I don’t think bad food tastes any better with a drink or beer than without (but maybe that’s just me). I tend to avoid beer in restaurants, I feel too bloated after having some beer and am unable to enjoy the food. I have the same problem with lassi in Indian restaurants, I have one and then I’m too full to eat much.
It depends on how you drink. People who drink a cocktail or too before eating risk anesthetizing their taste buds. I tend to sip beer during my meal, and typically the last two-thirds go down after I’ve finished. The carbon dioxide tends to have a tonic effect, in my experience. Belch!
Well, your commentaries are certainly more entertaining. 
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Thanks for that
“Peking duck” : delightful. The crisp but pliable sesame buns helped contain the duck juices, and build on their flavor with some nuttiness. And the juices are full on duck and citrus glaze— there’s no hoisin or tianmianjiang to distract you. Just the right amount of green onion to cut the richness. —it had an intact layer of fat and the skin wasn’t pulled from the meat.
Sesame soft serve with shaved mango ice : wow. Sesame flavor was tame enough to meld well with the mango. Nothing too rich and lots of fun textural bits strewn throughout— pearls (of sodium alginate?) filled with a tart, fruity liquid that bursts upon biting and solid black (cocoa) and white (?) balls.
Charred Chinese broccoli with wild mushrooms: China Live’s contribution to the charring-the-hell-out-of-brassicas trend is put to good use with their Chinese broccoli (gai lan). These are grilled— leafy ends blackened but not bitter, stem ends as crisp and juicy as an expertly steamed or stir-fried version. Not at all oily. Wild mushrooms brought a bonus element of umami and color contrast to the plate.
SJB – the beautiful crusts, and menu description of “juicy” suggested these would be soup-filled. No dice. Putting those expectations aside, I liked these a lot. The bottom on the golden bottoms wasn’t too thick, and the buns absorbed lots of savory flavors. Tasty meatball. No toughness in the dough. The tops and sides had a similar thickness, breadier than I expected.
XLB – adequate. Skins thin but uneven, and pasty near the bottoms. Good soup. My favorite part of this dish was the vinegar ginger dip. I drank several spoonfuls of the spice infused black vinegar, which is also in bottled form without the ginger on the tables. It’s not too acidic and I tasted some black cardamom or Chinese Angelica.
Chysthanthemum 10 ingredient salad : a pretty composition and opportunity to try flowers and an assortment of vegetables, but a dressed salad of raw vegetables is not the most exciting thing on the menu.
The shop had lots of fancy soy sauces, vinegars, rice, etc. it would be nice if they would cross reference the menu with some of these items so they could serve as samples.
Vegetarian XO sauce piqued my interest. Their broad bean chili paste (doubanjiang) is expensive and in a small jar, and I decided not to take the plunge when I realized broad beans (fava beans) are only the fifth ingredient and soy beans are the main legume.
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How much were the Peking duck buns? I’m guessing more than the dollar duck buns at Corner 28 in Flushing. 
Glad to see them browning the bottoms of the shengjian bao more than they were on opening night. I have to admit I liked them for what they were, though I didn’t like them qua shengjian bao. (Nor did I like the 4/$9 price.) They reminded me of the Tianjin dumplings from Happy Dumpling.
The peking duck buns were 5 for $16 (as I mentioned above). On opening night they were sending out sjb with black bottoms at one point, although the ones I had were golden brown.
Ha, the juices running down my hand at one point brought me back to the $4 roast duck of early 90s Canal St. 
What’s that type of bread in the duck called? The outside wasn’t oily, so I assume it’s baked, closer to pita, rather than pan fried like a lot of bing.
Looks like shao bing (烧饼). Shanghainese also call it “da bing” even when it’s not “da.”
My wife buys the Einstein sesame bagels from Costco because they remind her of da bing when toasted.
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Shanghainese of my wife’s age will tell you a real street breakfast consist of “four heavenly kings” (si da jin gang), 四大金刚), as follows:
Da bing (大饼),
You tiao (油条), or crullers,
Dou jiang (豆浆) or soy milk
Ci fan gao (粢饭糕) or sticky rice “hash browns”
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Koi palace makes a large da bing iirc, pie-sized. I used to get the crunchy sticky rice cakes (with thin omelet on top) at Winsor in boston but haven’t seen them here
So true. I don’t think it’s an accident that cocktail culture was at a peak in the '50’s when food was at a nadir. I enjoy food and I enjoy cocktails (though rarely out, as they’re overpriced), but I drink cocktails or strong liquor after a meal, not before. And my main reason to order beer with dinner is that I can nurse it (there would be more reasons if I knew places with a great beer selection and great food, but they seem to be distinct, at least locally). A glass of wine gets finished too quickly (and is typically more expensive, also).
Went to China Live for a snack. Was seated in the back where they were making the Dongbei style vegetable potstickers and SJB. A chef was continuously rotating the SJB pan with some calipers.
SJB ($9) were pretty good. Not too bready, but some of them could have used some more filling, seemed to be a little uneven filling wise. Bottoms were also a little thick, maybe by design? Had some juice inside. Bottoms were crispy.
XLB ($9) were also good - lots of juice, no leaks. I accidentally poured soy sauce instead of vinegar on the ginger plate and repurposed my spoon to be a dipping vessel. They are unmarked and the same color - the vinegar is in the smaller bottles.
Vegetable Potstickers Dongbei Style ($9). I ordered these because I figured I should have some vegetables. Huge. Stuffed with some ribbons of bean curd sheets, mushrooms, vegetables, and I think some glass vermicelli. Not bad but probably would not rush to order again. A little on the dry side.
I like that they have a wine list. Had a nice glass of sauvignon blanc with the dumplings. Didn’t feel so much like a “Chinese Eataly” right now as it felt more like a large restaurant that happened to also have a retail section. I’ve only been to the Eataly in Chicago but there they had a larger selection of goods, and the restaurant/food counters were more like separate entities.
SJB
XLB
Vegetable Potstickers Dongbei Style
I went yesterday around 4 pm. They have continual service from lunch until closing but I’m not sure if they should. It was largely empty which I was happy about, and I sat at the counter by the dumpling and noodle section.
I ordered the sjb and the “Marco polo” zha jiang mian. I was told the bao would take 20-30 minutes which i took as a good sign that they would be fresh and hot. I noted the huge special pans and waited for about that length of time, noticing that the two cooks at the station were folding trays of wontons for dinner service. Eventually one of them opened one of the pans and plucked four bao out. They were precooked from before I was seated and were hardly warm. I sent them back and was asked if I wanted another order, and my server pointed at the same pot my first order came from. I said no for that reason and was told it would be another 20-30 minutes. I was too hungry and could no longer schedule in that long a wait, so I asked for xiao long bao instead.
My noodles came while I was waiting for the xlb. I liked the shape of the noodles, long and tubular like bucatini. I’m guessing they’re the “Marco polo” aspect. It was not a large portion, which I expected. But the sauce was kept in a metal tub over a bain marie and was also not very warm, for a dish that translates into fried sauce noodles, if I remember correctly. At first I thought it wasn’t enough sauce to coat the noodles, and the very eager to please and friendly floor staff had me brought another small bowlful of sauce. But it wasn’t the amount, it just was bland. When I think of zha jiang mian I think of salty, funky, earthy fermented bean paste flavors. I knew not to expect the blackish Korean version I grew up with but I’ve had northern Chinese versions and liked them. This one was just underseasoned, watery and lukewarm.
The xlb’s were pretty good. I’m not too picky about them. I really liked dumpling kitchens a few years ago. Bund shanghai’s, one of the LA area din tai fung’s. I did not like Shanghai dumpling kings. Just for comparison over the past couple years. Two had small cracks in the skin, but they were hot at least and had good flavor, and were juicy. They seemed very eager to demonstrate proper xlb eating technique, maybe because of timeout london’s piece showing people exploding them for fun and discarding the soup?
Maybe the Shen jian bao weren’t being tended to because I was the only one who ordered them between lunch and dinner, which is why I said maybe china live should not be open in between. But the precooked baos were not warm, and I did wait roughly half an hour for them as told, while watching the cooks making wontons instead. I just didn’t like that bowl of zha jiang mian. Except for the actual noodles.
The staff seemed genuinely concerned about my experience and eager to accommodate me. i will go back, but not too soon. The veggie potstickers that the cooks started to cook fresh after my own misfire of a lunch looked delicious. And I was eyeing those ducks as well.
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The meal we had was disappointing - each dish was flawed. I like the space and concept, but I may revisit in a few months when they’ve hopefully worked out the kinks.
I think the menu needs some more focus and refinement; it just seems a bit haphazard. We got the distinct impression that this feels like a restauranteur’s concept backed by tech money, but not a restaurant with great food.
"Peking duck with kumquat glaze and sesame packets" was off in texture. One of the important elements of good Peking duck, in my opinion, is the texture contrast. Whether it’s the pliant chew of the thin pancake, or the fluffiness of a just-steamed bun, the wrapper should have a nice softness that contrasts with the crisp skin and crunchy cucumber. Here, the “sesame packet” was like a medium-thin, crispy sao bing. Not enough contrast with the skin, so the skin’s texture was lost. The kumquat glaze was quite nice, but also wasn’t contained well because it didn’t absorb but was rather leaky.
"Snow peas with lily bulb and black mushrooms, abalone sauce" was disappointing. The mushrooms were sour - we’re guessing they used soy sauce and not oyster sauce. It wasn’t a good sour, but the kind of sour your get when cooking mushrooms the wrong way. The sauce wasn’t bad, but this dish was just OK. These ingredients could work well together, but the execution was off. Again, better texture contrast would be the key here.
"Grilled Monterey octopus, XO sauce, watercress and radish salad" was pretty poor. First off, it shouldn’t be in the “Live Seafood” section, but rather it should be listed as a salad, because that’s what it is. Pieces of charred octopus are pretty paltry, so you don’t get the nice tender chew that you’d experience with bigger pieces. XO sauce was nearly nonexistent, and whatever faint flavor there was clashed badly with the copious amounts of mint. The char, mint, XO, and radish was a weird combination that didn’t do justice to any of the ingredients.
"Three Treasure Bao Zai Fan Claypot Rice" had promise, but the rice’s texture was off. The rice was nearly mushy, but not that moist. The lap cheong, la rou, and cured duck were thinly sliced, but not bad.
China Live, at least in our experience, needs a bit of work. The ingredients sound pretty good but the menu just doesn’t seem like it’s coming out of a strong Chinese kitchen at the moment.
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Did they have socarrat at the bottom?
There was some, but overall we didn’t think the rice was cooked well enough. It was almost mushy, and the clay pot almost didn’t seem hot enough.
There’s potential in the space and concept, but I’ll wait until the menu improves.
Taiwan Beef Noodle is now &16.
per my Yelp review detailing the beef broth as tasteless. George Chen inboxed about Robin Lin’s awards.
Lin’s broth is made from 27 spices brewed at 6 levels. beef broth is brewed 48+. describes Lin’s broth as “pure”
note: beef tendon, baby bok choy, beef brisket very nicely done. big fat noodles chewy. not much.
also mention XIao long bao’s hot tasty soup & miniscule amount of meat within.
seems every server on duty asked me how the food was. “so so” i replied,.
Were there more? I made it here for the first time to check out their fancy pantry collection but didn’t see much. Lots of tea, some soy sauces. I think maybe a vinegar or two. Some spice powders. I was hoping that they would import more of the good stuff from China but I am guessing many of the better stuff don’t have an importer. They seem to have more housewares, books, etc, i.e. the non-perishable stuff.
