Little Tong Noodle Shop

Cuisine	Chinese
Price	$$ (16-30)
Rating	5/10
Last Visit	June 4, 2019
Location	New York: East Village

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General Notes

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This is a nice little restaurant in East Village that serves small plates and Yunnan mixian. The restaurant is cozy and has a nice environment. It's slightly pricey for the food but reasonable, and the flavor of the food certainly justifies the cost. Certainly worth a visit, although I would probably focus more on the noodles than the small plates.

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Positives

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> The flavors on both of the noodle dishes that I ordered were fantastic, especially the beef!
> I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the interior was. I was somewhat confused when I originally saw a sign that said "Best for Mother's Day Brunch", but I could actually see that being pretty reasonable.
> The restaurant encourages sharing. This is kind of difficult with noodles, but I like the concept.

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Negatives

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> For some reason, when we ordered our items (we ordered a small plate and two noodle dishes for two people), our server seemed disappointed and tried to get us to order more small plates. She said, "typically we recommend parties of two order 2-3 small plates". I found this pretty strange because the amount we ordered was actually a pretty significant amount of food (especially considering how much I can normally eat). Seemed like some form of scamming us.
> The noodles are not really "authentic" compared to Yunnan rice noodles, but personally I don't really care very much; it tastes great regardless.

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Dishes Tasted

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• ★★★☆ Chef's Beef Shank Mixian -- The flavor of the beef is unreal, and it's also pretty tender to boot. An excellent dish; I would absolutely recommend it! My only compliant is the potatoes - which had an unpleasant texture and didn't add much to the dish.
• ★★★☆ Grandma Chicken Mixian -- Excellent flavor! The broth is awesome. The chicken is also nice and tender.
• ★☆☆☆ Stir-fried Fiddlehead Ferns & Guoba -- Served with pickled ramps and dan dan pork. I really did not enjoy the flavor of this dish. The flavors were not quite like anything I've had before, and not in a good way.