Han Dynasty

Lunchtime is our preferred hour to visit this popular Third Avenue restaurant where, instead of the usual confused cavalcade of pork, chicken, and seafood categories, the entrées are divided into broadly regional styles. You can have your lamb served in a hot pot bubbling with black mushrooms and Sichuan peppercorns, or bombed with scallions, or rolled, like they do in China’s Muslim regions, in clouds of cumin. If you get just one pork entrée, make it the double-cooked pork belly, which the cooks toss with chunks of fresh leeks, among other greenery, and don’t leave without a taste of those old Sichuan specials, mapo tofu, dan dan noodles, and dumplings, and a forkful or two of the tangy, garlic-infused sesame noodles. The ten-course tasting menus (for parties of eight or more) are great values.