05.03.08

Review of Chinatown Brasserie, Saturday lunch March 2008

Posted in Asian, Chinese, New York City, New York City Reviews, NoHo, rated 9 to 10, small plates at 01:30 by Dominique

380 Lafayette & Great Jones St., 212-533-7000
Great for: best dim sum in the city (so far), sharing lots of food, taking sophisticated parents to lunch

Usually the Boyfriend complains if I try to drag him to dim sum, with good reason. New York has a big Chinatown and at least one Chinese restaurant on every block – I don’t get why the dim sum is so mediocre. Vancouver, Toronto and San Francisco are all better. (I know, I know, Flushing, but it’s over an hour away and outside Manhattan. I don’t like to spend my Sunday trying to avoid mystery puddles and creepy strangers in trains.) Though I haven’t tried every single place here, I’ve been to a good proportion of them, and this upmarket NoHo place beats the rest hands down.

I nearly had a fit when I saw fresh corn and egg soup with crabmeat on the menu. My favorite dish at my favorite restaurant when I was a little girl was a corn, shrimp and crab soup. This one wasn’t quite as mind-blowing, and the crab was actually lobster (no objection), but it was pretty darn good. It’s not like traditional soup filled with cornstarch; it was very clear, and grew on me as I got used to it. I liked the crunchiness of the corn as well. I wasn’t sure, but I thought the modern update of an old classic boded well for the dumplings we had coming. I also knew that Joe Ng, the executive chef, trained in Hong Kong, so I wasn’t terribly worried.

I was right to hope. All the dumplings had really thin skin, which is a sign of a chef who knows what s/he’s doing – it takes artistry to wrap everything up in a perfect little package without much doughy reinforcement. The steamed shrimp dumplings (har gow) were tender, scrumptious bundles of joy. The roast pork buns were small, fluffy and delicious; the crab and pork soup dumplings juicy and fantastic. Resign yourself to losing some soup from the first two despite your best efforts with the lovely soup spoons, as the dumplings are quite cozy in the bamboo steamer. The crispy shrimp and mango rolls with Dijon mayonnaise (a house specialty) were surprisingly good as well. I didn’t think I would like them but I totally did. The spicy sauce that automatically comes for the table, of soy, chili peppers, onions and scallions, was great too. Although you should not eat the chilies if you want to be able to close your mouth in the near future. Fortunately, I made that mistake at the end of the meal.

We were in raptures over the lobster tail tempura on a bed of roast shallots with mild wasabi mayonnaise and hoisin sauce. The claws were pretty good, while the tail was excellent. The Boyfriend loved the tail so much I let him have a bit of my half. It’s best when hot but still very good otherwise. The beef puff pastries and pork potstickers were great despite having some mushroom. The shrimp and snow pea dumplings that looked like small toad Pokémon were tastier than any little monster should be. The only dish we didn’t love was the crispy taro root shrimp “birds.” Each bird had a taro filament-wrapped shrimp and pork body with a funny bread head dipped in honey. Sadly, they had very noticeable mushrooms and I don’t care for taro so it wasn’t really my thing. But we’d had eight excellent plates out of nine and were stuffed too full of dumpling love to care.

Our flutes of Taittinger rosé champagne went surprisingly well with the dim sum. So did the courteous service – in Chinese restaurants I’m used to waiters who are overworked at best and more usually surly and incomprehensible (I speak Mandarin and they all seem more comfortable in Cantonese). Our waitress was absolutely lovely in looks and action. I liked the décor too, which was chinois without being tacky. The place is basically a French brasserie in layout and furniture, with Chinese floors and furnishings. It’s enormous and seems the type of place you could take your visiting parents. Not because it’s stuffy or boring, but because it’s sophisticated yet homey.

I was impressed with the extent of the dim sum selection. They had all the regular ones plus some fusion and high-end variations. The dishes are mainly four of each thing and come out in waves – you get as much as will fit on your table at one time. I thought the prices were pretty reasonable too. Of course it’s not as cheap as Chinatown, but $6 for most of the plates is not bad for such an upscale restaurant. (The price goes up to $8 at dinnertime.)  I am so happy I finally found good dim sum in NYC. And I am delighted to take back my former disappointment that “there aren’t more chefs trying to do really good Chinese (not fusion) cuisine.” Chinatown Brasserie is a shining example of terrific, real Chinese food in an upscale setting. Thank you, Mr. Ng!

Rating: 9 / 10
Our cost: $210 (4 glasses of $19 Taittinger)
Noise level: loud-ish music, not too much noise from other tables
Chance of walking in: medium.

Two weeks later we came with four friends and shared the Peking duck as well as lots of dim sum, and the bill was about $35 per person (I think we ate less than last time, though). The duck was great and even our Hong Kong friend thought the dim sum was good. Must think of another occasion to go…

Permalink