Ahhh, Chinatown. I have such a love/hate relationship with it. One one hand, it's part of my culture and I love the food there. On the other hand, it can be dirty, crazy and overwhelming. Luckily when my mom is in town, I milk it for all it's worth and have her come along so that she can order for the two of us. I had been to Great NY Noodletown years and years ago, but it's probably been over 5 years since I had been back. It's one of those places that people like Anthony Bourdain used to visit back in the day and hasn't really changed much since.
The place is pretty small and in typical Chinatown fashion, not the most sparkling clean of places and the waitstaff can be kind of sourly. But it somehow feels homey to me. The menu is extensive and cheap as hell. It's a great place to go with lots of people because the portions are enormous and there's so much to choose from. My mom and I split the shrimp wonton soup, 1/2 soy sauce chicken, and seafood chow fun noodles. Despite it being 90+ degrees outside, the shrimp wonton soup really hit the spot. It was super plumb and the wrapper was nice and thin. I loved how the entire bite consisted of all shrimp and no filler or extra thick skin. It was served in a very basic clean chicken broth with sesame oil and scallion base. Fantastic. Next I tried the soy sauce chicken and it was just like what I used to get as a kid. The key with eating this chicken is that you've got to eat it fresh because that's when it's juiciest. The meat is sweet and moist and the skin has got a slick deliciousness to it that only a roasted chicken hanging from a Chinese restaurant front can have. Lastly we had the seafood chow fun - now I love a good chow fun (broad noodle) and this one had a lot of potential but it was kind of all stuck together which was disappointing. Also, there wasn't a great variety of seafood in it. I think there was only like 1-2 pieces of shrimp and scallops in it. It was more heavy on the squid and these giant uncut pieces of Chinese broccoli which they desperately needed to cut. The dish was so large that we were able to take the rest of it home and have a complete dinner with it, so we essentially got 2 meals out of it. I would say that anything you order here should be shared otherwise you will have a very hard time finishing it on your own.
Overall, I have a soft spot for places like this. It's nothing fancy, in fact it's the complete opposite of fancy, the staff can be rude and loud, the decor slightly dirty and concerning but there's just something about it that screams comfort. It doesn't hurt that the food is pretty solid (especially if you've had a few drinks in you) and very cheap. If you haven't been to Chinatown before, it's definitely worth a spot at some point in your time in NYC. Total bill: $30 for two people with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
No comments:
Post a Comment