Golden Diner
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123 Madison St., New York, NY, 10002
Known For
The lowdown
Golden Diner is the brainchild of Major Food Group and Momofuku Ko vet Samuel Yoo. The main attraction is newfangled diner food with an Asian accent — but not a whole lot of it. Yoo, you see, may be a diner nostalgist and a diner enthusiast, but he’s also a diner reformist. The problem with the genre, he says, is that the menus, like subway wait times, are too long. “You can’t do good food that way,” says Woo. Thus, his kitchen covers the diner essentials and caters to the tastes of the Chinese, Latin, and increasingly veggie-happy neighborhood but does it with a tightly edited menu of just a dozen dishes or so. And yet, with everything from matcha coffee cakes to chicken katsu clubs, the range seems wide.
What you need to know
Insider Tips Counter seats are reserved for walk-ins.
Recommended DishesMushroom-Reuben quesadilla, salt-and-pepper calamari, matzo-ball soup, tuna melt, cheeseburger, egg-and-cheese sandwich, Asian rice and beans, Thai Cobb salad.
DrinksSake/Soju, Beer and Wine
Noise LevelCivilized