A would-be Chinese restaurant bandit, like General Tso’s namesake dish, proved mostly chicken.
The masked, knife-wielding robber fled empty-handed from Chen’s Garden in Brooklyn after the eatery’s gutsy owner and her chef bravely turned the tables on the thief, cops said.
“I wasn’t scared,” owner Yan Lin, 40, told the Daily News. “Maybe because I own the restaurant and I didn’t want him to take the money.”
Surveillance video released Wednesday showed the suspect waving a long-bladed knife and wearing an orange hoodie. He scrambled over the restaurant counter around 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 4.
“I turned around and saw the guy … and I picked up my knife,” said the soft-spoken Lin. “I didn’t want him to jump over the counter, so I decided to fight back.”
She was joined by cook Liu Chun, who grabbed a ladle to help his boss confront the robber. Chun later picked up a stool as he chased the frightened bandit back onto the Canarsie streets, according to Lin.
“My chef was yelling and cursing at him, and maybe because the guy saw more people he turned around and left,” said Lin. “I was very grateful that (Chun) helped.”
The robber, a suspect in three earlier Canarsie holdups, remains a fugitive one week after turning tail and bolting for the front door.
The restaurant remained open for the rest of the night after the failed robbery. Lin was frying chicken wings and Chun preparing Mein Fun noodles when the attacker entered the business.
Chun, unlike his boss, told The News that he was unnerved by the incident and the suspect’s escape.
“I am not happy at all,” he said. “I am worried about everybody’s safety … Police are saying they are trying their best to catch him, but I don’t know when he’ll be caught.”
The suspect ran to a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts, but disappeared before cops answered a 911 call from the restaurant, said Chun.
The NYPD asked anyone who recognized the bandit from the video to call CrimeStoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
Twenty minutes before arriving at Chen’s Garden, the same masked man entered a nearby Baskin-Robbins and robbed a 24-year-old worker of $533, police said.
Cops also believe he brandished a knife at a 26-year-old cashier at a KFC/Taco Bell a block away and demanded the night’s proceeds back on Dec. 29. She gave him close to $900 from the cash register shortly before midnight.
And on Dec. 19, he held up a Dunkin’ Donuts on Flatlands Ave. near the scenes of the other robberies, according to police. He passed a note to the employee and escaped with $320 in cash, officials said.
The suspect was last seen in a black mask, the orange sweatshirt, light-colored jeans and orange work boots.
Lin issued a warning to the wanted thief: Don’t try this again.
“We don’t only have knives, but we have hot oil,” she told The News. “If I had thought about it, I would have poured the oil on him. I don’t want to hurt anybody. But don’t come (back).”
