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Going out for "controversial" Chinese food tomorrow.

February 17th, 2014 at 05:43 am

I was trying to keep down eating out cost this month, but... it happens to be a restaurant week month. So tomorrow I am trying out Hakkasan. Critics are very split on it. It got a Michelin star, but NYT critic hated it. Other reviewers also very split in opinion.


http://hakkasan.com/newyork/gallery
Yes, it is very expensive (and it is annoying that they publish full menu, but remove all prices). But at a restaurant week set menu, I thought this is a chance to try and see for myself.

And for lunch on Thursday, I'll try Krisabelli (Korean BBQ) place. I am interested how it will compare with my favorite BBQ place in Korea town in Fort Lee.


http://kristalbelli.com/

I'm looking forward to trying these new places. We'll bring our son to the Korean one because it will be for lunch, but Hakkasan is too upscale for toddler at dinner, so this will be our "date night". And we did not go out for brunch this weekend either, this should keep us from going over the eating out budget too much.

4 Responses to “Going out for "controversial" Chinese food tomorrow.”

  1. PatientSaver Says:
    1392640963

    I enjoyed reading the scathing NYT review: "The real problem is that its prices are too high for extremely restrained portions of food that is, in too many cases, about as interesting as a box of paper clips." I can see why they said that, given the price for sea bass is $48.

    And, "the check easily surpassed $100 a person." Yikes.

  2. creditcardfree Says:
    1392648479

    Enjoy!

  3. Nika Says:
    1392656107

    PatientSaver, since I know what Cantonese food is supposed to be like (including Cantonese fine dining) I want to judge for myself. From experience, I found that critics can be dead wrong when it comes to cuisines that are very different from their own. For example, after living in Sichuan, I was looking for authentic Sichuanese food and every single time I read a glowing NYT review of a Sichuanese place or someone like Antonie Budaine claiming how good and completely "authentic" it was, I was so disappointed. These people can't even tell a Cantonese run Americanized Chinese food from authentic. It is something so obvious, you can tell it from first bite (sometimes just from looking at the dish). But these critics can't. And yet they get to review these foods. Yelp reviewers are even worse.

    I want to try this place because I came across it being mentioned in a discussion about dim sum between Hong Kongers.
    It may or may not be good, but I will know for sure. But hey, finding a new good place is like mining for gold and trying to find a nugget in a ton of dirt.

  4. snafu Says:
    1392656693

    Hope it's ok to point out that Restaurant Week is a promotional event marketers have created to rev up business that is slow after the big Valentine affair. In traditional Korean homes meals are very labour intensive so I can see high prices for small morsels. Mamma or hal-muh-nee/granny, buy the freshest food and spend all day making small bowls of 20 or different foods. Enjoy your experience

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