YongChuan

"This ambitious new restaurant — anomalously located deep in the Lower East Side — centers on the cuisine of Ningbo, where hunks of fish are smoked and lacquered with sauces, soup dumplings are shaped like nuclear reactor towers, and taro root transformed into a thick satisfying soup dotted with pork cracklings. Under chef Xing Zhong Qiu, the elegant dining room is filled with good smells, and vegetables like bottle gourd and winter melon are imbued with flavor and transformed into rich dishes. The wine list is mainly French." - Robert Sietsema