Chaan Teng

Back in November, on the corner that used to house Delta Grill in Hell's Kitchen, a new Chinese spot opened called Chaan Teng. We were intrigued by it, as the decor was a little fancier and more upscale and the menu had some interesting takes on Chinese dishes, like General Tso fried chicken. We also noticed that they had daily lunch specials (including weekends, unlike some other places), so we figured that would be a good way to try it the first time.

We both got lunch specials that day, which started off with a choice of appetizer (spring rolls, chicken and shrimp dumplings, or a green salad). We both went for the dumplings as usual. These reminded us more of Thai dumplings, like the chicken and shrimp dumplings from nearby Qi, than they did of Chinese dumplings, but that was fine with us since that's one of our favorites. It also made sense since Pichet Ong is behind both Chaan Teng and Qi.

For the main course, M got the charred lo mein with egg. The description said it was "wok charred egg noodle, cabbage, mushroom soy, Cantonese spices," which was an abridged description as there were also carrots, scallions, and bean sprouts among other things. Apparently there was also supposed to be Chinese broccoli, but M had that excluded because of her intolerance. (The server said everything was made fresh for each portion, so that was no issue.) The noodles were pretty good, lots of flavor, and tasted really healthy with all the vegetables.

A got the hot numbing rice noodles, marked on the menu with a three chili pepper spicy designation, and described as "rice noodles, Berkshire pork, vegetables, Sichuan spiced gravy." Hot and numbing was a proper description. The noodles were spicy and had a good burn, and the Sichuan peppercorns made A's tongue tingle and the water taste salty fairly quickly. Both are signs that the peppercorns are doing their job and messing with taste buds. The vegetables were infused with the hot and numbing flavors, and didn't help with not making A's mouth burn up. The pork belly was rich and fatty, and it had great flavor that didn't involve raging fire.

We were feeling hungry that day so we also got another appetizer to split - the spicy pork shumai (pork, chili, lemongrass, scallion soy sauce), which was the spiciest thing on the menu, the only thing with four chili peppers next to its name. We weren't sure how spicy the shumai could really be considering the description, but they weren't kidding. It was definitely hot, plenty of chili and chili oil, and it was full of that numbing effect of Sichuan peppercorns. The shumai themselves were really tasty, but that sauce was really, really hot. Normally we would eat all of the scallions and onions in the sauce, wiping up every last bit with the shumai, but we couldn't here because it burned (in a good way, but it still burned).

Overall, we liked our meal at Chaan Teng. It was enough to pique our interest about the rest of the menu, and we'll probably go back sometime to check it out some more.