Profile

Pretty much your typical fast-food Chinese takeout, Red House has touches so stereotypical that they scream for a Saturday Night Live sketch: Cheap posters of Chinese models in traditional garb, the owners' children doing homework on one of only two sit-down tables, a regular influx of oddball customers who haunt Williamsburg's ungentrified eastern Grand Street, and walls so saturated with grease that you reek of last year's egg rolls by the time your order is up. Luckily, the grease seems to stick to the walls and not the dishes, which are surprisingly light and generous with chunks of fresh vegetables—for fast-food Chinese, that is. Spring rolls, for example, avoid the usual sogginess with audible crispness, and the black-bean salmon, though homely, offers up gentle flakes of rich fish flavor next to heartily crunchy sprouts of emerald broccoli. The downside is that Red House can be downright stingy otherwise—you'd be hard-pressed to find the peanuts or red peppers in a dish that depends on them, like kung pao chicken. And what's with not giving out any fortune cookies? — Michael Y. Park

Spring vegetable roll, $1.20; salmon with black bean sauce, $12