Category Archives: Lower East Side/Chinatown

Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

New Tu Do

February 27, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I stopped in here for a quick Vietnamese fix.

I had the small bowl of Pho Tai (eye round beef only). The broth had good flavor. It was a bit salty, but overall it really hit the spot. The meat was good quality, and the herbs were fresh.

My wife tried this version of bun bo hue (another hearty type of beef stew) but with added pork as well. The broth had a shrimp paste flavor to it that really threw us off. We weren’t happy with it.

We also tried these flattened rice noodle cakes that were topped with dried shrimp powder, mung bean paste, scallions, fried onions and fish sauce. These were okay. Though I am not a fan of the dried shrimp powder in general, that flavor made much more sense here than in the paste form in the bun bo hue soup.

My wife also had a durian fruit shake. I’m not a huge fan of durian (smells like rotting garbage), but if you can get past the smell then this was actually pretty tasty.

NEW TU DO
102 Bowery
New York, NY 10013

Banh Mi, Deli, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Sau Voi Corp

February 24, 2016 Johnny Prime 1 Comment

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS NOW CLOSED

This little corner Vietnamese bodega was a staple spot for me and my wife when we lived nearby.

They sell everything from Vietnamese variety show VCDs to music CDs, over the counter meds to dry goods and trinkets.

But they also sell banh mi sandwiches.

I grabbed two on my way home from jury duty, which brought me back into my old stomping grounds.

The classic: ham, pate and slices of pork roll with pickled veggies, cilantro, mayo and sri racha.

The spicy BBQ pork: BBQ pork with pickled veggies, cilantro, mayo, BBQ sauce and sri racha.

Both were really tasty and flavorful. The bread here is likely made early in the morning. When I arrived it was still being kept warm in a toaster oven type thing, but it may have dried out a bit in the hours it was there. The French bread was crispy and flaky, so much so that the roof of your mouth gets raped pretty hard, but the sandwich flavors make it worth the pain. These sandwiches are pretty solid for a cheap Chinatown deli shop. Stop in if you’re nearby.

SAU VOI CORP.
101 Lafayette St #3
New York, NY 10013

Chinese, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Restaurant Reviews

Excellent Dumpling House

February 23, 2016 Johnny Prime 5 Comments

NOTE: THIS JOINT IS CLOSED

Day two of jury duty gave me the opportunity to finally try Excellent Dumpling House, a small joint just below Canal on Lafayette that slings some decent cheap grub.

I grabbed three items to fuel my sense of civic duty.

1) fried pork dumplings.
These were crispy and light. I gobbled them up pretty quickly and was waiting for my next dish. I have to say, I was impressed with these and I had very low expectations going into it.

2) bbq duck egg roll
This was just mediocre. I was expecting a more dry experience as opposed to a highly sauced inside. That’s fine. It was just a little bland and slightly heavier on the vegetables as opposed to the duck.

3) steamed shrimp and crab dumplings
These were excellent. A full, good quality and perfectly cooked shrimp was inside each, along with some crab meat mash. The sauce it came with was like a spicy cream sauce. Not a fan of that. But the dumplings themselves were great. The skin didn’t rip too much, yet it wasn’t too thick and gummy.

These three items came to $17.50 with tax and tip included.

EXCELLENT DUMPLING HOUSE
111 Lafayette St
New York, NY 10013

Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Nha Trang Centre

February 22, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I am stuck waiting to see whether I have to serve on a jury down here, but the plus side is that there are some decent cheap eats joints nearby in Chinatown.

This is my second or third time eating here. My wife and I used to live around the block from about 2006-2009, and during that time was probably the last time we went.

I grabbed two of my four standard favorite Vietnamese items for lunch: pho and banh cuon. The other two are summer rolls (goi cuon) and spring rolls (cha gio).

The pho was a bit lacking in flavor. I missed the robust punch that should be associated with the broth. The noodles and beef were both of good quality though, and both the basil and the bean sprouts were nice and fresh. I generally order the Pho Tai, which contains just slides eye round meat, not the beef balls, tendon, tripe or brisket. So that could be why the broth was less flavorful. However I doubt they use different cooking vessels to create the base pho stock/broth, so diner beware.

The banh cuon, on the other hand, was pretty good. For those who don’t know what this is, the menu calls it “Vietnamese ravioli.” It’s wide, flat rice noodles that are rolled or filled with seasoned chopped meat inside – typically pork – and then topped with fish sauce, crispy fried onion, scallions, and thick slices of a processed kind of pork roll that’s similar to a bologna style lunch or deli meat. That description may sound weird to your western eyes/ears, but I assure you it’s good. Here, it was served on top of bean sprouts and some chopped lettuce.

Those two items, plus a beer, came to $21 with tax and tip included. Pretty great.

I was so pumped on the fact that I was back down in our old neighborhood with easy access to cheap Vietnamese food that I went back for dinner. There was this pork rice dish that caught my eye while I was there: Com Suon Bi Cha.

This is barbecued pork chop, shredded pork and steamed egg cake with white rice. The shredded pork was a mixture of gelatinous bits and roast pork, which go nicely with the rice for texture. The thin-sliced BBQ pork was delicious and exactly what I expected. It was tasty and had no gristled fat, with an awesome lemongrass and charred grill flavor. The rice was a tiny grain that absorbed the fish sauce nicely, and the egg cake contained a mash of what I assume was fish sauce and more ground pork meat. It came with carrots, bean sprouts, cucumber and tomato.

I also grabbed an order each of Cha Gio.

The spring rolls were crispy. I think they had more mushroom and veggies than pork inside, but I didn’t mind because all the fixings were nice and fresh. You wrap these fuckers in lettuce and then fill with cucumber, pickled daikon, carrot and mint leaves. Then you dip that shit in fish sauce and hot sauce. Delicious.

And that’s it. Tomorrow I’ll be hitting either another Vietnamese joint or a dumpling place. Nha Trang Centre is definitely good for a Vietnamese food fix. I’d skip the pho, but the other stuff is good.

NHA TRANG CENTRE
148 Centre St
New York, NY 10013

Carcass Club/Beast Feast, Chinese, Flash Deals, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Restaurant Reviews

Golden Unicorn

August 7, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife picked up a Living Social deal for an eight course Peking duck dinner at Golden Unicorn, which is otherwise famous for its dim sum service. I was pretty impressed overall. But let me babble about a few other things first…

First off, I absolutely love this part of town. East Broadway and the surrounding side streets encircling the Manhattan Bridge still feel like old NYC. Not much has changed, save for a few new buildings poking up here and there. Walking around, you’ll feel like you’ve stepped back in time, possibly even into another country.

This area is the real deal Chinatown, unlike the tourist-laden, knock-off selling, shitty DVD purveying hustle on Canal street. Take a closer look in these parts, or allow a lingering eye to glance into some storefronts, and you’ll spy people working at a ground floor dumpling factory. You’ll see produce, dry goods and health products that most white people have no idea about, and you can’t even read the signs to get more info, because they’re all in Chinese. It has a busy, bustling vibe and I love it.

Okay on to the fucking food. First up was egg drop soup with chicken. This was pretty good, though I did have to add a little bit of hot sauce to punch it up slightly.

Next were two types of dumplings: crystal shrimp and siu mai. Both were excellent. If you swing by this joint for dim sum, these are some of the delights you can enjoy from the carts. Both were packed with ingredients and nicely steamed.

Then the spring rolls came out. They didn’t look like much, but they had great flavor. I was actually surprised, although they were a little bit too greasy on the shell.

Our waitress then brought out the Peking duck. YES!

She cut off a good deal of the crispy skin and more generous portions of meat, and, with that, assembled six steamed buns for us, accompanied by hoisin sauce, scallion and cucumber. They were awesome. Crispy, fatty, juicy… all around excellent.

The rest of the duck was chopped up for us and served on a plate:

The meal kept on trucking along with this ginger beef and broccoli dish. The ginger was fresh and sliced thin. The beef was tender and flavorful. I think it was a mix of flank and rib eye. And the broccoli was steamed in the sauce, so it tasted awesome.

There was also some fried rice with shrimp, roast pork, ham, peas, onion and egg. We were really too full to dig into this too far.

At the end of the meal, some honeydew and orange arrived at the table. A nice, refreshing, smiley-face looking end to the meal.

Excellent deal. Jump on it if you see another Living Social or Groupon offering for this place. And definitely check out their dim sum on the weekend for lunch.

GOLDEN UNICORN
18 E. Broadway
New York, NY 10002

Lower East Side/Chinatown, Ramen

Ochado

March 27, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I stopped into this ramen joint for a quick bite after a sub-par burger. Since they were out of Orion (one of my favorite Japanese beers), we tried this fucker from NJ. Pretty good – a mild stout.

My buddy ordered some chicken wings, which were nicely crisped and garnished with fried garlic and shallots. Very nice.

I went with the “Prawn Mee” ramen, which is a non-traditional bowl but the menu descritpion sold me on this over the porky miso varietal. It was good. It had a great spicy kick to a broth that was clearly steeped in shrimp shell stock goodness.

The egg was perfectly cooked, and all the shrimp within were similarly perfect. I didn’t love the way the scallions were shredded, but I swept those aside easily so they didn’t get tangled up in the noodles.

Overall I enjoyed it, so I will probably be back to try the miso ramen.

OCHADO
76 Orchard St
New York, NY 10002

Burgers, Diner, Lower East Side/Chinatown

Mikey’s

February 7, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This little lower east side burger joint is the perfect place for a hits-the-spot burger and fries combo.

For $10 even, you get a pretty fucking solid little burger and a HUGE order of french fries. And on the weekend they still serve up the lunch special, which means you get a free can of soda with it.

The bun is a great potato jammy, and the burger comes topped with lettuce, tomato and onion. The patty gets a wonderful crisp on it due to the flat top griddle:

The menu is pretty great looking. I will definitely be back to try a couple of the hotdogs:

MIKEY’S BURGER
134 Ludlow St
New York, NY 10002

Banh Mi, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Pho Vietnam

February 7, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This little spot is currently my new favorite Vietnamese food joint. It’s nice and clean inside, new-looking, and the food is really tasty. My wife and I tried a few items as a base level test run to decide if we would come back.

The pho: very flavorful, a good size, fresh ingredients. In fact they keep a jar of sliced jalapeños right there on the table next to the chopsticks, spoons, napkins, hoisin and sri racha.

The banh mi sandwich: nice and traditional, great bread, lots of filling and at least a foot long.

Next, one of my wife’s favorites: banh cuon. Really good quality shit here. Nicely cooked noodles, ample filling inside, and good slices meats and herbs.

Last was my noodle dish that had cut up spring rolls and sliced lemongrass BBQ pork chop on top. Simple and delicious.

We will definitely be coming back for more. Sit tight until then, when I can supplement the review with more deliciousness.

Okay so here’s the update as of 2/7/15:

Unfortunately this trip was not as good as the last. The avocado shake was less avocado-et, the banh cuon had grainy noodles.

The other two dishes we ordered contained meat that was a bit chewy.

I grabbed the bun bo hue, wanting to sample the more authentic flavors of this dish as opposed to the more fusion style of Obao.

For $7.50 you get a shitload of food. The bowl is huge:

The unfortunate thing about my order, however, was that the noodles were too soft (perhaps overcooked) and most of the meat was very chewy. For a stewed type dish I was hopping for softer meats.

I had the same issue with the pork casserole, or clay pot pork. The meat was pretty chewy, but the flavor was good.

Egg rolls are decent.

The avocado shake was not as sweet or rich/flavorful as other times I’ve had it:

But my wife had a decent cup of Vietnamese coffee:

PHO VIETNAM
87 Chrystie St.
New York, NY 10002

Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pizza

Pizza $1.00

January 24, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I walked by this little joint on Hester while I was on a stroll through Chinatown. I hit it up. Apparently it is also known as “Hakki Akdeniz” or “KF Hester Pizza” according to some Google searching. Not bad, but there are better spots up by me for the cheap pizza hunger fix. I’d say that the sauce, cheese and crust were all middle of the road in terms of the dollar joint / category 3 standard (they do serve other pies as well).

PIZZA $1
84 Hester St
New York, NY 10002

Hot Pot, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Restaurant Reviews

99 Favor Taste

December 21, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Me, my wife and some friends hit this hot pot joint for a late night meal. It was absolutely amazing. For $19 you can order as much as you want, all you can eat, and BYOB. They’ll charge you an overage if you waste food, but everything is so delicious that you likely won’t have too much left at the end of the meal. SOMEONE will eat it all. That someone was me last night.

We went with a spicy broth AND a pork bone broth. Both were excellent. The spicy broth will numb you up if you hit on some of the peppercorns. Otherwise it isn’t too spicy to the point where you are sweating. The pig bone broth was rich and flavorful; really hearty.