Moon House Restaurant: Where We Always Order One Dish Too Many
Aug 27 '01
The Bottom Line A tempting array of Shanghainese specialties. While not all of the dishes are top-notch, there are enough stand-outs, especially among the appetizers, to make a meal here quite satisfying.
Over the years, I’ve made it a practice to acquaint myself with the regional cuisine of any country that I plan to visit. At first, it was kind of an unconscious decision, but now it’s definitely become a time-honored ritual. Before our first trip to Paris, I found myself frequenting French restaurants, cafes and bakeries in Southern California, ordering croissants for breakfast and snacking on baguettes and cheese. Last year we went on an Italian restaurant binge the month before our vacation to Umbria, Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast. I suppose I consider it a mental preparation of sorts - dining on a region’s local cuisine does make me feel closer to the people and the culture. But I think I also do it so I can establish a basis for comparison - i.e., how do Italian restaurants in New York City compare to Italian restaurants in Italy. This week we will be taking our first trip to China - two full weeks of exploring some of China’s major cities like Beijing and Shanghai as well as some of China’s natural wonders like Huang San. So it goes without saying that Mr. Epicure and I have been working our way through many of New York’s best Chinese restaurants in the last several weeks. One of our favorite discoveries is a tiny new Shanghainese restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown called Moon House Restaurant.
Moon House occupies a very narrow and unassuming storefront right next door to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory (a detour is highly recommended). There is nothing particularly remarkable about its decor. The walls are carnation pink, and the waitresses don in matching floral silk shirts. The dining room contains no more than a dozen tables, most of which seat two to four patrons, with one more spacious round table in the back for larger parties.
One thing that I did notice right away - the absence of aromas, kitchen smoke and the sound of oil crackling in woks. It turns out that the restaurant’s kitchen is in the basement. Food is transported to the dining room via a dumbwaiter. No, I didn’t just insult our server. I’m referring to the small service elevator linking the kitchen to the dining room.
Despite the limited seating at the restaurant, we rarely have had to wait for a table. It’s one of the advantages of dining at an undiscovered restaurant although Moon House may not remain anonymous much longer since it did recently receive a positive review from the Daily News. Even if you do encounter a wait, the tables at this restaurant turn over pretty quickly. I think it has something to do with the extremely efficient service. Our server usually appears at our table much sooner than we are ready, and our first dish typically arrives within ten minutes after we place our order. And while Moon House is a no-frills kind of place, the servers do provide you with complimentary hot tea and change plates for you in between courses, especially if you order the Steamed Buns.
Also known as soup dumplings, Pork Steamed Buns ($4.25) have probably become the most famous Shanghainese delicacy in Manhattan. Everybody and his brother seem to love soup dumplings, but then again, what is there not to love? Good soup dumplings are plump and wobbly to the touch, filled with scathing hot “soup” and a bite of pork meat. Crab Meat with Pork Steamed Buns ($6.25) is another common variation on this well-known dish. But while soup dumplings are showing up in Chinese restaurants all over town, not every chef makes them with equal skill. If I had to rank the top three places in the city for soup dumplings, I would probably include Moon House along with Shanghai Tea Garden and Shanghai Cuisine.
If you don’t mind the similarities, an interesting dish to contrast with the Pork Steamed Buns is the Fried Tiny Buns ($4.25). The Fried Tiny Buns are identical in shape to the Pork Steamed Buns - round with a little twist-top finish, but they are more true to their name. Instead of being dumplings filled with soup, the Fried Tiny Buns are actually miniature buns, with a soft doughy interior cradling a bite of pork meat. I like the fact that some of the juices from the meat have soaked through the bread, flavoring the otherwise plain bun. The outside of the Tiny Buns are slightly golden and crunchy, like they have been pan-fried, but not deep-fried. Mr. Epicure and I were both impressed by the quality of the Pork Steamed Buns and the Fried Tiny Buns.
Another popular appetizer at which Moon House excels is the Scallion Pancake ($1.75), which is basically fried dough, flavored with bits of chopped scallions. Given that it is fried, you might expect it to be really oily, but in fact, it’s very crisp and light with only a touch of grease. Each order comes with four slices of pancake.
A nice accompaniment to the Scallion Pancake or the Fried Tiny Buns is the Sauteed Pork and Winter Melon Soup ($3.95). For those of you who have never tried it, winter melon has a very unique taste and texture, perhaps most closely resembling squash, which might not appeal to you at first. I know I loathed winter melon as a child (more on how young Epicure disposed of despised foods later). I’m still not sure that I like winter melon by itself (it’s mealy like an apple that’s been left in the refrigerator too long) but it’s wonderful in soup, especially with bits of salted pork or dried shrimp. Winter melon adds a soothing silkiness that you don’t often find in broth-like soups. The sauteed pork sets off the winter melon perfectly.
We also enjoyed the restaurant’s Shanghai Rice Cakes ($4.95), which is a great alternative to your typical noodle dish. Rice Cakes are usually flat, oval-shaped pieces of pasta, made with rice flour that are delightfully chewy when prepared correctly. Our dish at Moon House could have used a few more vegetables, but the Rice Cakes did have the requisite elasticity.
I know some people view bean curd or tofu as a bland, meat-substitute that should only consumed in times of necessity (e.g., when the only other source of protein is diseased cows), but nothing could be further from the truth. I’m not kidding when I say some of the tastiest dishes in the world are made with bean curd products. The uses for bean curd are so widespread and varied that you may not even recognize its presence in many instances. For example, the best vegetable dumplings that I have ever sampled contained very finely chopped pieces of pressed bean curd. Moon House features some wonderful bean curd-based dishes that I would recommend.
The Crab Meat with Tofu ($10.95) is a delicate and subtle dish. Trying to eat the tofu with chopsticks is like trying to scoop up creme brulee with a fork. Each piece is so tender it falls apart at the barest touch. The sauce is delicious, but it would have benefitted from some more chunks of crab meat. The Bean Curd Skin with Preserved Cabbage and Green Beans ($6.95) is typically one of my favorite bean curd dishes, but the version at Moon House is definitely oversalted. With this dish, there really isn’t a need to add any salt since the preserved cabbage and green beans already supply plenty of flavor to the paper-thin sheets of bean curd. Bean Curd Shanghai Style ($9.95) is made with fried tofu squares instead of the custard-like soft tofu, and is served in a brown sauce with pork, shrimp and an assortment of vegetables. It’s good, solid comfort food.
The Fish Fillet on Sizzling Plate ($12.95) and the Crispy Yellow Fish Fingers with Dry Seaweed ($12.95)are both considered chef’s specialties at Moon House, the former being enthusiastically recommended by the owner. Three shiny, glazed pieces of cod arrived on a burning hot metal plate. Sizzling indeed! A very savory dish, complemented by scallions and a soy sauce based sauce. You can think of the Yellow Fish Fingers as the Chinese version of Fish and Chips (without the chips). Each piece of yellow fish is dipped into a batter that contains some shreds of seaweed, and then deep fried. The long, slender pieces of fish truly do resemble the shape of fingers although for your eating pleasure, you may want to conjure up a different mental image.
Now it’s confession time. For as long as I can remember, I have had an aversion for beans. Sure there are a few exceptions, but in general beans are a huge turn-off for me. When I was little, my mother use to attempt to force me to eat beans, but I found a way around that - I would hide the beans in paper napkins and then flush them down the toilet. Yes, that’s how much I detested beans. So how strange it is that some of my favorite desserts and pastries are made with red beans. Red bean ice cream is fabulous as are moon cakes with red bean puree and walnuts. There is a Japanese bakery near Rockefeller Center that makes the most delectable chestnut sponge cakes with a red bean filling. Yes, I do have the most difficult time resisting red bean desserts, so of course we had to try the restaurant’s Sweet Red Bean Paste Shortcakes ($2.95).
The two flaky circular pastries looked like they had just been removed from the oven when our server placed them on our table. We cut them in half and watched the steam rise from the center. The red bean filling appeared so sinfully rich and moist. I sometimes think of red bean paste as the Chinese equivalent of fudge. It tends to be very dense and sweet, and it’s usually meant to be consumed in small quantities. The shortcakes actually weren’t as sweet as I expected. I immediately detected the presence of other ingredients. This was not a pure red bean paste, but rather a red bean-date mixture. The red bean-date combination is common enough in many Chinatown bakeries, but I personally never liked it much. Other than the filling, I was also disappointed by the pastry itself. The inside was a tad soggy, instead of being crisp and distinctly multi-layered. Taking all this into consideration, I would recommend skipping dessert at Moon House and paying a visit to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.
Moon House is not a restaurant where you can blindly point to any item on the menu and expect to be dazzled. You need to be savvy and selective in your choices, but there are enough palate pleasers that we keep returning. What’s more, we invariably order one dish too many each time. I guess we are just impatient food lovers who always want to sample a little more than is wise.
Address: 67 Bayard Street (between Mott and Elizabeth), New York, NY
Telephone: 212-766-9399 or 766-9098
Hours: 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., seven days a week. No reservations.
Child-Friendly: Yes
Vegetarian- Friendly: Yes
Payment Method: CASH ONLY
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Epinions.com ID:
Epicure
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 - Top 500 |
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Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 100 members
About Me:
I generally avoid temptation....unless I can't resist it.
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