| Cuisine | Chinese |
|---|---|
| Price | $$$ (31-50) |
| Rating | 6/10 |
| Last Visit | June 8, 2019 |
| Location | New York: Lower Manhattan (Central) |
A nice Shanghainese restaurant located near the waterfront in Tribeca. Apparently this restaurant is a spin-off of Cafe China, which definitely shows - the food is prepared with a lot of precision and attention to detail. Obviously, I have a natural preference for Sichuan food over Shanghainese food, but Shanghainese is nice every once in a while. Some of the dishes at Cafe China are exactly the same as the dishes at China Blue (like the Fish Blossom). It can be kind of inconvenient to get here, but if you're in the area I would recommend giving this place a try.
> The food is prepared with a lot of precision and attention to detail. Apparently, this restaurant is a spin-off of Cafe China, except with Shanghainese food instead of Sichuan food. I didn't try any of their dimsum items but I would definitely like to give them a try at some point.
> The atmosphere is pretty nice. The Google Maps description "in an airy setting" is quite accurate. The restaurant itself is in a what feels like a fairly quaint and pleasant neighborhood, around the waterfront and some luxury apartments. There's also definitely a lot more space than Cafe China.
> The food is actually relatively expensive. The dishes are relatively small compared to most other restaurants.
> The menu is fairly limited. While I generally feel that keeping a small, concise menu that is done very well is good, I did feel somewhat constrained when ordering. Perhaps this was because we came with a huge group (party of 10).
> They also don't have any of the typical large round tables at Chinese restaurants - only long rectangular tables. Or at least if they did, they didn't seat us at one despite us having a reservation. This makes sharing family-style with large parties quite difficult.