New Green Bo, Chinatown NYC

Located at 66 Bayard St., I'd heard great reviews about this northern Chinese place. After looking over the menu for a while, we decided to give a shot at Shanghai Kau Fu (I know it as Hau Fu), Fried fish fillets with vegetables, Scallion pancakes, Siu lung bao (soup dumplings), Stir fried rice cakes without meat and Vegetable spring rolls. Overall, we found it cheap and yummy!

The fish fillets were nicely soft and fatty but had a disappointing companion in the vegetables of this dish. It included baby corn, straw mushrooms and snow peas. It was like cheap takeout in that sense.

The rice cakes were soft yet slightly chewy (versus stick to your mouth) with lots of "wok hay" or the taste of the wok. Yummy! The vegetables again were uninspiring with the shredded cabbage, sliced button mushrooms and sprouts(?).

The Scallion pancakes were wonderfully crispy on the outside, but perfectly soft on the inside while the dipping sauce tasted delicious. I'm not sure what they added but it was definitely different from the other dipping sauces I've been served with these pancakes. As for the crisp:soft ratio, that seems to be a rather regional preference where some folks like it mostly soft, others like it totally crispy. Usually, I like mine crispy all the way through but this place is the only one thus far where I liked their softness consistency.

The Hau fu was great too! Again, different from other versions in that no bamboo shoots were included, and it was light on the sesame oil (phew!). Interestingly, it had a distinct gingery flavor. Whatever they did to it, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Very refreshing taste-wise as well as temperatures-wise in relation to the summer heat. ;)

The spring roll was eh (for me). Everyone else liked them, but then, I'm not a huge fan of spring rolls in general.

The siu lung bao was so-so. It was too salty with an overbearing beef flavor. Plus, it was not tender enough. Well...it was a South American dude rolling out the dough. Who knows who made the filling. The dumplings didn't look good either...like very sad sacks with strangly lumpy innards. For these dumplings, I'd much rather go to Flushing unless I find a suitable place in Chinatown.

If you find yourself trekking out here, be forewarned that it's a super busy place. If we'd gotten there 5 minutes later, we'd have had to wait for a table. There was a mad rush of lunchers arriving in their business suits in hordes!! Many had to turn away in search of another establishment due to their own time constraints for lunch.

The above picture shows almost all of what we ate! Right in front is the fish fillet dish, behind it is the rice cake dish with the spring rolls to its left while the shiny metal container has the soup dumplings. Then far in the back and to the right of the metal container is a plate of the scallion pancakes.