RESTAURANTS • First Person
Cha Cha Tang on lower Sixth Avenue is modeled on co-founder Wilson Tang’s idea of a Hong Kong diner. The dining room sports pink tablecloths, and the menu reflects Tang’s heritage growing up in Manhattan’s Chinatown (with frequent forays to Hong Kong). It’s not a Hong Kong diner, exactly — more like an American take on a Hong Kong diner. Either way, it’s a lot of fun, the kind of place I want to be dining at as NYC kicks back into high gear for the fall.
When we dined at the new Greenwich Village spot last week, Tang, who has also helped lead Nom Wah Tea Parlor’s resurgence and expansion across New York City and will open Sal Tang’s with Cafe Spaghetti owner/chef Sal Lamboglia in Cobble Hill later this fall, was in the house. Leaping from his bar seat, he excitedly recounted the restaurant’s genesis, a story of two hustling NYC restaurateurs combining forces.
He had known his new partner, restaurateur John McDonald of Lure Fishbar fame, for a while. Earlier this year, McDonald suggested that they do something together at his restaurant Hancock St. Perhaps a pop-up on Sunday and Monday nights, when the restaurant was dark?
That led to a two-month Cha Cha Tang pop-up this spring. Through great word-of-mouth, it proved a tough booking, which encouraged the partners to make a permanent go at it. And last month, they flipped Hancock St. into Cha Cha Tang, rolling seven nights a week.
For starters, cocktails — a lychee martini and a Cha Cha 75, a vodka-based drink with grapefruit, honey, ginger, lime, and prosecco — and dim sum, obviously. In fast succession on our table, a fantastic quenelle of caviar atop scallion pancake ($22 per), followed by turnip cakes and an “original” egg roll. The dim sum was “all on the same plane of delicious,” as my dining companion put it.
There are a lot of ways to run with the menu from here, including a gala Cantonese roast duck ($110 per), or forays into noodles, rice, and offbeat diner fare, like a scrambled-egg burger club. We went more straight-ahead, opting for the XO fried rice and steamed branzino, along with a side of garlic eggplant, and enjoyed every bite.
One absolute must, however, comes at dessert: a thick slab of Cantonese french toast, which, when cut into, oozes a river of taro cream. Having thought we were full, we greedily sopped it all up.
Throughout, a soundtrack of 1990s New York City hip-hop (McDonald, of course, was in the restaurant too, “turning up the music and turning down the lights,” as Tang put it), a reminder that, though Hong Kong in inspiration, Cha Cha Tang is a creation of NYC, through and through. –Lockhart Steele
→ Cha Cha Tang (Greenwich Village) • 257 6th Ave • Sun-Thurs 5-10p, Fri-Sat 5-11p • Reserve.