This was my first great disappointment of 2017. I had read a lot about this place and the menu looked incredible online but I left feeling so underwhelmed by my experience there. It's a shame because the space itself is quite beautiful - it looks like a high end flower shop or Anthropologie - definitely not what you would think of in a Chinese restaurant.
Despite it being a super snowy day, it was still really hard to get a reservation but there was a cancellation at 8:30 that I was able to snag on a Saturday. As I mentioned, the space is lovely but very un-traditional. The menu borders on authentic vs. super non-authentic. It's got dishes like wood ear mushrooms, dan dan noodles and soup buns which are very traditional but then it's got other dishes like sweet and sour meatballs, sake marinated foie gras, and organic cauliflower with smoked ham that's very fusion-esque. We opted to start with roasted vegetable with avocado ($16), the eight spice crispy tofu ($10), the dan dan noodles ($8), the mixed mushroom with black pepper noodles ($18) and I got the claypot dumplings ($12) based on the very enthusiastic recommendation of our waiter. We also got a pot of tea because I mean it's a noodle and tea house and we already got the noodles, how could we not get tea too?
The roasted vegetables and avocado and crispy tofu came out first. It was basically a plate of roasted sweet potato and other root vegetables with slices of avocado and cilantro. It was a perfectly fine dish but it was in no way Chinese at all. I don't think Chinese people ever really use avocado in traditional cooking. It felt like a dish I could get at any local farm to table place. The crispy tofu was bits of soft tofu cubes lightly fried and tossed with five spice. It was honestly a bit underwhelming - while it was easy enough to pop a bunch of these in your mouth at once, there wasn't anything super satisfying about them.
Next came the clay pot dumplings that the waiter was really excited by. Unfortunately since it had pork in it, I had to eat the whole dish myself which I normally wouldn't mind but this was actually a pretty hefty dish to eat on my own because there were so many dumplings and then a heap of noodles underneath. I assumed that they would be regular dumplings with a nice thin wrapper but this was wrapped in a heavy egg crepe (which to be fair, was called out in the menu, I just didn't notice) that I honestly wasn't down with. It felt like I was eating 5 mini omelets on my own. I will say that the noodles and broth was delicious and the best part for the dish - I would have rather had just that without the dumplings.
Next came the dan dan noodles and holy shit was it spicy. I know this dish is supposed to be spicy but this was to the point it was inedible. We had to order a side of white rice to counter balance the insane chili oil spice that was covering the noodles. I'm definitely not a puss when it comes to spicy food but this was just not doing it for me. The noodles themselves were also not super impressive - they were thin and dry. When eating dan dan or any kind of dry noodle dish, I prefer them to be thick and chewy. Luckily the mushroom noodles that came next were not spicy at all, so we ended up mixing the two noodles together which made the dan dan much easier to digest. But similar to the dan dan, the noodles for the mushroom noodles were thin and dry and not really tasty. The mushroom mix was a combination of porcini, white and white beech mushrooms - none of which are particularly Chinese except for the last one. Aarti was a fan of the mushroom mix but I wasn't really, it just didn't really wow me.
The last thing I should note was the tea. It was served in what must have been the world's smallest tea pot. Seriously the waiter must have re-filled it about 10 times for us because it was so damn small. In a legit Chinese place, you should get a giant tea pot that should last you several cups. This may have held 1/2 a cup at most. Well, at least the tea was good.
Overall, I was super bummed about this place. It's physically beautiful and the menu has a lot of promise but it wasn't executed in a way that really impressed me. If you're going to be traditional, then be traditional but don't try to mix it with what was essentially New American food. If you want good Chinese comfort food, I'd recommend you skip out on this place and head over to Grand Sichuan. Total bill: $47/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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