Profile

This venue is closed.

This bare-bones teahouse bustles nightly with Asian teens and college students clamoring for Taiwanese bubble teas which, true to tradition, are made extra frothy from powdered nondairy creamer. Ask a waiter and she'll probably tell you that the accompanying snacks here are American, but even if triangulated toast glazed with peanut butter recall the treats of your suburban childhood, the menu's inclusion of fried fish balls and grease-filled dumplings dappled with peanuts prove the repertoire goes beyond a loose adaptation of comfort foods Asian parents make for their American-born offspring. The large, jumbled selection of oily fare served until midnight also makes ideal hangover helpers, especially the magic toast (French toast stuffed with ground pork squirted with multiple sauces) which admittedly sounds like an unimaginable order for someone sober. Whatever you order, sitting on one of the small stools at a dark teak table can be chalked up as a quintessential Chinatown experience complete with Chinese pop on the speakers. — Alexandra Vallis