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“Buddakan”


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

MY DINNER AT BUDDAKAN

When I first walked into Buddakan, I was ready to hate it. It was hot on the heels of a fairly disappointing experience at Stephen Starr’s other New York transplant, Morimoto, and I was poised to tear the place apart. But then I looked around. The place was gorgeous—too gorgeous. So I thought, well a place this good looking won’t be able to back it up with food and service. But then I had dinner, and it was amazing. I felt like, well, you know the feeling when you meet a really beautiful woman, who is not only stunning to look at, but who is also funny, smart, interesting, and sweet too? You know how you kind of want to hate her because it just shouldn’t be possible (or fair) for someone to be that amazingly perfect? But then you think, you can’t hate her just because she is spectacular to look at, compelling to talk to, and as genuine and caring a person as you have met in eons, can you? No you can’t. And I could not hate Buddakan. Instead, I fell for her.

Designed by Christian Liagre (Mercer Hotel, Hakkasan, London), Buddakan is one of the most arresting and magnificent visual experiences in the restaurant world. It is a sensual Buddhist temple-as-brasserie, a slinky maze of East-meets-West dining rooms, nooks, lounges and libraries circling the main dining room—a heart-stopping Gothic cathedral styled salon, with 38-foot high ceilings, carved wood chandeliers, and brocade tapestry sofas-as-banquettes to snuggle into as you feast.

And feast, my friends, you will. This is not a place to go without an appetite. Go after a day of nibbling stray mesclun leaves, and go with groups of people—family, friends, lovers, colleagues, random strangers—and order with abandon. You will not be sorry. The menu, created by chef Michael Schulson and consulting chef Angelo Sosa and executed by a team of 70 cooks, is a fabulous orgy of Chinese fare—dim sum, cold and hot apps, noodles, rice, and meat, fish and tofu—flashed with flavors that ricochet around your mouth like a wild game of sweet-hot-and-sour pinball. There were some very high score games played every night I dined here. And I have dined at Buddakan often. I am addicted. I may need a support group.

One night, for Jamie’ birthday, we sat around one of the low picnic style communal ta ... [more, click below]

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Other restaurants in Chelsea :
+ Matsuri   + La Bottega   + Tia Pol   + Bombay Talkie   + Cookshop   + D'Or Ahn: THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED   + Buddakan   + Crema   + InTent: THIS RESTAURANT IS CLOSED   + Trestle on Tenth   + Klee   + El Quinto Pino   + Socarrat   + Txikito   + Co. (Company)   


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