Hong Kong-style cha chaan tengs (tea restaurants) have opened by the handful in Chinatown and the Lower East Side over the last few years, including places like M Star, S Wan, and Mabu Café. With their engaging menus featuring hearty soups, dim sum, all-day breakfasts, over-rice dishes, curries, and tomato-sauced pastas, these places unite East and West into a global cuisine.
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So, when I learned that Nomad Tea Parlour was opening at 244 Fifth Ave near 28th Street, I assumed it would be some version of a Hong Kong cha chaan teng. This one comes from Jae Yang and Mandy Zhang, the latter a partner at the notable Midtown Hunan restaurant Blue Willow. I went to Nomad Tea Parlour recently with a party of four to find out exactly what was being served.
For starters there are several items one might find in a cha chaa teng, including dim sum as good as any at Royal Seafood or Golden Unicorn. Shrimp har gow ($14), four to a steamer, were plump and pink with the thinnest wrappers imaginable; while the scallion pancake, flaky and light, marshaled on a long green plate in wedges, was one of the best in town.
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Another dish that at least channeled the spirit of Hong Kong tea parlors was Coca Cola chicken wings ($16); they were not nearly as sweet as you might imagine and a worthy addition to the city’s chicken-wing panorama. The dan dan noodles were just so-so, lacking the funk of the Sichuan originals. Much better was a Singapore-style fried rice bursting with fragrant duck, a variation on Singapore fried noodles.
Eventually, the menu turns into a celebration of Chinese American fare, with a menu that parallels the banquet halls of Chinatown, minus much of the large-format seafood. This sort of Chinese menu ruled Midtown decades ago at Cantonese chains like Shun Lee and Philippe Chow. Why revive it in Nomad? Among the luxury high-rise hotels in Nomad, maybe this sainted cuisine now seems novel.
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Naturally, there’s a salt and pepper noodle dish, which may remind you of Japanese tempura or Sicilian fried squid. “Wu’s signature pork chop” ($28) is a wonderfully fatty and juicy chop cut up into small pieces and fried crisp, sprinkled with fried shallots. The XO rice rolls — name checking a famous Hong Kong sauce invented in the 1980s and almost immediately popular in our own Chinatown — is something akin to Chinese American chow fun, with a slight spicy fish-laced kick. There are plenty of vegetable dishes, too, including garlic sauce eggplant ($20), a take on a Cantonese classic that features the purple vegetable in a thick dark sauce with red pepper and scallions.
The most outstanding dish is the walnut shrimp ($28): Not quite in the dim sum canon, the recipe coats fried jumbo shrimp in a mayo-like sauce and then tosses in candied walnuts, which retain their crunch. It could double as dessert.
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What to drink? The list of alcoholic beverages is as long as the food menu. For a Chinese restaurant, there’s an unusual emphasis on wine, and the wines are generally well-matched to the food. I couldn’t resist ordering a glass of Pray Tell’s Fruit Snacks ($18), a blend of Pinot Noir, Syrah, Merlot, and Malbec from Oregon. Light, sweet, and fruity, it had enough acid to complement the sweeter dishes like walnut shrimp and garlic eggplant.
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There are strong cocktails, of course, like doctors orders ($22) — a martini served in a cordial glass with both vodka and gin flavored with ginseng, for a dirty-martini effect. As usual, beer may be your best option, but this being nominally a tea house, five teas are available by the pot for $12 to $20, including jasmine and a chamomile and chrysanthemum blend.
In many ways, Nomad Tea Parlour is a nostalgic throwback to the luxury Cantonese restaurants of New York’s past, with a yearning for historical Hong Kong as evidenced by the antique advertising placards distributed here and there in the dining rooms. Despite some unevenness in the food, it’s a restaurant worth visiting, if only for its reinterpretation of Chinatown classics with a little cha chaan teng in the mix.