Golden Unicorn–Third Floor: Chicken Feet, Bao Zi, & Almond Jelly…Going Up!
Nineteen years after it first opened its doors in Manhattan’s Chinatown, Golden Unicorn remains so popular that weekend customers still sometimes wait 45 minutes for a table. In an industry where restaurants age in canine years, that’s remarkable tenacity and longevity–the equivalent of Maya Plisetskaya dancing The Dying Swan long after her 65th birthday. Part of Golden Unicorn’s allure comes from its rituals and processes–and not just the Hong Kong-style cart service. Just as important is the pre-dining ritual of entering the building and checking in with the hostess in the lobby. She records how many people are in your party, and when a table becomes available, she phones upstairs to the multi-level restaurant as you board the elevator bound for the appropriate floor. The whole seating experience is so well choreographed that it likely would make Plisetskaya proud indeed. But there’s more: once you find a table, the dim sum carts begin snaking along the aisles, and yet these are no ordinary pushcarts–these have photographic labels to help you identify what each offers; and if you are new to dim sum and don’t speak Chinese or luck out and find a rare server who speaks English, these little pictographs are a huge potential asset.
However, things start to unravel a bit once you’re seated, as Chopper, HungryMan and I discovered on a recent visit. The chatter on the Web recently has been all about how Golden Unicorn’s cooking has gone from solid to stale, and we were eager to see how accurate the rumors were. And the truth is: they’re not all wrong. To be completely fair, we still managed to eat some wonderful dishes at Golden Unicorn–the Ha Cheung Fun (shrimp flat noodle rolls) were soft and soy-bathed, with very juicy shrimps hidden inside and not a trace of sliminess. Interestingly, these arrived in a cart bearing the labels “Duck Web” and “Shrimp and Shark Fin Shumai,” neither of which was anywhere to be seen.
We also really enjoyed the crisp and chewy stuffed shrimp spring rolls that reminded us of a panko-rolled, seafood version of pigs-in-a-blanket. These came with two dipping sauces, but I thought they were just perfect on their own. And once again, the cart that brought them to us was mislabeled, this time with “Sweet Taro Bun” and “Steamed Chiu Chou Dumpling.” I started to wonder if those much-touted, ostensibly helpful cart photos might actually do more harm than good in the long run. But it took an entire cartful of Lo Bahk Gow (Pan-fried Turnip Cake)–my personal all-time favorite dim sum item–delivered in a cart labeled as “Steamed Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf” to make me realize that someone in the kitchen was not paying attention to details.
This lackadaisical attitude was, quite unfortunately, also reflected in the quality of many of the dishes we ate, and not just in their mode of transportation around the dining room. The roast duck plate was a perfect example–soggy in places, greasy in others, and altogether missing any of the sultry smokiness that can make this dish such a winner, this dish was both the most expensive thing we ordered ($8.95) and the least worth the effort it took to chew. Just as terrible was the deep fried pork bun that looked so appealing on the cart, but tasted like an oil-soaked wad of Kleenex and smelled unappetizingly like too much five spice powder.
Other dishes we ate, such as the chive dumplings, the sautéed Chinese spinach, and the sweet tapioca and custard bun, were unremarkable–although the yellow center of the tapioca bun did taste quite a bit like a marshmallow Peep. 
And as the three of us finished our meal and we saw our bill ($45 total), the conversation took on a sour tone and turned to other, better, cheaper dim sum spots in the neighborhood. Just the week before, we had eaten at local favorite 88 Palace and paid $35 for four people and frankly, much better food. Entertaining pre-seating rituals and cart labels are great gimmicks to get customers in the door, but these aren’t the late 1980s–there is a growing public interest in and access to information about restaurants, and diners do talk about carelessness and mediocre cooking. Unfortunately, unless Golden Unicorn adopts some of Plisetskaya’s Soviet-era discipline, it is unlikely that the restaurant will be able to retain its position as Chinatown’s dottering, absent-minded grandfather of dim sum.
Golden Unicorn, 18 East Broadway (at Catherine Street), 212-941-0911.
love your site!! you should try ‘mandarin court’ on mott street, i love both dimsum and dinner there. no photos, but you can easily communicate with the waiters.
Comment by suzii q. — March 1, 2007 @ 8:35 pm
thank you for the link to the 88 palace post. definitely gonna check that out later. there is another site out there that mentioned some ’secret’ place beneath the bridge, but he wouldn’t say the name. this makes it easier. thank you!!!
Comment by the pauper — March 2, 2007 @ 11:04 am
Well, at the very least, I’m glad to know that 88 Palace is still going strong. Even though I don’t live in NY anymore, I still send people there.
Comment by LarryB — March 2, 2007 @ 9:33 pm
Have you been to ping’s? dimsum go-go?
on a tangent, those steam carts make quite the drama of dimsum, but in almost every other city with a sizeable cantonese population (london, shanghai, vancouver and even parts of california) demand for fresher made-to-order dishes has made dinosaurs of those dimsum carts.
like general tso’s chicken* and mr k’s, like japonais and buddakan, dimsum at jing fong, golden unicorn and all the other mega-restaurants exemplifies chinese with a distinctly american patois. amidst chinatown’s fantastic little bakeries, great congee and authentic la mian, it is unfortunate that the dimsum here has such a long way to go to resemble the freshness and light hand of real cantonese food. a real pity alan yau didn’t make it across the pond** - nor even susur lee from toronto - to show us how to take chinese food seriously.
forage on, guys, and keep up the great posts!
*http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/magazine/04food.t.html?ex=1328245200&en=3413e2c35e4a18e6&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
**http://www.nypost.com/seven/02082007/gossip/pagesix/chinese_shuffle_at_gramercy_pagesix_.htm
Comment by a touch to the heart — March 4, 2007 @ 6:17 am
Yes to both Ping’s and DGG. We’ll get to both eventually, but of the two, DGG is our favorite, even without the carts.
Now while I agree with your point that carts are theatrical, they’re certainly not outmoded in other parts of the world–one visit to London’s biggest restaurant (and of course, biggest dim sum restaurant), New World, will show you just how popular they still are. New World remains the site of our longest wait for a table: 3 hours (which we’d normally never do, but a friend from Sao Paolo who had never had dim sum was visiting).
And honestly, I think you’re right about the Anglo inflection in the bigger dim-sum palaces–especially at Golden Unicorn. But carts aren’t always a sign of inauthentic cooking, nor are they harbingers of a bad meal. My Chinese teacher in graduate school told me once that she (a Taiwanese woman who had been in the US for 30 years) would never bother with dim sum if it didn’t come on a cart. “Part of the is the fun in seeing something delicious two feet from your face and grabbing it!” she claimed. And I have to agree with her.
Comment by Nosher — March 5, 2007 @ 1:37 am
i agree entirely with the theatre and the instant gratification! (and the vote for dsgg.)
carts are good fun, but if i’m looking for freshness and a bit more perfection, i definitely order a la carte. even on a packed sunday afternoon in a smaller restaurant, the difference between an order flash-fried or steamed just for you and one that’s made the rounds in a cart is palpable! much as with those sushi ‘trains’* oddly popular elsewhere (bless us for not having succumbed much yet), you never know what you’re going to get - or how old it is.
agreed that the carts may never go out of historic style and the need to serve the masses. but restaurants overseas with aspirations to finer dimsum (royal china, yauatcha in the uk) have definitely migrated to an a la carte style which suits the thinner pastries and more extravagant concoctions a little better.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conveyor_belt_sushi
Comment by a touch to the heart — March 5, 2007 @ 7:06 am