CHRISTOPHER YEE has a choice to make Christopher Yee ...

Christopher Yee has a choice to make. The eldest son of a Chinatown beef jerky vendor, the 30-year-old has seven years before his father turns 60, which is when he must decide whether or not he will take over the family business, New Beef King.

New Beef King is a one-room store with space for little else than the two glass cases that display different flavors of Hong Kong-style beef and pork jerky. On this day, Christopher leaves the store to find someplace where there is more room to sit down and discuss the business. Christopher took on the spokesman role because his father, Robert Yee, refused to give the interview himself?he wanted his son to take on that responsibility.

After settling at a Mott St. bakery, Christopher starts off in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's an upper-class product," he says, from behind wire-rimmed glasses. "We don't have caviar or pate or stuff like that. Our really nice treat is beef jerky."

Robert Yee opened New Beef King in 1982, when the city's economy was more forgiving to new businesses than it is now. He used his great aunt's recipe and his mother's storefront?she owns nearly half the block that it occupies?to start. "It was a good time to open the store," says Christopher, whose own venture, New Beef King II, failed after ten months. "In the 80s, money flow was good, the economy was good, people had money to spend on upper-class food."

New Beef King makes their jerky daily in the shop's basement. The process involves overnight marinating and five to six hours of baking in four different ovens (warm, hot, very hot, toast). Then, the jerky is tossed in a heated wok with spices and seasoning. The result is a flat, glossy jerky cut the size of Monopoly money that is tender enough to chew without having to soak it with your saliva or forcefully rip it between your teeth.

Though there are four or five other types of jerky being made in Chinatown, Christopher favors the Hong Kong style plied at his father's store. "There's that Malaysian place over on Elizabeth St.," he says, referring to another jerky vendor. "They grill it right in front of you. I don't know if I consider it jerky if it's raw one minute and jerky the next?that's like hamburger to me."

But Christopher doesn't really eat jerky anymore. "At 22 or 23, I got sick of it," he remembers. "Because it tastes good with beer?those were the drinking days?I ate a lot of jerky when I was drunk. I'm 30 now, and I did a lot of drinking."

Before committing to a life in jerky, Christopher will try his hand at real estate, and will soon open a Century 21 office in Flushing. "I see more pride in real estate and having an office than in working in the jerky store," he says. "It's not something you can call your own, taking over what's already established. You don't want to live your whole life doing something that someone else paved the way for you."