03.07.10
Review of Amazing 66, Wednesday January 2010
66 Mott & Canal/Bayard Sts., 212-334-0099
Great for: eating semi-late, noodles, large parties
We tried to go to Shanghai Café for more xiao long bao love, but they close ridiculously early. 9pm in New York City, really?!?! Fortunately, this place is open until 11 every day.
We had to get our soup dumpling fix somewhere – here, they were wrapped unusually, I think in regular dumpling skins. They weren’t very juicy either, but the flavor more than made up for all that.
The Boyfriend’s chicken chow mein (crispy noodles) was lovely, despite the odd flavor of the chicken. It might have been an end-of-the-day thing. Honestly, we almost didn’t care, the rest of it was so delicious. I loved my shrimp chow fun too. The chewy and tender noodles, plump juicy shrimp and tons of crisp scallion bits complemented each other very well. I wished a few more spices were involved, but overall it was terrific. Both dishes were big enough for two people.
I’d say this place well deserves all its hype. We are definitely trying the Peking duck next time. The only drawback is that it’s quite expensive unless you stick to noodles. There’s a lot of space, and the service was surprisingly courteous, though that could just be Chinese taking care of their own. Male Chinese waiters tend to be very nice to me. I really appreciated the uncluttered, non-crazy décor too.
Rating: 7.5 / 10
Our cost: $30
Noise level: probably noisy when full
Chance of walking in: not great.
