Critics’ choice: Playful riffs on Chinese cuisine
Yaowarat Portland, Ore.
“To enter Yaowarat is to plunge headlong into the beauty and chaos of Bangkok’s Chinatown,” said Karen Brooks in Portland Monthly. As Asian pop pours from the sound system, “customers eat elbow-toelbow, digging into charred noodles perfumed with enough pork fat to warrant a devotional poem.” Thank chef-restaurateur Akkapong “Earl” Ninsom and Sam Smith, the chef running the kitchen. “It’s rare to find a menu devoted to this food outside Thailand, with this level of flavor truth.” Start with pickled cabbage salad, a palate cleanser you can return to between dishes. The kitchen’s chive cakes will be “Portland’s next cult dish”; they’re fried twice to “a thunderous crunch” but with a marshmallow-soft center. Guay jub,a Chinese-style Thai noodle soup, mounts a white pepper attack that “steals the crown from Italy’s famed cacio e pepe.” The Chinese black olive pork, meanwhile, is a must, a stir-fry of crumbled pork and salted Chinese olives enlivened by Thai infusions of lime, chiles, and garlic. It all makes for a singular night out, amid an atmosphere that lands “somewhere between Blade Runner and a teeming night market.” 7937 SE Stark St.
Zoé Tong Austin
Some local skeptics might not be ready to embrace a Texan-Chinese restaurant created by a transplanted two-chef New York City couple, said Taylor Tobin in The Austin Chronicle. But in its commitment to fun, Simone Tong and Matthew Hyland’s Zoé Tong “makes the risky choice to break with any and all easy definitions,” and the gamble pays off. The décor whimsically mixes lanterns, tchotchkes, and industrial details, and the menu is similarly lighthearted. Openers include “scallion swirls,” which evoke savory Pillsbury crescent rolls, and fried frog legs coated with seasoned panko and served with mala-spiced smoked mayonnaise. Signature dishes, including dan dan noodles made with brisket and wild boar, appear in the rice and noodles section, while the family-style entrées “play around with common American concepts of Chinese dishes”: tea-smoked Rohan duck, wagyu beef and broccolini, and a spin on General Tso’s chicken that “nods to Central Texas’ German heritage with a schnitzel-style preparation.” Save room for the one can’tmiss dessert: black-sesame soft serve with raspberry pearls. 1530 Barton Springs Road
Figure Eight New York City
At this narrow, cozy West Village newcomer, Chinese cooking “speaks with a Southern accent,” said Matthew Schneier in New York magazine. Veteran chef Calvin Hwang, who grew up between Shanghai and Chapel Hill, N.C., “raids the Southern pantry” for benne seeds, cornmeal, and other regional staples, incorporating them into Chinese cooking that’s “geared more for fun than laurels.” The menu showcases small plates, and “you could make a meal of nibbles,” spreading Shanghai smokedfish salad onto fried saltines and ordering a plate of “turnip tots” to supplement the tiny lobster rolls. But I prefer the handful of larger plates, such as soy-braised chicken on a bed of Hoppin’ John or the hot chicken– inspired fried skate wing. The “saucy, pineapple-sour” char-siu ribs could have been crisper, but no one could complain about the Hong Kong–style egg waffle— “a little party” of a dish at a little party of a restaurant. 18 Cornelia St.