Chatham Square Restaurant

While my mom was visiting (way back in January), she wanted to try some Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. Since I’m not that well-versed in the Chinese food world, she asked her colleague, Dr. Allen Lee, for some recommendations since he grew up in Manhattan. He recommended Chatham Square:

They were celebrating a wedding on the first floor of the restaurant, so we were seated in the basement with the restaurant employees (they were having a family meal). We knew we wanted to order fish (especially because I love it when you can pick the fish you’re going to eat!):

When our family goes to Chinese restaurants, we usually let our mom or dad do all of the ordering since David and I don’t read Chinese (except basic things like beef, pork, noodles) and I always trust what my mom orders. She ordered some Peking duck, which is prepared tableside:

The buns tasted light and fluffy (exactly like the pork buns you can buy at Momofuku) and were really delicious with the duck skin, juicy meat, hoison sauce, and green onion:

The buns were also a lot cheaper than the pork buns you buy at Momofuku (where they cost $9 for TWO BUNS!) AND you get a lot of duck, which is awesome.

In Taiwan, when you order Peking duck, you usually get some duck soup at the end of the meal (it’s the bones that are cooked for days so the broth is actually white and really flavorful). We asked if it was available at the restaurant and they whipped something together for us:

Not as good as something you’d get in Taiwan, but pretty close:

It actually ended up being really delicious because of the tofu in the soup (they make their tofu in the restaurant and it was really tender and flavorful).

For our main dishes, my mom ordered stuffed eggplant (stuffed with tofu):

The dish definitely had too much sauce, but the Japanese eggplant was pretty delicious (although not even close to how delicious my mom’s stuffed eggplant is).

We also ordered fish that was freshly cooked and presented with some vinegar, soy sauce, oil, and cilantro:

The fish was tender like the tofu we had and we were really happy with the dish.

My mom was pretty satisfied with the meal, although she agreed that the eggplant entree was too sweet because of the sauce. I definitely should venture out to more restaurants in Chinatown from now on so I can find a place to take my mom when she visits! Thanks so much for the recommendation!