Oriental Garden

The staples of the classic Chinatown experience are all on display at this venerable Elizabeth Street establishment, which has been a favored hangout for generations of big city chefs from David Chang to David Bouley. For the full O.G. experience, insist to be seated in the bustling street-level dining room, with its pink tablecloths and old-fashioned wood trim, and not in the grim subterranean anteroom downstairs. The old Cantonese dishes are the ones to get (not the grizzly Peking duck, if it still survives on the special menu), and focus on the reliably fresh seafood, particularly the lobster, which comes in a variety of styles, and if you have the resources, chef Wong Wong’s different versions of fresh crab flown in from Canada, tossed with XO sauce or piles of frizzled garlic.