Alley 41 蜀巷 — Restaurant in New York

Highly recommend! My friends and I came to this restaurant on a whim after a long session of ice cream and karaoke. We came in right before closing time but the staff were super accommodating and friendly despite well deserving of a break.

The food: Some of the best vegetables I’ve had in NYC. The bok choy was very fresh and crisp. I find that some Chinese restaurants overstew them in sauce so the vegetal taste doesn’t come through but that wasn’t an issue here. I also greatly enjoyed the fried green beans! A bit heavier than the bok choy but we ate all of it in a craze.

My friend got the dumplings in chili sauce. The sauce was sweet to her but she has bad tastebuds anyway. The girl does not appreciate any sweet subtlety. As for me , I had the pumpkin pastries for dessert.

The pumpkin pastries are simply excellent. The sticky glutinous outer layer were fried to a perfection and the color was very appealing. There wasn’t too much or too little stuffing and the red bean paste paired extremely welll. I haven’t had these since the small Chinese supermarket across from my house closed when I was in 7th grade - I’ve missed pumpkin red beam pastries and this brought back the nostalgia. It was like that scene in Ratatouille.

I also want to praise the staff! Despite us coming in very late and there being no one else in the restaurant, we were situated very quickly. Very friendly. The owner or whoever it was at the front was extremely welcoming, he constantly offered us new seats/tables so that the atmosphere was better or that the wind wouldn’t blow into us when the door opened. His friendly demeanor and welcome made me feel warm in spite of the cold night outside. I was reminded of my grandpa, but he did not look that old. 很年轻！

I’ve always believed that the cleanliness and care of a Chinese restaurant is reflected by the fish they have on display. Often, you see crowded tanks of dirty sad gray fish awaiting slaughter. This is supposed to ensure freshness, but oft the fish are already deceased in their tanks. The Alley has a beautiful decorative fish tank full of vibrantly colored fish of unknown specie. Very clean, well presented, and beautiful - just like the food and ambience which great care was placed in. My friend wanted to eat the fish like uncultured swine, but that just shows their delicate appeal.

All in all, great place! Would recommend to anyone looking for quick service, good prices, clean and friendly atmosphere for a relaxing...

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve walked by Alley 41 in the past, curious about what was inside. I finally got the chance to try them this past weekend when I was invited for a tasting of their menu.

The décor is modern with touches of traditional (like in the tea kettles and plates). I loved the whole ambiance of the restaurant. It felt very welcoming as we came in from the bustle and noise of Main Street Flushing. The main floor has smaller tables up front and larger ones in the back for groups. They have two VIP rooms downstairs. The one we were in, had a table that could seat up to ten people.

I thought it was so convenient to be able to see the menu with pictures of the dishes on the iPad they provide each person. We ordered quite a lot of food—we got the Chef’s Special Tea Smoked Duck, Yanzhou Fried Rice, sliced pork belly in garlic sauce with sesame cold noodle, sizzling spicy cumin beef (the spiciest dish we got), cauliflower pot, vermicelli with chili pork and another pork dish that I can’t remember the name of.

The sliced pork belly was one of the favorites of the meal. The cucumber inside the rolled sliced pork was a nice combo with the slightly sweet and spicy sauce on top. And I was glad we ordered the cauliflower pot as we really needed a veggie dish with all of the meat dishes we ordered. The cauliflower had a nice grilled taste to it that was very addicting. My mom thought the duck was a little bit too salty. This was the only dish we had leftovers of. And I did notice that most of the entrees we ordered did not come with rice. Not sure if that was because we had already ordered fried rice to our meal.

For dessert, we got the fried pumpkin cake which was delicious. I was quite stuffed at this point but still managed to have some dessert.

Overall, I thought the dishes were executed very well, presented beautifully and not too oily. And now that I’ve had a taste, I’ll be back for more.

Tip: they offer 2 hour free parking across the street if you spend a...

After enduring Sunday schedule trains (I went to Alley 41 on Thanksgiving), and enjoying a brisk walk through the late November frost, I found myself at the cozy Alley 41, a restaurant with excellent reviews and a calm, somber space on the side street of 41st Av, surrounded by residential housing.

I ordered quickly, hunger building, I was excited. As the strange Chinese pop music infused the air with life and ebullience, I waited in anticipation for my first taste of the highly anticipated Alley 41.

After a short wait: my order came. I tried the Chengdu Dumplings first. The Chengdu Dumplings were a flawed masterpiece of sorts. The flavors were almost exquisite. The dumplings themselves were beautifully composed, light, fluffy, and hot in that magical Szechuan way. But unfortunately, the dumplings were salted a tiny bit too much. Despite the salting mishap, these were easily top tier Chengdu Dumplings. The rice was as good as white rice ever is, and I was starting to feel a little less famished.

The big test was of course, the kung pao chicken. But before I bit in, I realized something slightly tangential: the music was actually American pop, but the autotune was so immense I thought it was Chinese. Their choice of billboard topping filth was certainly a letdown, as I thought I was experiencing some interesting Chinese pop. But, I digress. The kung pao chicken was a disappointment. It was tolerable, but too salty, and not spicy enough. It tasted very different, and didn’t feel authentic, strangely, it also didn’t feel too Westernized, it just seemed different — probably because of the unusual vegetable choices of scallions and well, more scallions — but not in a good way.

The food was too salty, and the restaurant too commodified. Solid, but nothing special for Flushing.

Rating: 8/10 Adjusted...