Hung Ry – Awesome New Modern Noodle Restaurant on Bond Street

**THIS RESTAURANT HAS CLOSED**

Normally, I’m really skeptical of any type of fusion Asian type cuisine as 9.5 out of 10 times the result is some really bad food in some meatpacking type atmosphere.  So when I heard about Hung Ry I was very skeptical about it.  A pseudo Chinese noodle shop in a hip space on Bond Street.  I immediately imagined poor quality Chinese noodle soup trying to be masked in an upscale setting and taking advantage of customers who don’t know what any of this stuff is supposed to taste like.  Luckily, I was very wrong.

The space is a great spot on Bond Street that is somewhat industrial looking modern feel to it, but the décor looks great and really fits in well with the neighborhood.  The service was excellent and the owner is a really nice guy.  I spoke to him for a bit and he is a Tibetan guy who grew up in Switzerland.  He had an idea for this type of restaurant so his head chef and him walked around to different hand pulled noodle shops in Chinatown and ended up hiring one of the guys who pulled the noodles from an unnamed restaurant.  Great move on their part to hire someone who knows what they are doing.

Squid Appetizer:

The owner highly recommended this and said it was one of the best dishes in the restaurant.  It is basically salt baked squid with chopped up cilantro and pumpkin seeds on top of it.  At the bottom there is a homemade chili sauce (not spicy at all). This was really good, better than any of the salt-baked squid in Chinatown (including South China Garden and NY Noodletown).  The batter was great, a little less salty than the versions in Chinatown, but still quite good.  Not overly battered and fried perfectly, not oily at all.  The squid is what really stuck out as it was very tender.  The cilantro and pumpkin seeds were a nice touch especially the cilantro as I really like cilantro. 8.5/10

Beef Tongue Appetizer:

Another recommendation from the owner.  The beef tongue had been stewed in a very light brown broth that I believe used soy sauce.  The beef tongue had a melt in your mouth type of texture with a great flavor.  The broth was a really nice compliment as it was very light, not too salty and really allowed the beef tongue to shine.  The execution was excellent on this dish.  8.25/10

Pig Foot Noodle Soup:

This was a special that night and the bartender (we sat at the bar) said it was excellent so I tried it.  It had a lot of Japanese chest nuts in it which made the soup slightly sweet.  The soup also had a nice star anise flavor, it was quite good, not too salty and you could taste a reasonable amount of complexity in it.  The pig foot was really good, nice and tender.  I tried the thin noodles.  They were good, but pulled a little too thin, so they didn’t retain their al dente quality as well.  Overall, it was an excellent dish. 8/10

Duck Noodle Soup:

This was awesome, quite simple just a seared duck breast, noodles and soup.  The soup had a more discernable star anise flavor as there were no Japanese chestnuts in this one, so it didn’t have that sweet flavor.  I liked this broth a little bit better.  The duck breast was cooked excellently and was rare in the middle.  We ordered the thick noodles in this one and they were much better as they retained their al dente quality better.  Overall, this was really good, much better than any of the Chinatown handpulled noodle places.  8.25/10

I was really pleasantly surprised by this place, it was probably one of the better discoveries I’ve made this year.  I highly recommend coming here.

Address:
55 Bond St (between Lafayette St & Bowery)
New York, NY 10012
(212) 677-4864