I don’t think this review does the restaurant any favors. I’ve been to this place twice and would advise anyone with money (lots of it) to spend on food to give this place a try. Mr. Wells is right that the dim sum are the star of the show. What he doesn’t make clear is what the chef has done with the traditional Cantonese and Shanghai dim sum dishes. That is, he has married them to ingredients and tastes from other parts of China.I didn’t have the purse to try them all but, for example, the hot and sour soup dumplings combine the Shanghai soup dumpling with the Sichuan hot and sour soup to make a killer dumpling, all 3 of them, not the 8 you get in a Shanghai restaurant. The glitzy black ‘football’ he mentions is the Cantonese hom sui gao, usually a thick sticky rice skin dumpling deep fried with a meat and vegetable filling. In this chef’s hands, the skin is paper thin and diamond glittery but still chewy and the filling has the Sichuan fish flavor sauce — terrific. I didn’t care for the chef’s take on dan dan noodles which was to turn it into a soup. But the spicy chicken with loads of chili’s, the peashoots and fried rice were very good and not that expensive.
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Love the photo of Dad Instagramming his meal while both kids are locked, slack-jawed, onto their own mobile phones! And by ‘Love’ I mean my soul is completely crushed.....
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@Brad Trent
Have faith! The little boy seems to be doing his homework!
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Get your facts right. Hutong is a schizuan restaurant that has a selection of northern Chinese cuisine.
Dim sum is Cantonese food. There is no comparison, there is no such thing as ‘Chinese’ food, it’s regional based. I highly recommend the lamb!
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Two Wells stars for failed Peking Duck at ~$80 a pop? Huh?
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Dim Sum is specific Cantonese brunch food. Hutong means alleyway in Mandarin, and Beijing is famous for them. Furthermore, Sichuan is not Canton. It may be Chinese food, but please don't call it dim sum when it is not.
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Posh dim sum is like posh cheeseburgers, not only unnecessary but also significantly worse than thee original.
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I can't imagine giving two stars to a Chinese restaurant that can't make a great Peking duck. Hutong's version isn't even decent according to Pete. I for one will not be going.
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@ A W
Good Grief, you are advocating a great mix. Why not add to this Dim Sun all the Far Eastern and South-East Asian cuisines? Perhaps there would be lovers of such globalized food.
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Dim sum, northern Chinese and Sichuan all in the same place? Why not just go with the theme and throw in a whole Thai menu as well, maybe some Italian while they're at it? Sounds like a recipe for meh to me.
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Is this the old Le Cirque space? If so, it seems a glaring omission not to mention that.
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@Steven M. Yes it is the old Le Cirque space. I dined at Hutong a week after it opened.
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@Steven M.
It is and I thought that too.
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I await the opening of a "glitzy" restaurant in Beijing that "blends" the cuisines of Alabama, Boston and Santa Fe, exotically named for wealthy Beijingers: Tenement.
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@john
Yes. Perhaps your example might illustrate to a slight extent the mish-mash that Pete Wells is raving over. Neither here nor there, a smash-up of different cuisines.
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Once again, Pete Wells demonstrates his love of expensive chairs and ambiance over cuisine. The hits keep on coming.
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I took my family to the Hutong in HK a few years ago. We were excited to dine at a fancy place in Hongkong, the Mecca of chinese food. It was an okay experience. I love spicy foods from Mexican to Thai to Indonesian, always asked for “spicy “ whenever given the option.
At HK Hutong, the spicy lamb was so spicy it was inedible. The saving grace was pickled cucumber, a dish too simple.
10
Not too impressed with images of this new Dim Sum destination. L have had traditional Dim Sum in Kowloon, Hong Kong, in China towns in Boston, Chicago, Toronto, Tung bor Wheatin, MD, and at Jade Palace in Louisville, KY. I like the variety of the steamed not oily or not salty Dim Sum. From the traditional Dum Sum I like Nor Mai guy. Sticky Rice with chicken wrapped in lotus leaf. First time I had in Toronto I was wondering what you do with the lotus leaf after you have eaten the rice. Now I know it is just for flavor. Turnip cake and Taro cake are my other favorites along with steamed egg plant and shrimp dumplings. One can add chilly paste in oil on your food as much as you can handle. Most Dim sum places are reasonably priced and a large menu. Many Dim Sum places will bring the items on carts in containers. You can see what you are getting before you get it on your table. Normally jasmine tea is provided and when you have an empty kettle you leave the lid open . Thanks Leonard Yuen my friend from Hong Kong who married a French Canadian and settled in Canada for introducing me to Dim Sum decades ago.
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A technical question for somebody who knows: in a dish like the one with the soft shelled crab buried (beautifully) in decorative dried chillies, does the kitchen reuse the chillies after sending them out? If yes, how can this be done safely given that the chillies are edible?
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@Dr if
I can't speak for Hutong personally, but in my 14 years as a cook and chef not one restaurant I worked at ever reused ANY item from a served dish.
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@Dr if from bk. I love those dry chillies. I will never waste them. I have them packed. I did that in Beijing and also do that in the USA and then use them in my cooking. Whatever is left over on plates has to be thrown away as required by the Health and wellness Sanitation Department. There is so much waste of food on one hand and clearing out the left overs in a box is one way to prevent waste/ Another is to order just enough that one thinks one can finish
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@Dr if
Well in the 80's in Chengdu, the boiling black liquid in the hotpots were not changed between customers.
5