5 Great Dishes to Try at Grandma’s Home in Flatiron | Eater NY

"At 56 W. 22nd Street, near Sixth Avenue, Grandma’s Home stands as the first American outpost of a Hangzhou chain that began in 1998 and now has over 200 branches across 60 Chinese cities. I note that Hangzhou cuisine—historically a blend of northern and southern styles, with a fastidious use of local game and produce—is part of the restaurant’s inspiration, but since opening in March the menu doesn’t stick to purely Hangzhou dishes and also offers items familiar from Shanghai and Sichuan kitchens. Right inside the front door is a bar turning out mocktails (try the coconut ginger flip made with almond milk, $9) and stronger, sake-weight cocktails (Uncle Song’s sippy cup, with vermouth, ginger, and honey, $13 — not actually served in a sippy cup), while the rest of the alcohol list is dominated by European wines, mainly by the bottle. The place is humongous—seating 120 across three major dining areas—and the decor mixes modest pottery in niches, surreal artworks, tables in dramatic pools of light, a raised table fit for ceremonial meals, and a flagstone wall with hanging plants that makes it feel oddly outdoorsy. The tight menu of appetizers, dim sum, specialties, soups, rice, noodles, and desserts yields several standout dishes: hong shao rou ($22), a red-braised pork belly dark as midnight that falls apart when prodded and swims in braising liquid with floppy kelp and green bamboo shoots (I’ve never tasted richer pork belly); tofu skin rolls ($14), neat folded blankets of bouncy texture filled with minced vegetables and dotted with flecks of black truffle to appeal to American diners; green tea claypot chicken ($48), the one dish you must have, an entire chicken braised with Dragon Well tea leaves, spices, goji berries, orange peel, and lots of salt so that subtle flavors come through in a copious broth (order plenty of rice; it feeds three or four); simmered peppercorn beef ($24), essentially a Sichuan-style preparation with pillow-soft beef, a pale gravy dotted with green Sichuan peppercorns and layered vegetables such as daikon and bamboo; and scallion oil noodles ($14), a simple, refreshing tangle of noodles in sesame oil heaped with scallions and kissed with sweet light soy sauce." - Robert Sietsema