturdays. Roast duck and BBQ pork are always on the menu.

Most everything on the menu is under $10.

The restaurant is located on Central Avenue between Quail and South Lake. It is a few doors down from Van's and across the street from Sabah Market.