China Grill is a pan-asian restaurant opened in the 80's by Jeffrey Chodorow and is now part of the China Grill Management Company that has several restaurants in many cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles or London. Besides China Grill, they own Asia de Cuba and Bar Basque that are popular restaurants in New York.
The decor is quite nice: very high ceiling with some big Japanese lanterns (red lightning) and granite walls. This restaurant is serving Family style, but now, they offer smaller sizes, but still pricey. Anyway, if you do not know it is family style when coming, you will know when ordering as I think I heard it five times....
I went with four people, so we ordered several dishes to share.
For the appetizers, we started with the Lemongrass crusted tofu tots served with delicious pickled cucumbers and a kimchee sauce topped with black sesame seeds. That was an original dish! Good and light; I did not taste the kimchee in the sauce and it was not spicy.
The crab cakes (2) were a bit dry. They were served with a tomatillo-pineapple salsa and mustard sake sauce, but there was not enough sauce.
My favorite though for appetizers was the Tempura Tuna Sashimi that was served with a hot mustard champagne sauce. This had great flavors and the tuna was incredibly good and tender.
My second favorite for appetizers was the Chicken satay. It came with chilled sesame noodles and a toasted peanut sauce. Let me tell you: the chicken was perfectly cooked and so moist. It was deliciously paired with the peanut sauce. The noodles were a nice addition to the dish.
Then came the entrees. The waiter was serving us, making sure that everybody got his share of the food. He was a little stressed out and we asked him to slow down a bit!
For the main entrees, we had:
The duck two ways: pan seared breast with chocolate-orange sauce and “Moo Shu” style confit of leg with spicy hoisin sauce. I thought it was a great idea, but did not really like the chocolate-orange sauce on the duck (and not because of a salty/sweet thing). Also, the crepes were kind of weird tasting. Besides that, the duck was very good and perfectly cooked and seasoned.
We also had the Curry miso black cod with sweet soy glazed Chinese broccoli and yuzu-miso butter sauce. That is when I could not take my photo because the waiter went crazy cutting the fish! It was a nice dish, although not my favorite. The fish was perfectly cooked and moist.
Then was the Miso grilled vegetables and udon noodles served with a spicy hoisin and mushroom sauce. This was definitely one of my favorites! The sauce was for sure spicy, but it was bearable! There was an explosion of flavors between the vegetables, the noodles and the sauce.
But wait, it is not finished! We also shared some sides! We tried the lobster mash potatoes: where was the lobster???
And the avocado fried rice salad: missing seasoning for sure. The sides were not that great!
China Grill is a nice fusion restaurant with some surprising combination worth to try, but still, on the pricey side.
Enjoy (I did)!
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