Opened late last year in the original location of the Slanted Door in San Francisco’s Mission District, Wo Hing General Store is the latest addition to the ever-growing empire of Chef Charles Phan.

It’s named for his Uncle Wo and his Dad, Hing, who opened a general store together in Vietnam after fleeing China. It serves up modern-interpretations of Chinese dishes such as jook, ma po tofu, pork and shrimp won tons, and barbecue pork spareribs with harissa — all executed by Chef Michelle Mah, formerly of Ponzu in San Francisco.

As happens when I’m out and about in the Bay Area on assignments for newspapers or magazines, I found myself in the vicinity of the restaurant after concluding an interview. In need of some lunch-time sustenance, I decided to give Wo Hing a try on my own dime.

It’s a casual place, dominated on the first floor by a large sleek bar with a colorful Asian graphic hanging above it.

Since I was eating by myself, I ordered just one dish — the 5-spice roasted pork belly with sweet soy shiitake mushrooms and Chinese Kansui noodles ($14), which are akin to thicker ramen noodles.

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It’s not every day you get invited to dine as a guest at a Michelin three-star restaurant in the Bay Area.

It’s a rarity — especially because there are only two restaurants in the region that have attained that coveted honor, the highest ranking that the Michelin guide book bestows.

For years, there was just one — the French Laundry in Yountville, not surprisingly. But two years ago, it was joined by another establishment — the Restaurant at Meadowood, which not only achieved three stars but has managed to hang on to them, too, for the second year in a row in 2011.

When you have a chef as talented as Christopher Kostow, though, that’s little surprise.

After all, Kostow, who started cooking at age 14 in his hometown of Chicago, already had racked up two Michelin stars at his previous post at the charming Chez TJ in sleepy Mountain View. That’s no small achievement when you consider that it was his first head chef job on his own, too.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the chance to enjoy his cooking four times, most recently in December 2011, just before the restaurant closed for renovations. It will reopen March 12.

Over the years, his food has become more refined and confident, and even playful in the most elegant of ways. It reflects the 35-year-old chef’s personality — tough in the kitchen, but full of humor all other times. As I snapped his picture that day, he fumbled with the prep apron worn over his chef’s jacket, joking that it was not very flattering. “You think they make Spanx for chefs?’ he asked with a chuckle.

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