Family takes the fight to MS, egg roll style
Hwang’s House of Yum a yearly tradition
Once a year, Sarah and Milton Hwang’s home in Bayside becomes Hwang’s House of Yum. A restaurant? Sort of. People do pay for the privilege of visiting a buffet bulging with Chinese egg rolls, pot stickers, fried rice and hot-out-of-the-wok stir-fries. The food is cooked in part by a professional chef. There’s even a premium chef’s table option.
But the proceeds don’t pad the bank account of the “restaurateurs.” They go entirely for funding research into multiple sclerosis.
The cause is personal for the Hwangs. In 1999, when she was 27, Sarah Hwang was diagnosed with MS. For the first decade or so she was “very mobile,” she said. During the last seven or eight years, she’s seen the disease progress.
“Walking and moving is getting more difficult,” she said. Short distances, she can handle with a cane. For longer distances she needs a walker. About 4 years ago, mainly owing to the fatigue that MS causes, she quit her job as marketing director for Renaissance Theaterworks.
“Research,” she says, “is crucial.”
In 2014 she and her husband started House of Yum as a kick starter for the annual Milwaukee Walk MS fundraiser they participate in every year. This year’s walk is May 7. Their buffet event is Saturday. March is also MS Awareness Month.
They invite friends, co-workers, neighbors and family members and ask for a minimum $25 donation. But most give more, and many bring donations matched by their employers or someone else. Checks made out directly to the couple, they themselves match.
Last year, the buffet raised between $13,000 and $15,000. Altogether, their team for the MS Walk (Team Hwang’s Wok-ers) raised $36,000 in 2016. Their goal this year is $40,000.
They serve Chinese food because Milton Hwang is Chinese. He was born here (his name, Milton, is a variation of “Mil-town,” according to Sarah), his siblings were born in Taiwan, and his parents are from southern China.
“He grew up watching his mom cook,” Sarah said. “So a lot of the recipes (for the buffet) come from ideas he got from watching his mom. But he’s also read recipes in Chinese cookbooks for inspiration.”
Joining Milton as sous chef in the kitchen is Sarah’s brother, Jason Kriger, who works as a chef for a retirement home outside Boston. Assorted other family members also pitch in, starting last weekend. “This is definitely a
family effort,” she said.
Egg rolls are made ahead and stored in the couple’s extra freezer. A few days ahead of the party, prep work begins: chopping vegetables, cutting up and marinating meat, cooking up large batches of rice. All of the stir-fries are made fresh, just before serving.
Buffet tables are set up in the dining room of their trilevel home and also in the lower level; the garage is converted into a bar.
The open-house-style event runs from 6 to 10 p.m. There are five seatings for “Dave’s table,” named for the friend who thought it up: $100 for two seats at the breakfast bar, where guests can watch the cooks at work and get the first servings hot off the stove.
Appetizers consist of vegetarian egg rolls (last year, they made 150, which they serve cut in half), pot stickers and fried scallion pancakes, all served with homemade sauces.
Main courses include white and fried rice, beef pepper noodle (“everyone’s favorite”), something with chicken (chicken and broccoli in years past), eggplant in black bean sauce, typically shrimp with pea pods and a cooked vegetable like Chinese broccoli.
Dessert is simply fortune cookies, with customized messages, and sliced oranges.
And to drink: a variety of beers (most Chinese), wines and soft drinks. “Our party has become famous for having Lucky Buddha (beer), which comes in bottles shaped like a sitting Buddha,” Sarah said.
New this year are planned leftovers for sale.
“At the end of the night we usually end up with some leftover cooked food that we put in containers for people to take home,” Sarah explained. “But we also have leftover raw ingredients. This year, we offered to cook those up the next morning and deliver them to people.
“We have no idea (how much will be left over), so if we run out of food (to cover those who’ve paid for leftovers), we’ll go buy more. We underwrite this event 100%, so in certain cases we just wing it.”
As of late last week, 120 people were signed up. They’re counting on about 150.
“It’s turned crazy,” she said. “In 2014, the first year, we had about 60 to 70, and by the following year we had doubled it.”
This year she’s also invited members of the MS groups she’s recently joined. So they’re adding a ramp for better accessibility and will also have a portable, ADA-compliant bathroom set up just outside their door. (Bathrooms in the house require stairs.)
Research into MS has definitely reaped benefits in the 18 years since her diagnosis, Sarah said. The biggest strides have been in therapies for relapsing-remitting MS, a stage characterized by attacks accompanied by acute symptoms.
“When I was diagnosed there were three therapies on the market,” she said. “Now there are 13 and maybe even 15.”
But there’s still so much that isn’t known. MS is not hereditary, but Sarah does have a cousin who also has the disease.
“It’s much more prevalent in cold climates,” Sarah said. “Everything is a little bit of a guessing game. There are scientists who believe it has to do with vitamin D deficiency.”
If House of Yum sounds like an appealing Saturday night meal option, there may be a few slots available. But anyone interested in attending should email Sarah Hwang first at fightms.eggrollstyle@gmail.com. For information on MS Walks in Wisconsin, visit
Sarah has no doubt as to why their annual Chinese buffet has been such a success.
“We have it in our home, so that makes it personal,” she said. “The cause is personal, and the food is personal.”