Red Farm in NYC, NY

It has been a while since we wanted to go to Red Farm, this place being highly recommended by our friends. We made it early on a Saturday as the time before, when we tried, there was a huge line waiting outside. 

We were seated right away at the bar, side by side, all the booths being used for four people, leaving us with this option or seating at the communal table, that can be nice sometimes, but too close to the persons seating next to us. 

I was curious to know why this restaurant was called Red Farm, but only got a vague answer that was more a guess: first, the owner, Ed Schoenfeld ({R}Ed?), is always wearing red, from his glasses to his jacket. Second, he wanted to create a restaurant with a farm feel. Hence Red Farm. 

For the farm feel, it is fairly on point, with the multitude of plants decorating the room. 

Menu wise, this is where it gets surprising: they serve dim sum! And they have a nice selection of it, clearly not your regular ones But if you are not into dim sum, they have plenty of other creative dishes, small or large, mainly made to share, prepared with meat or seafood. 

So we decided to share a bunch of dim sum. First were the pan fried pork buns. 

They are smaller than what you usually get in Chinese restaurants, and, although pan fried, they were very soft, with a wonderful sweet and savory taste.

The next dish was the mushroom and vegetable spring rolls:

This was another stunning presentation, the spring rolls being shaped like carrots and held by a cucumber. The shell was a bit greasy, but I did not mind, the stuffing being flavorful. 

Then came the pork and crab soup dumplings. 

I think the person who first created a soup dumpling was a genius. I am sure you wonder how they get the soup inside the dumpling. It is not with a syringe: they freeze it before wrapping it in the shell. The only time I tried this dish was at Joe Shanghai, so I was interested to see if it was as good; and it was. 

I put the dumpling in a spoon 

And ate it from the top

At first, you get mainly the dough, then dough and soup, then all the components, the pork being more present than the crab. 

Then we tried the four mushrooms dumplings. 

These fried dumplings were made with shiitake, oyster and black trumpet mushrooms. This was my least favorite dish: a bit greasy, the shell overpowered the taste of the mushrooms. We learnt later than they offer them steamed and that it is better. I wish they told us that before!

Last, was one of my favorite and very creative dish: Katz's pastrami egg rolls. 

It was served with a delicious Russian dressing. Imagine this combination of deli and Chinese cuisine! It works! You have the crunchiness of the egg roll and the sublime taste of the pastrami perfectly coming together. 

We did not get desserts as we had other plans, but we will for sure go back to Red Farm to try some sweets as well as other dishes. This is definitely an enjoyable experience!

Enjoy (I did)!

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And Remember: I Just Want To Eat!

Red Farm