Yunnan Kitchen Has a One-Star Advantage

whole crispy shrimp at yunnan kitchen - yana paskova for the ny timesPete Wells heads to Yunnan Kitchen on the Lower East Side for this week's review.  He explains the restaurant, previously featured on our Donde Dinner? column, "takes a farmers’ market approach to the cuisine of Yunnan Province in China."  This approach has already proved successful at the hands of Ed Schoenfeld and Joe Ng at RedFarm in the West Village.  Their website describes the food at RedFarm as "inspired Chinese cuisine with Greenmarket sensibilities."

At Yunnan Kitchen, "Mr. Post’s fresh, locavore sensibility leads to straightforward and uncomplicated cooking," Wells writes.  This sensibility in Travis Post ripened during his stint at Franny's in Brooklyn.  Overall, this approach to cooking, along with the access and captial to purchase quality products, plays a significant role not just in the success of Yunnan Kitchen, but restaurants city wide.  Wells describes it as a "revolution," and explains that it "hasn't reached all quarters.  Along Lexington Avenue, great Indian cooks are currying nondescript chicken; Thai chefs in Queens are making do with spongy pork; and in Brooklyn, Nigerian kitchens are stewing farmed fish that bears only a slight resemblance to the original article."  "Those Thai chefs," he continues, "can’t buy Berkshire pork if it means tripling prices and alienating core customers."

The review suggests a set of advantages found at Yunnan Kitchen and "restaurants that have the financing and the cultural wherewithal to bring in customers who will pay for premium ingredients."  Yunnan Kitchen may not serve food that has the same caliber of authenticity found at the likes of Andy Ricker's restaurants, which helped earn Pok Pok NY two stars, but the local, seasonal approach to cooking, coupled with access and funds to purchase quality ingredients from established purveyors is enough to elevate the restaurant to star quality.

Subterranean Restaurant News

When Atera opened in Tribeca in March, Grub Street told us chef Matt Lightner and co were planning to open a bar in the space under the restaurant.  Originally going to be called "The Office," it turns out the name is to be determined.

Plans for the new bar space include a separate kitchen with its own private dining room.  It will provide a place for diners to have coffee and reflect on all the foraged food a multi-course meal at the 17-seat chef's counter puts in their stomachs.

In the West Village, the laundromat space Ed Schoenfeld took over under RedFarm is closer to opening.  In an interview with Paper Mag back in April, Schoenfeld said he'd be taking over the laundromat June 1st.  "It's going to take us a few months to do it over. So by September 1st, middle of August, we'll have that space."

Update on Tuesday, August 14, 2012 at 11:59AM by Craig Cavallo

Ed Schoenfeld tells Digest NY that date is set for sometime "In the fall: Oct plus or minus."

UWS Fatty Crab Is Scurrying Away; Red Farm to Slide In

Restaurateur Ed Schoenfeld and chef Joe Ng opened Red Farm last summer.  Pete Wells gave it two stars to in March.  In April, Ed Schoenfeld told Paper Magazine he's taking over the laundromat space under Red Farm, providing more space for guests to dine at the wildly popular Chinese joint on 529 Hudson Street.  His plans are for a bar and communal table and will open sometime this fall.

The Off the Menu column in today's Dining & Wine section of the Times reveals Red Farm is undergoing another expansion.  Florence Fabricant reports, "Ed Schoenfeld and Joe Ng plan a branch of Red Farm, their West Village Chinese restaurant, to open in the fall, replacing Fatty Crab on the Upper West Side, which remains open for the time being."  The space in question is 2170 Broadway, between 76th and 77th Streets.

Joe's Red Shanghai Farm

It wasn't so long ago when Chinatown was the best option for Xiao Long Bao, aka soup dumplings.  You would turn off Canal onto Mott Street and then walk until you came to that movie-set, ripped-right-from-Hong Kong street named Pell.  You turn left and find Joe's Shanghai halfway down the block.

Restaurateur Ed Schoenfeld and chef Joe Ng have introduced a detour to that Chinatown route.  You'll find their soup dumplings a bit further north at RedFarm in the West Village.  The newish restaurant on Hudson Street has "green market sensabilities" and two stars from Pete Wells.  Their dumplings are like the ones at Joe's, but with a suit jacket on.  Here's a slideshow of how they're made.

Pete Wells + RedFarm = 2 Stars

Pete Wells is a big fan of dumplings.  At Red Farm, the new(ish) market driven Chinese restaurant in the West Village, he gives them and the rest of the menu two stars.

Redfarm is the wok work of restaurateur Ed Schoenfeld and chef Joe Ng.  Joe Ng doubles as executive chef at Chinatown Brasserie on Lafayette Street.

So that makes Ed, Joe, and the dumplings the face of the restaurant, right?

Update on Wednesday, June 20, 2012 at 4:22PM by Craig Cavallo

Chinatown Brasserie closes and Andrew Carmellini takes on new lease.  Owners plan to reopen in the same neighborhood under a smaller roof sometime this fall.