China Grill - NYC

There is something magical about unpredictability and non-planning; to go wherever the first train takes you or pick a direction and stop when the fuel tank is empty. In a society like today's, where people have their life planned even before they are born, allowing yourself to let go is the only way to be free.

And so yesterday we allow ourselves to be free. No, we did not buy roses, stuffed bears, and chocolates. We actually despise Valentine's day for its commercial meaning and for the sadness that it is having to have a day during the year for people to remember they have someone of a relative significance in their lives. It is another day for expected conventions. It is another ring into the chain that imprison us. We say "I love you" to each other every day, at least once. And we mean it because we do feel it regardless of the calendar.

But where does this fit into the whole unpredictability thought? Well, we happened to have tickets for a concert yesterday night, in NYC. We decided to go earlier for no reason but to be together. We had no idea of what we were end up doing before the concert. We arrived and we started walking without any destination. Around 5:00pm we stopped. We were on 6th Avenue and 54th Street, hungry. The convenience of nowadays technology led us to search nearby restaurants. We picked China Grill on 60W 53rd Street, right in front of MoMA. Chinese cuisine is our new favorite so the choice was easy.

The entrance is a bit hidden for being on a lower level, but it is very inviting.

The ambience inside is no less elegant, although relaxed. The decoration passes a sense of good taste and originality with attention to detail. The staff gives you a warm welcome, making you feel at home.

A look at the menu confirmed that we have made a good choice. The menu is short, varied and it shows traditional Chinese ingredients and recipes influenced by a contemporary Western view. The concept is family style - a plate in the center of the table from which everybody eats. After some consideration we decided to go for the tasting menu not only because it looked delicious but because 6 courses for $54 screamed great value to us. 

The meal started with a Hendricks gin and strawberries cocktail and an amuse bouche: tempura tuna sachimi over a cucumber and seaweed salad and champagne sauce.

Delightfully fresh, balanced and playful in textures. The play of textures was a constant in the entire menu, in fact, and it was incredibly smart.

It was followed by appetizers, starting with a trio of salads: calamari, chicken and caesar (left to right).

Lacking in originality, you may think. Well, fair enough until the first bite of calamari salad. They got me with that salad. Absolutely delicious! To die for, seriously. The calamari were perfectly cooked, crispy and lemony and the seasoning on the greens was super fresh and in the perfect amount. The other two salads were also very good but ended up being forgotten by the awesomeness of the calamari version.

The second appetizer was spicy beef and scallion dumplings with a soy and ginger sauce with watercress and apple salad. 

Very traditional with a twist of modernity. The dumplings were very well cooked. Not greasy at all and very tasty. The salad added a bite and a freshness to it.

The last appetizer was a lobster pancake stir-fried with mushrooms, red chili, scallions and coconut milk.  

A very good dish elevated by the smartly incorporated texture element on top. Without those shaved carrots and scallions the pancake would become a bit tiring on the palate. The filling was very generous on lobster and shitake mushrooms.

Okay. Thank you very much. We are done! The only thing was that we were half way through. When we started wondering about how would we make it to the end, there it shows on our table an intermezzo. A small scoop of passionfruit sorbet.

Brilliant! The palate was refreshed, cleaned and the stomach felt empty again. We were back in the game. Bring on the rest before my brain gets the trick!

It  restarted with grilled Szechuan beef with sake, soy, spicy shallots, and cilantro accompanied by fried potatoes.

The beef was cooked perfectly, medium rare. It was juicy and tender and the spicy shallots on top brought it to another lever. Absolutely fantastic.

We were getting full but we still had to bring down another entree and the dessert. 

The second entree was grilled garlic shrimp on top of black fettuccine in red curry coconut sauce.

The shrimp was cooked to perfection. The fettuccini was a little bit under cooked and the sauce, although very tasty, was also very rich. The twist of brilliance in this dish was sprinkled on top and it consisted of the smoked shrimp skin. Yes, the skin. Its smokiness added another layer of flavor to the dish turning it into a complete experience between the palate and the nose. 

To accompany both entrees there were three side dishes: wasabi mashed potatoes topped with crispy onions, five vegetable fried rice, and crispy spinach. 

All very tasty. The pure was creamy and very well balanced with the wasabi. The fried rice was perfect. Loose, not greasy at all and very well seasoned. The best fried rice I have ever had, truly. The crispy spinach are a play of textures. They are super crispy to the bite but once in your mouth they melt. It is an extraordinary sensation. The least successful aspect I would point out is the fact that they absorb a great deal of fat and so the after taste is a bit oily.

At this point we were feeling full and we still had to eat dessert. We were glad for the family style concept otherwise it would have been a much bigger struggle.

The dessert was a chef's selection that included vanilla ice-cream, chocolate ice-cream, chocolate and hazelnut cake, a caramel and banana crisp and some fruit.

The most original element of this plate was the caramel crisp. The banana sounded overwhelming with caramel but it lightened up the overall sweetness. The ice-creams were well prepared and the cake was moist. The fruit choice was not as flavorful as one would like. The choice of non-seasonal fruits explains it entirely. It felt refreshing, however.

Before we left, we were complemented with a discount voucher for one of the dishes in a future meal and a little box of fortune cookies. Adorable.

This was a fantastic experience. The space is super inviting and the service is great; very friendly, polite and efficient. We certainly have a new favorite in New York. Highly recommend it!

If any doubt remained, this beautiful meal proved that being free pays off.

Dare to live. 

China Grill - New York

60W 53rd Street

http://www.chinagrillmgt.com/restaurants-and-bars/china-grill-ny