Cliche Not So Good

NO. 1 CHINESE 50 AVE. B (BETW. E. 3RD & E. 4TH STS.), 212-375-0677

NO. 1 CHINESE, a new East Village restaurant by Frank Prisinzano, owner of Frank's, Lil' Frankie's and Hue, is both a tribute and a putdown to what Americans have come to know as Chinese food. Prisinzano has colonized the East Village with affordable Italian eateries and is said to have opened No. 1 Chinese because he just couldn't find any Chinese takeout in the neighborhood that met his exacting standards. The parts that you would think would be tributes—Prisinzano's choice of decor and menu, and even the name—are really putdowns in disguise.

On the one hand, Prisinzano's vision is straightforward, sound and rooted, I believe, in universal experience. Most of us are familiar with the moment of biting into the General Gao's (or Tsao's, or Tso's, or Tsung's) chicken to find that the mealy crusted chicken tendon does not measure up to the sticky, hot deep-fried morsel we had hoped for. Then there's the problem of quality—no matter how much you may want it, enough bad experiences can keep the biggest greasy Chinese junkies from ordering in. Assuming that Prisinzano and I were working off a similar base of relentless letdowns, I was looking forward to seeing his versions of my Chinese favorites.

The first time I visited No. 1, I accidentally walked in through the side entrance on E. 4th St. (the main entrance is on Ave. B, I later learned), a storefront so ornate with Chinese architectural detailing that I didn't doubt for a second it was the only way in. Since no one bothered to mention that my guest and I had come in the wrong way, we went downstairs, the only way to go, and found ourselves in an empty "lounge"—a space reminiscent of a finished suburban basement. A busboy walked in and looked at us blankly. We told him that we came to eat, so he led us through yet another doorway into another dark room. I felt like Alice falling through the rabbit hole.

At 6 on a Sunday evening, the subterranean dining room, certainly more spirited than the drab lounge, was half-full. Back-lit screens, cloth lanterns and an elaborately decorated bar set the mood—no doubt, this was a Chinese restaurant. Only when I finished my meal and exited on Ave. B did I come across the main dining space. Here the cooking takes place, there are counters facing the chefs and the street, as well as a few formal banquettes. Though some of the corny accoutrements of the basement were echoed here—oversized lampshades, food- court-style photographs of mung bean sprouts, hot peppers, glazed ribs—I preferred the open environment.

Whether it's navigating your way through the layout or the concept, it's always a bit off-putting eating at a restaurant that you have to "figure out," and the wink-wink style of No. 1 Chinese cast a dubious shadow from the first moment. The wait staff, attentive and lovely though they were, asked that patrons order dishes by the number. Oh! Just like at the Chinese restaurant! When I was a kid, I always assumed that the order-by-number system was in place because most of our waiters hardly spoke a word of English. If this were in fact the motivation for the system, hearing the request come from a native English speaker sounded dopey. On my second visit I noticed embossed on the menu's cover the words "Air Conditioned." These touches teeter uncomfortably between affection and mockery, which is the basic problem with No. 1 Chinese. When the inside jokes didn't work, they were just plain obnoxious, approximating the brand of "Chinese" seen on a box of Cherry Chans.

The food, though flawed, has its redemptive moments—salves to the smart-alecky presentation. The first dish to appear was a bowl of deep-fried wanton wrappers dusted with an irresistible mixture of star anise and salt, served with three dipping sauces: pickled-tasting plum, house duck sauce made with apricot and a wasabi hot yellow mustard. Whereas at your corner Chinese these freebies weren't worth ruining your appetite over, I considered the snacks to be the highlight of the meal: examples of an original improved. The other winning dishes in this vein and in their own right were the beef short rib ($7.95) and the pork spare rib ($7.95). The former was almost like a confit—sticky and sweet and falling off the bone, so tasty that even the connective tissue was lip-smacking good. The pork spare rib was wholesome with tender meat and soft barbecue flavor.

Less successful were the steamed pork dumplings ($4.95), which were oddly acidic, the oily Japanese eggplant stuffed with shrimp and water chestnuts ($6.95), and fishy-tasting vegetable potstickers ($4.95) that were fried until tough in fishy-tasting oil. The egg drop soup ($2.95) showed initial promise with its freshness and surplus of veggies, but in the end it was too salty.

Two guilty favorites, General Tso's chicken ($14.95) and sweet and sour chicken ($12.95) fell short. The chicken was of high quality, but at first taste the General Tso dish was overly jammy with a fruit glaze, then full of an unpleasant black pepper bite. The sauce on the sweet and sour, garnished with lychee, was so sweet that it tasted like ketchup. The sour was only evident if you lapped up the sauce plain. A better dish was the beef chow fun ($9.95), with broad ribbons of delicious rice noodles and stir-fried steamed greens. Still, although it tasted great there was the problem of too much salt, and the chow ceased to be fun.

A friend summed up our experience while we munched on the four-dollar egg roll, a real fatty brimming with fresh cabbage, corn, carrots, sprouts and other assorted veggies: "I think I just like greasy, disgusting egg rolls. This one's trying to be something that it's not." Like my friend, those who find MSG less offensive than an unearned air of supremacy may want to stick close to their neighborhood Chinese, just for now.