Great NY Noodletown

My rating: 3/10

Great NY Noodletown is a New York City Cantonese restaurant in Chinatown. It was recommended to me, and I was ecstatic to try the restaurant. We arrived and the health and safety score was a B, which can be detrimental to any restaurant, but I was willing to overlook that.

As we got seated and looked at the menu, I decided to look for some of the cheaper things on the menu. I decided on the duck lo mein. I ordered it steamed. I cannot speak for any other menu items, but this was definitely not the right choice. Every bite of noodles made me cringe a little. There was very little flavor, and an extremely starchy, bitter aftertaste.

When the food came out the portion size looked amazing. There was a hefty serving of lo mein, and a large amount of duck. The duck comes prepared on the bone, so it is a little difficult to eat. I imagine this is the cultural preparation and that was not an issue. The issue was the undercooked duck.

I was fairly confident the duck was undercooked, but I was not confident until I did a little research. Pictures on google from other customers show a fully cooked duck. This means, many times the duck is properly cooked; however, my meal was not. The undercooked duck was oozing juice and sat upon a bed of mediocre cabbage and bitter lo mein.

Overall, this was a very unfortunate experience. The saving grace of the meal was the duck skin. I could see the potential of the duck because of the skin. The crunchy skin was amazing and had the duck been fully cooked it may have saved the meal.

I believe this restaurant has many good meals, but this was not one of them. The lo mein was bitter, and the duck was undercooked. I believe this restaurant properly cooks duck most of the time; however, knowing it can come undercooked is a disappointing realization.

If you decide to try Great NY Noodletown do not get the duck lo mein.