Mission Chinese
“We even saw Danny Bowien eating dinner there the night we were there and I seriously have never seen the husband so star struck.”
“Check, in a slowly ascending manner that has you chugging down your bowl of Phil Khallins (the perfect extinguisher for this blaze).”
“Thrice Cooked Bacon [$13]: The Thrice Cooked Bacon is five alarms spicy as noted by the stars in the upper corner of the menu.”
Mission Chinese
Takes Reservations: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Mission Chinese tries way too hard to reinvent the wheel, when that wheel ain't broken. The old adage rings ever so true, if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. The interior tries to be satirical in its use of stereotypical Chinese takeout place aesthetics but just comes off as kitschy. The food is what really upsets me. For the price of the food here, I could have had a feast fit for kings just a couple steps away in Chinatown. Instead, I was sitting here, trying to drown the disinfectant taste of a sauce with drinks fit more for a touristy tropical destination than a respectable restaurant in Manhattan. Thank goodness for my dinner companions who shared in the misery with me and we all had a good laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Appetizers: The dinner started off on an encouraging note with the bread service and jap chae eggrolls. The bread service was supposed to be a "deconstructed scallion pancake." I am ashamed to see the words scallion pancakes even associated with this dish. The bread itself and the kefir and chives spread was quite tasty but to call it anything close to a scallion pancake is an abomination. With scallion pancakes, I expected fragrant aromas of scallions with a buttery, flaky bread. This bread was more like a chewy pizza dough and the chives are not nearly aromatic enough to add to the bread. The eggrolls were nice though, I mean who doesn't love jap chae?
Entrees: We ordered the big plate boil with crab and shrimp, the Koji fried chicken, spicy peanut noodles and black kale. The big plate came out looking impressive and smelled fragrant with numbing Szhechuan peppercorns. Although the sauce was spicy and a good amount of numbing spices, the actual ingredients in the boil were disappointing. There were supposed to be hand made noodles in the dish, but we were only able to fish out 3 measly strands (for 4 people? at least give us a strand a piece). We were not given any utensils to break open the crabs and instead had to risk breaking a teeth or a hand just to get to the meat. The leaves on top of the dish (looked kind of like shiso leaves) had too strong of a taste and did not complement the dish at all. For $45, this dish was not worth it one bit. We also ordered the Koji fried chicken and what a disappointment. The sauce tasted literally like Lysol and the skin on the chicken was rubbery. Our leg piece was still pink and I'm sure it was undercooked (as much as our server tried to deny it). The peanut noodles were not noteworthy and I've had better ones in dinky, dark take-out places. The black kale was way too salty and not worth $14 for a small plate of wilted kale leaves.
Drinks: We tried to order every drink off the menu once to see what we liked. Paper crane came out as the winner. Overall, I'd say the drinks are fun to try, but none I'd want to keep drinking. They are quite instagram worthy though.
Overall, we came hungry and left disappointed. I liked the idea of taking Chinatown aesthetic and elevating it but the food was just bastardized versions of dishes that would be best left alone. For this price, I'll be taking my business down the street, where I can get much more authentic dishes and actually leave feeling full.
A sensational experience for spice-lovers. For others, well…
Diana, Katie and I spontaneously showed up here on a Thursday night. We ordered a bottle of wine as we waited, but had to ask for it repeatedly. That set the tone from the get-go for the service. It's not like the service is mean, they're friendly, yet noticeablely indifferent.
The decor and vibe is really funky – chandeliers and plush seats mixed with tacky looking Party City festoons. It definitely pays homage to the humble roots to those janky chinese food take-out restaurants you always get the $5 lunch specials from. I'm flipping out with excitement, because my 3rd favorite writer, Anthony Bourdain, recently proclaimed this restaurant one of his Top 5 spots in NYC.
The noodles set the tone with a nice kick to the mouth. It was scrumptious, I was slurping up the broth on my plate. More please. I felt like Tony eating a bowl of laksha, "oh yeah, oh yeah baby."
Scallops were cold and soft, I let the girls eat those to cool off their palates. The waitress pointed out there was a lot of spice in the order, and I could tell the girls were feeling it because they kept dabbing at the kafir butter with the bread, which is like a pita-meets-naan, and eating scallops, which reminded me of a dressed- down Morimoto.
I was focused on the spicy stuff. Yaknow, the good stuff. The stuff that makes my face a little red, my mouth tingle, a little burning sensation as it goes down. Ohh yeah. This is where the split in opinion occurs. How people handle the sensations of eating this food is clearly an indicator of whether or not you will enjoy the Mission Chinese experience.
And I'll be honest, Diana and I, being spice-lovers, were baffled that Katie wasn't really vibing to the spice. It was a lot for her. We didn't get her in the moment. But today, after reading some of the reviews on Yelp, I'm like, okay, I see her perspective now. Clearly Mission Chinese is spicy to the point of polarizing. So if your body doesn't react well to the intensity – and believe me, even I, the next day later as I'm writing this review, even after having 3 Tums and a Chobani, feel the tingle in my belly. I understand now why that won't sit well with others. That, compounded with the almost-dgaf service and Katie's low opinion of the wine, makes for a negative experience.
Unfortunately for Katie, Diana and I are on the opposite ends of that spectrum. The Thrice Cooked Bacon upped the ante on the spice levels, well cooked, and all around enjoyable.
However, I became distracted, no that's not the right word, enamored, head over heels, over the greatest fucking tofu I have ever had in my life. Like holy fucking ball sack that was beyond incredible. When you cut into it, you're just like, how the fuck do they make it so soft while retaining it's form. And when you bite into it, you're like, holy fuck, I didn't think tofu was capable of this much flavor. And you eat the curry it's in and the moaning sounds begin. The sensations are building with every bite, you look up and the world feels different. Woah, is that the spice? Reality doesn't feel quite the same anymore. I felt like my life has changed after eating that tofu. Literally.
At this point, the girls are slowing down, but I'm speeding up. This is an attribute of the 5-star experience to me, when something is just so good, I get a bottomless stomach. The limits really go away. And that's when the spicy chicken arrived. He he he he he.
Now – a necessary preamble about the chicken. I feel like the waitresses are almost legally obligated to remind you multiple times how spicy it is. Especially given the spice levels on our table as it is. But I'm like, bring it the fuck on.
You can smell the spice levels are almost out of control. You can see it, the bed of chilis they dramatically pile on top. But the smell, the smell…was, familiar. Hang on. This is one of those unique moments where I know a spice, a flavor, from my childhood growing up in a Tamil household that's all about the spice.
Even Diana, the self-proclaimed spice-lover, deferred from having a wing, knowing from experience how explosive it is. Katie is looking at me like, "Is that your third one, Shibi?" Yes, because while this is egregiously spicy, I've known these spices all my life so I can handle it. The numbing of my lips is a good thing. When I stood up to wash my hands and had to take a moment to reorient my axis of balance, I was like, wow-ie incredible. It's a compliment, in a spicy household, when a food makes your face drip with sweat but you can't stop eating because it's so good.
My mom would grin at this. I wish there were more vegetarian options, because this place is so good, even my parents, who are vegetarian and can't even step foot in a Chinese restaurant, would appreciate this. That's how good the spices are, if of course, you're a spice lover.
If not, well, the other reviews on Yelp tell your inevitable tale.
Mission Chinese is an interesting place. The food is a far cry from authentic, but it isn't really your standard Americanized Chinese fare either, nor would you find it in a typical Asian fusion place. We had a reservation and were seated pretty quickly.
We got the spicy wings, kung pao pastrami, koji chicken, and salt cod rice. The wings came first as the appetizer, and it had a powerful ma la (spicy and numbing) taste and a bit of sweetness to it. The closest thing to it would be guai wei dou, a spicy and sweet broad bean snack you can find in many Chinese supermarkets, but it's much more spicy than that. The kung pao pastrami was well-cooked and the pastrami didn't seem out of place at all in the Chinese sauces. The koji chicken was tender and crispy, and the lemon sauce helped to enhance its flavor. The salt cod rice, as implied by the name, was pretty salty for a fried rice dish, but it was tasty and full of umami (stay clear if you dislike fishiness though, because it permeates the entire dish).
Unlike most Chinese restaurants, it has an extensive wine list, though we did not order any alcohol that day.
KenScale: 7.0/10
When my mom was in town recently, I've taken her to all types of restaurants from French to Italian to Korean to Japanese. Before her departure back to Korea, she said she wanted to try a Chinese restaurant so I figured a re-visit to Mission Chinese, which I had always had high regard for chef Danny Bowien's creative cooking, would be the answer to impress her. It turned out the experience was 180 degrees from what I had experienced. Totally my oversight on deciding to take her out at a place that has become more of a circus than a serious dining destination; I'm really puzzled why Mission Chinese devolved to lower level this way.
On my last visit to the current location, I dined at the high stool area next to the bar, not the dining room inside. This time, we were seated at the dining room, and that was the first mistake. The dining room was even louder than the bar area, and there was chaos everywhere with clueless servers missing on our drinks or the food coming out on an insanely slow pace. All of this discomfort (I had to keep screaming at my mom just so she can hear me) would've been forgiven if the food had stayed at the high level of quality that I had remembered. But then, the red cabbage salad with sesame, anchovy and seaweed came out way too salty for a salad, and my mom had to drop her chopsticks midway. Kung pao pastrami that I had enjoyed on my previous visit didn't feel like it had the punch that I was looking for, and mapo tofu with heritage pork and aged beef fat also felt more or less pedestrian. It's not the lack of spice that underwhelmed me; there was plenty. I just felt that these dishes fundamentally missed something that had made me love Mission Chinese in the first place. The only saving grace of the night was the lobster and coconut fried rice with coconut oil and scallop floss that I immensely enjoyed with its flavor that perfectly neutralized the fiery sensation inside my mouth after all the spicy dishes.
Mission Chinese nowadays takes reservations, and judging by the way the dining room was absolutely packed on a Thursday night, booking your table in advance would be a smart way to do it. My restaurant reviews always rate based first and foremost on the quality of food, but the surprisingly underwhelming experience on my re-visit to this perennially popular spot, along with the chaotic experience that led my mom to head out of the restaurant as soon as the bill was paid, would leave me a sour note. I hope that my next visit is more successful; I know what chef Bowien is capable of.
Finally made it down here for dinner and we were glad that we came. When we walked in we felt like we were 10 years old again and eating out with our immigrant parents at the local Sam Woo's. The decor is supposed to evoke memories of traditional Chinese restaurants all the way down to the menus. But that's where the traditional Chinese restaurant experience ends.
The food is a modern twist on traditional Chinese dishes. We ordered five dishes for four people and shared everything family style:
Broccoli Beef Brisket
Mapo Tofu
Salt Cod Fried Rice
Black Kale and Pea Greens
Thrice Cooked Bacon
The Broccoli Beef was awesome! Note that they serve it up with Chinese Broccoli. The beef was really tender and the sauce was familiar, but completely different than the traditional dish.
The Mapo Tofu was probably one of my favorite dishes. There's lots of mouth numbing wonderful goodness going on in the sauce.
The Thrice Cooked Bacon dish is essentially Shanghai stir fried rice cakes with a twist. It was spicy and delicious.
All in all the food here is quality and the experience is uniquely Chinese but somehow modern/new. I'd recommend trekking out here to try this place if you haven't already.
Mission Chinese is not your traditional Chinese, but is worthy of its NYC street cred. I'm not sure where else you can mix it up with pepperoni and cheese pizza on one plate and salt cod fried rice on the other. It is an adventurous menu, but fun and really tasty.
The thrice cooked bacon rice cakes were amazing! Two out of three of the spicy scale, but perfect with crispy bacon and silky tofu skin.
The braised beef was melt in your mouth tender and the Kohji fried chicken was soft on the inside and subtly crunchy on the outside.
To wash this mixed bag down, I enjoyed ginger and tequila cocktails. One too many :). The very eclectic decor (loved the fluruscent tropical fish), menu and crowd make Mission Chinese a very unique culinary adventure.
Pizza was surprisingly good as well as the spicy peanut noodles (left a bit of a tingle). The koji fried chicken was tender but it was just alright – I much prefer many other shops over it although the bittermelon-jalapeño sauce was unique. Shaved snow for dessert was bold with pop rocks. Coconut cocktail was dangerously sweet. As always, Bowien keeps it interesting – a lot of things here you can't get elsewhere in the city.
I really liked the vibe of the place. And any ethnic cuisine joint which prominently features hip-hop and trap music will always get a positive review from me. But ultimately the food was sort of a let down. I had the flat noodles which were tasty but not very filling. Our waiter was dutiful but seemed to be annoyed with us being there in some sense.
Also, the bathroom and its homages to the classic show Twin Peaks is an obvious plus in any pop culture ahfficiando's book.
Go here, but keep your expectations in check.