I wrote about Noodle Village a while back in January 2011, which you can read about here.  Since then I’ve gone many times and I realized it’s a better restaurant than I originally thought and I’d actually say it’s one of the best restaurants in Chinatown.  Although unfortunately Manhattan Chinatown seems to be starting to die, so the competition is getting pretty weak.  Anyhow, I wrote a description of what Noodle Village is before, so I’ll get right into the food.

Chili Oil

They have good chili oil; its chiu chow style chili oil, which is more flavorful than regular chili oil as it contains ground dried shrimp.  They make their own chili oil and I believe they sell it as well.  While it’s not as good as Bo Ky’s, you should still definitely make use of it.  8/10

Fried Fish Skin (Zha Yu Pi)

This is a classic Hong Kong snack that I believe is actually Chiu Chow in origin.  Its fried fish skin served with a light soup and you’re supposed to quickly dip the skins in the soup.  It tastes like it sounds and its good beer drinking food.  They do a nice job frying the skins; they are crispy and not oily although I found the flavor of the fish skin here to be a bit too fishy.  Overall, not bad but would be better if they used a less fish tasting fish skin.  7.25/10

Spicy Fried Fish Ball (La La Yu Dan Chuan)

These are fried fish balls on skewers covered with a sauce of dried shrimp paste, chili oil, diced scallions and fried garlic. They make their own fish balls so these have much better flavor and texture than frozen ones.  The sauce on top is very good and compliments its well.  These were quite good and similar to what you would get in HK. 8.5/10

Fried Dumplings (Guo Tie)

These are house specialty.  They are somewhat large pan fried dumplings.  The skins are a bit thicker, but not really thick.  The dumplings are perfectly crispy on the bottom with nice pork and chive filling.  The sauce is slightly sweet and spicy soy sauce.  These dumplings are quite good and definitely one of the best dumplings in Manhattan.  8.5/10

Beef Congee

This is standard congee with beef slices in it.  The congee was nicely flavorful with good texture.  The slices of beef were silky and tender as they should be.  Overall, it’s quite good congee. 8.25/10

Shatin Style Congee:

Shatin is an area in the New Territories in Hong Kong, it’s known for having good food and I believe chicken congee is one of the dishes it’s famous for.  I believe they use chicken broth when they are making the congee as the congee tastes chicken-y.  The congee was pretty decent although the chicken itself was a bit too dry.  7.75/10

Cuttlefish Ball Soup

All of their fish balls, fish cakes or cuttlefish balls are good here because they are all handmade by them so the texture is tender and the flavor is much better than frozen ones.  The soup is a nice light soup and overall it’s quite good.  I definitely recommend this as it’s hard to find non-factory fish balls these days.  8/10

Wonton Noodle Soup

As I’ve discussed before while wonton noodle soup sounds like it should be an easy dish to make it’s actually very difficult and almost impossible to find good versions in the US.  Now I’m not going to say this amazing or anything, but it’s a reasonably decent version.  The broth is light and not too salty like most places, I would prefer a stronger fish flavor, but it’s not bad.  Also, they don’t use MSG here.  The wontons are a bit bigger than I would prefer, but they also aren’t the golf ball sized wontons that I hate.  The skins are thin and the filling is better than most places particular the shrimp wontons.  The one thing is sometimes they overcook the wontons a little and the skins get a bit soggy.  The noodles are the standard yellow thing egg noodles.  They don’t cook them as super al dente as some places and there is almost no alkaline flavor which I prefer (alkaline salts are used to make these types of noodles).  Overall, its reasonably decent, but I’d prefer if the broth had a deeper fish flavor.  7.75/10

Beef Tendon And Brisket Noodles

This is another classic HK dish of stewed beef tendon, brisket and radish over thing yellow egg noodles served with yau choy.  They make a decent, but not amazing version here.  The tendon and brisket are nicely tender and the noodles they use are decent.  However, I’d prefer a more flavorful stew broth.  It was decent overall.  7.75/10

Pork with Salted Fish Clay Pot Rice (Xian Yu Rou Bing Bao Zai Fan)

This is clay pot rice and basically the only place that does an reasonable version of this in NY now that I know of now that A-Wah has fallen down.  I described it in my previous post and everything is the same, but I also added preserved meats to it (Chinese sausage and salted pork).  Everything is reasonably good, but nothing is amazing, but it’s a decent version.  7.75/10

Chinese Broccoli & Yau Choy with Oyster Sauce (Hao You Shuang Cai)

This was pretty standard, but good.  The vegetables were perfectly cooked and tasted good with the oyster sauce. 8/10

Fried Buns with Condensed Milk (Zha Man Tou)

I love these and I realized the first time I had they it was a fluke (over fried) and they are actually pretty good.  8/10

Overall, they are trying to do HK style food and its lighter and much better than a lot of what you find in Chinatown.  They also advertise no MSG for people who care about that.  I’d definitely recommend coming here if you are in Chinatown.

Address:
13 Mott St (between Chatham Sq & Mosco)
New York, NY 10013
(212) 233-0788
http://www.noodlevillageny.com/