China Grill - Manhattan

We walked in off the street to this Chinese/fusion restaurant at 60 West 53 Street and unexpectedly had an most excellent meal. The large, split level room filled quickly but service was friendly, informative and reasonably paced.

We began with two appetizers. A good size serve of slightly spicy vegetarian potstickers and tofu fried in a tempura batter - a very tasty startand a large serve of superbly tasty noodles with crisp peanuts, some pieces of duck and lots of sweet very fresh prawns in a light sate sauce. A must have if you go there.

We were pretty well fed after sharing two mains.

The large salmon fillet had been marinated and the pan fried leaving the skin crisp and the fish, barely but perfectly cooked for maximum taste

and duck two ways presented with thin pancakes so the breast could be wrapped up and eaten 'peking' style. The confit of the leg was shredded and served on a large but delicate pancake on the plate in a separate dish.

The small dish of plum sauce was a little sweeter than usual
It was too tempting to leave without trying a dessert and the home made ice cream and sorbet proved to be another great choiceWine We enjoyed a pleasant 2004 Da Vinci Tuscan chianti ($40) There is a modest selection of international wines by the glass or bottle starting around $10/glass and $40 /bottle
Price With gratuity this all came to US$225 for three very well and happily fed clients
Comments Rather noisy but reasonable. My only complaint is that it is impossibly difficult to eat rice with pointy chopsticks off a flat plate
Score: 15.5/20