Some good news for fans of RedFarm in the West Village. The playful Chinese restaurant shuttered by a kitchen fire two years ago is back, and after several soft openings last summer, playing to a packed house nightly.
The 42-seat restaurant, situated on the parlor floor of an 1828 brownstone, was conceived by New York Chinese restaurant guru Ed Schoenfeld, Jeffrey Chodorow (China Grill Management), and his son and fellow entrepreneur Zach. Schoenfeld, who died of cancer in 2022, is remembered in many of the design elements, including touches of rustic farmhouse decor and his prized vintage water pitcher collection.
Ditto for the menu, which features such crowd pleasers as Ed’s pastrami egg rolls, egg roll wrappers plumped with a generous quantity of Katz’s Delicatessen’s pastrami and cabbage, then deep-fried. You dip the crunchy morsels in a potent deli mustard.
The dumplings, of which there are better than a dozen varieties, are crafted from scratch, with wrappers, fillings, and folds handmade in-house. “Pac Man” shrimp dumplings, a throwback to the popular video game from the ’80s, are so named because they are painted up to resemble the various colors of the “ghosts” in the arcade classic. The succulent morsels are accompanied by a dollop of guacamole.
Pan seared Chilean sea bass brings you face to face with tender cutlets of the white fish tossed with half-moons of zucchini that could use a minute or two more in the sauté pan.
The space below the restaurant, which was originally a laundromat, then reclaimed by RedFarm as a cocktail bar and restaurant, is soon to become a haven for RedFarm’s prix fixe Peking duck dinners. In the meantime, when duck is available, RedFarm’s kitchen is happy to serve it up in such soul-satisfying creations as wide rice noodles with BBQ’d duck.
Price range: $15 to $24 for starters and salads, $17 to $24 for dumplings, $18 to $72 for main dishes, and $27 to $38 for rice and noodles.
RedFarm, 529 Hudson Street, 212-792-9700 is open for dinner daily, and for lunch and weekend brunch on Saturday and Sunday.
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