this is one of my favorite dishes too. We used to get it all the time at Fuleen, RIP Sorry to miss you all but I sure didnt go without food today.
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Fuleeeeen! O.B.M. I can’t remember whether it was there or Ping’s that I had the mantis shrimp.
So, for those of you who were at the table, I feel this is a distinction without a difference.
I concede on the Star Trek theme.
Finally got around to checking out the Tin Building. Had lunch at Frenchman’s Dough. The menu has three sections: starters, pizza and pasta.
I had yellowtail crudo which was okay.
Then shrimp scampi which was very nice. Buttery and tart.
In the picture you can see my lovely wife’s chicken parm. It was good but she was very annoyed by the dish. It was listed in the pasta section but didn’t come with any pasta. When she asked the server, she was told that if she wanted pasta she could get a child’s portion of pasta with tomato sauce for another $14. Chicken parm good but the dish was rather lacking as that’s all there was for the price.
We then wandered around looking at the inventory. Pricey stuff. I am beginning to wonder if all the high priced canned seafood that is appearing is a joke. Or at least the Spanish and Portuguese are figuring out how gullible everyone else is.
If you zoom in you can see the prices. $42 for 5 oz of octopus? The best octopus in a restaurant in the city doesn’t cost that much for a serving. $16 for a couple of ounces of sardines in a tin? I can buy a pound fresh sardines for that. I did that the other night. Okay I had to spend a half hour scaling, gutting and filleting them but they were oh so good.
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It was a fun lunch, company great as always, food mixed bag as it usually is, but some different things eaten is always good in my book.
The most surprising thing to me about the menu was how little dim sum there was on a Sunday – a very, very short list, no har gow, no shiu mai, nor most of the things you’d expect at weekend dim sum.
I’m sure the menu was influenced by the neighborhood, in that we chose a Cantonese spot in a Korean area. Also meant the place was empty at 11am, and filled up as we were leaving after 12, but still no lines, just a couple of people standing around.
Still, the rice rolls were delicate and well-made. Anyone notice that shrimp cheung fung “shrinkage” means 2 shrimp along the length instead of the previously usual 3? I noticed that only today. The crispy beef cheung fun wasn’t the stuffed youtiao style we’ve had elsewhere, but there was a thin layer of crispy dough.
The fish cakes were not what I was expecting, but were not surprising in a spongy, fishball-esque texture. But I think the clams and celery were in the mixture. I couldn’t tell what the yellow sauce with something chopped in it was.
The chive and shrimp dumplings were pretty much what I expected, if a bit more fried than usual.
I wondered if they gave us the wrong grouper fillet dish, because what we ordered was called “Sauteed Fillet”. However as I now recall we faced a similar situation at Hakka Cuisine, where “Sauteed Squid” came out as the deep fried salt & pepper squid much to our surprise. So we probably need to start asking if things we think are saucy are actually saucy, or some other thing.
I saw a big platter of lobster with noodles go by, and then another platter of what appeared to be salt & pepper (fried) lobster, which made me think that lobster was probably decently priced. The manager gave us a few options including ginger scallion, though I didn’t hear the one I saw with noodles. Dave picked one that had not been mentioned, and the manager asked if he knew what it was and had eaten it before, which maybe should have been a clue to us to ask more? In any case, I enjoyed the prep that arrived, which had ground pork, black bean, garlic, and egg (scrambled in). We later saw the noodle version on other tables was with saucy e-fu noodles, and the table next to us and a few others had a big steamer of lobster with sticky rice that was also pictured on the wall. So, lots of lobster everywhere.
Some fun reading below about that “Cantonese” lobster (apparently it’s a new york american chinese invention), and a recipe that is similar to what we ate except that our wasn’t saucy, the egg was hard-scrambled. I’m thinking now that what we had would be good with shrimp too.
Inside shots of the beef cheung fun, fish cakes (with mystery sauce), and chive and shrimp dumpling:
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I have a love/hate relationship with fried fish at Chinese restaurants. Usually its Flounder. Sometimes its nice and meaty and other times airy and/or mushy, even at the same places. I would have been tempted to order a Grouper fried like this, but cant tell which way it would go based on the picture.
I dont recall ever having good Grouper in NYC now that I think about it.
Speaking of Shakshuka and Khachapuris (a few days ago at least), we had decent versions of both at Barbounia last weakened. The Shakshuka was a little thicker than usual, but close to traditional. “Mushroom Khachapuri” was more of a cute riff but it worked. Mozzarella, Ricotta, Truffle paste, poached eggs.
Hummus was meh. Roasted eggplant was better.
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The fish inside the batter was fine. I think grouper generally stands up to this treatment better than flounder. The fry wasn’t as crisp as it could have been, though.
It’s rare that I think deep-fried anything is really great. The softshell crab at Saigon Social probably qualifies. And salt & pepper whatever at NYNoodletown, but not every time.
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My reservations about fried fish are usually regarding the batter, which in its less pleasant form (for me) tends to thick, beer batter style. Moon Kee’s fish a few weeks ago was along those lines.
GWK was mid-way on the spectrum, and well-fried to my taste. The topping didn’t have jalapenos and onions, though, which add a lot.
Noodletown does a nice job with a very light coating on shrimp, a bit thicker on scallops and fish.
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I wonder (maybe Ive said this before) whether the use of the batter is an adaption to American preferences, ? Our first experiences of salt-and pepper squid and shrimp might have been just dusted with cornstarch, but they were not battered before frying - and you would never have seen them without the fresh green chiles and other fresh seasonings. It seems like all the batter makes these seafood dishes a lot heavier.
I would vastly prefer this. I’m pretty sure that’s how Oriental Garden did it, and their s&p seafood was great.
Yes, the shrimp at NYN is still almost-only cornstarch. And that’s how I make salt-baked seafood and tofu at home, just cornstarch dusting.
Many Thai places still do it that way, and I think you’re spot on about Americanization.
In the rare case that I fry anything at home, seasoned cornstarch is about all I use for squid / calamari, or s&p shrimp. I can enjoy tempura, and think beer batter has its place for fish & chips, but I generally prefer to let the ingredients shine & not have them overwhelmed by a big ole layer of dough.
I think its unfair to say use of batter for seafood is an American adaptation. I spend a lot of time in New England where fried seafood is a way of life. Rarely if ever battered. Usual preparation is a dredge in a seasoned flour/cornmeal mix. Same with the fish fries down south of my youth. Battered fried seafood in my mind is more likely with British style fish and chips or Japanese tempura.
I think also, given the many variations on protein dishes these places cook, it may be easier to use a base cooking method with a multiplicity of sauces. Since these cooks are cooking in America for american tastes. Its academic whether deep frying is favored elsewhere as well. Even when I pull my old Chinese (from Taiwan and Hong Kong cookery books out, they have plenty of deep fried fish and shrimp preparations. There could be several different reasons for battering the fried fish (including making the finished dish look more substantial.
sorry to have missed it, that lobster looks fab! Of course, it’s hard to say since I didn’t try the food but it seems to me, unless they’re making dishes we can’t find in manhattan, it’s hard to justify the trek to Murray hill unless of course, y’all (yup, still in the south) made some extra stops? I mean…probably just me, but I can’t see passing through that area without another stop at northern king dumpling.
We did a trek through a cool grocery store. But ingesting more food was (for me) out of the question.
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Depending on where you’re coming from, no longer of a trek than manhattan or brooklyn chinatown for a change of scenery / menu. 20 mins from Penn stn on the LIRR timed right.
I had wanted to pick up banchan from one of the several spots around, but being too full was a deterrent, as was a desire to get the lirr!
from the UES, given the need to arrive a little early for the train, it takes about as long to get to the lirr northern terminal as it does to get to Manhattan’s Chinatown. I guess from the uws, it takes longer to get to Manhattan’s Chinatown and a shorter amount of time to get to penn station.
UBANI (midtown)
We had discussed the west village & Brooklyn locations of this spot while back, I didn’t know they had recently opened one on 2nd Ave until I walked by it.
It’s a lovely, large room, very nicely appointed. The menu is similar to the other locations but not identical.
Great cocktails, and the food ranged from good to very good.
We had Imeruli khachapuri, Lobio (bean stew), Chicken in pomegranate sauce, Lamb kebab, Pavlova, and Honey Cake.
The desserts were excellent - and I’m not even a dessert person!
The khachapuri was very good, and they gave us their house hot sauce gratis when requested (as opposed to Chama Mama).
The chicken was not quite what we expected — crisp-roasted, flattened chicken breast over a thinnish sweet & sour gastrique, and Brussels sprouts that were under-done. But the chicken was tasty and so was the sauce.
The lamb kabab was like a Llulya kabab, tasty and a bit spongy from the technique used to make it. It was wrapped in a lavash-type bread, and served with onions and a tomato sauce for dipping. Nice, but I should probably have picked one of the stews.
The Lobio tasted very similar to Indian Dal makhani / Kali Dal, and my companions loved it. It was served with pickled vegetables, a piece of fresh white cheese, and two small discs of cornbread that were crisp on the outside.
We saw similar things on other tables, also plenty of khinkali (which I skipped because of my Chama Mama experience with them, but I’d try if I went again).
Lovely service, friendly and attentive but not intrusive.
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