Phoenix Garden
“The meals are consistently excellent and the new ambiance with a jazz duo lets you settle into a nice groove with your BYOB.”
“Next time I plan to try salt and pepper shrimp and the peking duck (though it seems that the dish is not exactly Cantonese).”
“This restaurant has some of the best dishes I've ever tasted –
salt & pepper shrimp, snowpea leaves and the most delightful and savory soft shell crab when it's in season.”
Phoenix Garden
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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2.5 stars
BYOB. I felt that the staff pressures you a lot – pressured to order drinks other than water, order more food, and even at the end of the night, felt rushed to leave by 10:30 PM on that Friday night.
The portions are on the smaller side. The fried soft shell crabs were pretty good. We also ordered the salty & pepper shrimp in shell, shrimp in snow peas, and another beef dish. The food was average.
Pretty average, possibly a little lower than 3 stars. Had the special seafood fried rice… decent, but TINY shrimp was all that was seafood in the sauce. Chow Fun 8 way was not so great. More soupy sauce than anything and noodles were gummy and tasted like old fryer oil. For 3 dishes… $51 was a bit pricey for carryout.
Strange, they only took cash.
Decent cheap Chinese food at midtown. The duck was surprisingly good.
SUNY-O Primary Care Residents–Dumplings, noodles, and gai lan are staples of most Cantonese restaurants. They say it is about happiness and the company you keep. We had a great meal celebrating our residents! This is not the fancy atmosphere of Mr. K's or Shun Lee Palace, but the Phoenix Garden is a great place to have a get together of special friends. Good luck to our residents and hope that you stay in touch. The beef chow fun here is always top shelf!
What a little hidden gem. As my friend and I were stumbling to find this place, located between TUNNEL street, all I could think about was how close we were to our friends old place… and how I just thought nothing was there, besides the tunnel entrance.
Phoenix was a great place to go family style as some portions were big and others were small. We started with the crab and corn soup, shrimp dumplings, and the salt & pepper Shrimp. We thought this would be enough food, but alas, we needed to order something else, and had no idea what…After all our seafood, our waitress recommended the sizzling ginger Chicken, and she did not disappoint!
The food was really good, and the wait staff was very friendly, but our meal didn't end up being as cheap as I thought. I'd still come back in the neighborhood.
Cash Only and BYOB.
Finally made it to this place after so many years of wanting to try it. The food was great with the exception of the Peking Duck. While it was decent, it is grossly overpriced. Stick to the seafood items. Salt and pepper shrimp was delicious as were many other seafood dishes including the soft shell crab. Sizzling beef casserole was fabulous. While the BYOB policy is now $5 per bottle, if you behave yourself they will waive it. I'm definitely coming back. Loved the retro atmosphere.
I've only ordered from here since I live less than 1 block away. I am very impressed with a couple of the dishes that I have tried. The wonton soup was fantastic. It is not the free with a combo meal style you see elsewhere. These are honest to goodness Chinatown style wontons with shrimp in them and they came in a delicious broth that also had watercress in it. The beef chow fun with gravy was was also delicious. Sadly, the yang chow fried rice was not good at all. The flavors as others say are pretty authentic, but even then, choose your dishes wisely.
Also, when I stepped in to order take out once, the lady behind the counter said it was cold and gave me a cup of hot tea while I waited. That was nice touch. I wish they accepted Seamless (cash only joint), but I've found that many places charge more when you order through Seamless to cover the fees.
Summary: Great for groups and a nice spot if you don't want to trek it to Queens or Chinatown. Mid-range Chinese food alternative. Reasonably priced vs. other non-dive mid-town Chinese food places. Four stars for BYOB sans corkage fee.
Atmosphere: It looks like a Chinese New Years decoration store exploded inside here. The restaurant is located in the downstairs of the building. It's very clean and darkly light without being too dark. While I think most will find the various luck symbols to be a nice touch to Asian-ize an otherwise, green windowless space, for Chinese folks may instead feel like they stepped into year around Chinese New Years. Wow… that's a lot of luck being symbolized on the walls.
Service: I'm going to give it a four, but honestly, there were times when it was a bit confusing to me. We had a party of 6 that arrived over the course of a 1/2 hour and ran up against their closing time. In all fairness, I think that may have been part of the confusion. They classically will want you to order everything all at once, vs. Western tradition of apps first then main course. There were three main oddities which included: pouring water for one person, but not for everyone who had no water, bringing a single hot sauce for 1 person when everyone at the table was requesting, and some very unconventional use of plates. We started with 2 plates each, 1 was cleared then half of us got 2 plates at a time while some only had 1. After the initial oddity, though, things started to normalize. They started to bring more condiments and also just swapped out plates in the normal custom.
Food: The food was good, but surprisingly, it wasn't all of the classically Cantonese dishes.
Salt & Pepper Squid or Shrimp. We had both. The chef really excels at salt pepper dishes. As the name suggests, this is breaded slightly thicker than tempura with salt and pepper. 5 stars.
Beef Chow Fun – This is the Gan Chow Ngow Haw (flat noodles) and is one of the better in the city. Great with the hot sauce. 5 Stars
Soy Garlic Chicken. Surprisingly delicious, this lightly fried chicken dish was a so good we ordered 2. 5 stars
Soft Shell Crab with Soy – Solidly executed. The underbelly is separated for those that like that, thus making the bitterness not permeate into legs. 4.5 stars for execution.
Chicken with salted fish fried rice. Well executed. Worth a try.
Mustard Greens. Surprisingly this was the stalk instead of the leaves. After our initial confusion, we dove in and found it delightful. 5 stars.
Sea Bass with Ginger & Scallions – Fresh enough, but the point of this dish is for the steamed mixture of ginger, scallion and soy to magically infuse a gentle essence of flavor into the fish so that a light pouring of sauce brings it all out. The fish stayed fish and the sauce wasn't enough to bring it home. 3 stars.
Ginger & Scallion Lobster – Fresh and executed, but not an amazing execution. There was an actual sauce on the plate… odd. If you're craving it, go ahead. That said, I'd save this for China town.
For my crustaceans list, 3.5 stars, because it saves me the trek to Chinatown. For general overall 4 stars. Would definitely go back.