03.10.10
Posted in Asian, Chinatown/Little Italy, New York City Neighborhoods, New York City Reviews, Southeast Asian, rated 6 to 6.5 at 17:04 by Dominique
141 Grand & Crosby/Lafayette Sts., 212-966-8916
Great for: um, not much
After very relaxing facials with my friend G, we wandered around looking for a non-brunch, non-Chinese lunch. We found it, but it wasn’t very satisfying. At least we had fun hanging out, though that’s because G is a dear and that’s par for the course with her.
We began with num tok grilled beef barbecue with onion, chili powder and lime juice. It was super lime-flavored, not medium rare as requested, and not bad. I think I prefer when citrus is provided on the side – it’s tough to get that exactly right for different people, and too much sourness is pretty much irreparable. The tom yum noodle soup with shrimp was better, but not spicy as promised. It was white people hot, I guess. There were nice noodles and the shrimps were very cooked.
Our chef special main of crispy scallops with sweet chili sauce was quite good. It was not as sweet as I feared it’d be, and the scallops were pretty well executed. The best were the sauceless ones, actually, though they could have been juicier.
The $2 Thai iced tea is a bizarre orange color, and not very sweet. I’m not sure if that’s what it’s supposed to be like – the few times I’ve had it before, it’s been pretty sweet. On the other hand, I am certain about our service, which left much to be desired. Considering they only had two other tables in a fairly large space to look after, the girls were very pissed off about serving us. They were glacially slow doing everything and really quite puzzlingly hostile. I was more pleased with the standard pan-Asian décor and the lovely track lights.
Rating: 6 / 10
Our cost: $40 (2 apps, 1 iced tea)
Noise level: fairly quiet
Chance of walking in: decent.
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03.09.10
Posted in Asian, Chinatown/Little Italy, Chinese, New York City Neighborhoods, New York City Reviews, rated 8 to 8.5, small plates at 00:22 by Dominique
100 Mott & Hester/Canal Sts., 212-966-3988
Great for: scallion pancakes, soup dumplings, crispy half duck, any Shanghai specialties
I am half Shanghainese on my mother’s side. When I was growing up, I thought that nian gao, scallion pancakes and juicy dumplings were totally normal things on a menu. After all, we had them every time we went out. It wasn’t until I had to forage for Chinese food on my own that I realized how difficult it is to find Shanghai food, well-made or otherwise.
These are the best scallion pancakes I have had in years, and I’ve had them in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Vancouver and San Francisco. They are fluffy and don’t even need sauce, which I can’t remember ever not needing. Somehow they are many-layered without being thick, and crispy without dripping with oil. My only wish is that they would have more than four per order. But at $1.75/order, that is not a problem.
The soup dumplings, also known as xiao long bao, are generally excellent. They are a little inconsistent with the thickness of the skin; the first time, too thick, the second time, perfect. In any case, the flavor is to die for; most importantly, they always have lots of “soup.” In case you didn’t know, do not shove the whole dumpling in your mouth. Put it in a Chinese soup spoon, bite a little hole, and slurp out the juices. Add any sauces you may desire and nibble at the rest. If you eat it all in one bite, you will burn your tongue and/or throat and your friends will laugh at you while your eyes water in pain.
The only places in the city that compete with the quality of the soup dumplings are Shanghai Pavilion and Chinatown Brasserie. (Forget Joe’s Shanghai; it’s overpriced and for tourists who don’t know any better. Sorry to burst your bubble, tourists.) Plus, you get eight dumplings for $4.25, or with crab for $6.25. That is crazy cheap, not to mention crazy good.
The wonton noodle soup had very interesting, atypical wontons with giant chives, pork and shrimp in translucent skin instead of white. The noodles were the big fat white kind and the broth was a little too subtle, but still quite good. Maybe the noodles needed to be steeped longer – they were too big not to be flavored.
The waiters were fast and pretty polite, especially for a Chinese place. It’s quite big with standard Chinatown décor. This place is a godsend!
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Our cost: $15
Noise level: quite noisy
Chance of walking in: not great, plus they’re always busy and close at 9pm most days.
The crispy half duck is also excellent. A juicy, crunchy delight bursting with flavor, it is a miracle at only $11.
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03.07.10
Posted in Asian, Chinatown/Little Italy, Chinese, New York City Neighborhoods, New York City Reviews, rated 7 to 7.5 at 00:49 by Dominique
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.
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