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“Mainland-- Closed”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	Asian	Midtown	Moderate	Great

he overstuffed duck tacos, and inhaling them. In my humble often-meaningless opinion, there is now a serious culinary reason to head up to 64th Street and Third Avenue.

The menu at Mainland could honestly feature these golden skinned babies and perhaps a couple of bottles of sake, and that’s all and it would be enough. They don’t need to serve anything else. But since they do, we ordered more.

The Shanghai-styled soup dumplings ($9), here called Juicy Boiled Dumplings, are quite lovely—bulging, pinched purses, bobbing in broth, and filled with rich stock and ground pork. Being that there were five of us at dinner—Cori, Robin, Andrea (another one, in addition to me), and Debbie—we had to share some dumplings, but the Steamed Prawn and Bamboo Dumplings ($10), wrapped in glossy rice wrappers, were especially hard to share. If you are with a large group, I recommend two orders. Lamb Spring Rolls ($11) with scallions and spicy cabbage were also hard to part with—thin, lean pipes, crispy and slightly greasy (in a good way), stuffed with minced lamb meat. The only disappointment was the potstickers—triangular envelopes filled with ground pork, yellow chives, and ginger. The filling and the flavors were good, but they lacked the crisp fried skin you expect from potstickers. They were a bit soggy. The Wok-Seared Hong Kong Style Noodles with Cantonese-Style Lobster ($24), however, was stellar—silky chow fun tangled up with lumps of sweet lobster, and lots of heat.

We also tried a special that night—a delicate fillet of wild white salmon from Alaska that was simply steamed with ginger and soy, the silky, snowy flesh steeped in sheer, clear and intense flavors. Young spent three years working at Le Bernardin, so he knows his way around a fish. His Wok-Seared Dungeness Crab (M/P) is not as delicate or refined as that salmon. Rather than a quiet Indie film, it is a slamming, chile-crazed, high-energy Hollywood action flick—a giant crab shell crowning a mess of lanky limbs, showered in jalepenos, dried Thai bird chiles, sharp scallions, and toasted sesame oil. If you have the patience to take out the meat from the legs, you will be rewarded. I don’t have that sort of patience, but my friend Cori, who grew up in Baltimore and is a crab-eating pro, had a jolly good time. Me? I am a Jewish girl from Queens. I don’t know from crab. So instead of dealing with the crab legs, I fo ... [more, click below]

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Posted: July 17, 2005

Other restaurants in Midtown :
+ Lever House   + Aquavit   + RM   + Joseph's (formerly Citarella The Restaurant)   + Town   + Artisanal   + The Oyster Bar   + Geisha   + David Burke and Donatella Restaurant   + Riingo   + Amma   + Cafe Sabarsky   + The Stone Rose Lounge   + BLT Steak   + V, The Steakhouse-- Closed   + Bar Masa   + Cafe Gray   + The Bar Room at The Modern   + The Cafe at Aquavit   + The Cafe at Aquavit   + Bistro du Vent-- Closed   + Shaburi   + Xing   + The Modern   + Bar Americain   + Alto   + Park Blue   + Mainland-- Closed   + Nobu 57   + Quality Meats   + Dona-- CLOSED   + Daisy May's   + 7Square-- CLOSED   + Amalia   + Fireside   + Anthos   + Patroon   + BLT Market   + Toloache   + Mia Dona   + Park Avenue Summer   + Convivio   + The Oak Room by guest reviewer Julie Besonen   + At Vermilion by guest reviewer Elaine Weiner   + Lunching at Inakaya, by guest reviewer Kathleen Squires   + Marea, by Guest Reviewer Susan Kane Walkush   + Le Bernardin   + New York Central -- A Reason To Eat at the Grand Hyatt Again   + Pampano Botaneria by Dara Pollak   

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