Location: 24 Pell St. (Chinatown)
Cuisine: Vegetarian, Chinese
Phone: (212) 577-7176
Prices: About $15 per person
Credit Cards: n/a
Food: 7
Service: 7
Value: 7
Environment: 7
Visits: 1
I took the day off and met up with Paul for lunch. He works on 23rd, but suggested heading down to Chinatown for lunch! I asked him if he was sure... in my mind, there was no way we were going to get down there and back within an hour. Still, we went for it. The downtown train came very late. We fought through crowds in Chinatown and had to wait a little bit at the restaurant for a seat. Just about everything went wrong! But somehow, we spent close to an hour eating dim sum. We made it back much faster, but he was gone from the office for close to 2 hours. Somehow, no one noticed!
Anyway, on to the food! Like Happy Buddha, this place makes "fake" meat dishes out of vegetarian ingredients. The theme is more interesting though because they concentrate on dim sum. We ordered a variety of small dishes including shark fin, half moon and monk dumplings. We also had sesame buns, yams, rice in lotus leaves & mango pudding. The taste was pretty good, but I think this is a good example of how vegetarian food might not be that much healthier. Many of the dishes were deep fried and loaded with wheat gluten. Going by the speed they brought the food out and the high temperature, it was obviously nuked.
The service was good. The staff was friendly and was happy to customize the experience. They normally bring everything out at once, but held off on the mango pudding so it would stay cool. The place was surprisingly clean... surprisingly because it's in Chinatown. These 2 things got high ratings, but the time of day should be considered too. Paul & I went on a weekday for a relatively late lunch.
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