Nom Wah Nolita — Restaurant in New York

No wait during Friday happy hour around 6pm. You walk in to an open kitchen with chefs busy at work. I immediately see the large menu and browse to decide my order. Once decided, I look around for a few moments before realizing that I'm supposed to order from a kiosk.

Accepts credit card only, my kind of restaurant. I selected the snow pea leaf shrimp dumpling with the $3 white wine happy hr and the mapo tofu with ease. Fast efficient ordering is also my style. Food came out decently quick.

Now the food. The only reason I'm giving Nom Wah 4 stars is because of the snow pea leaf shrimp dumpling. It was fresh shrimp that had a springy texture topped with yummy snow pea leaves wrapped in a thin skin. Try the dumpling sauce to vinegar it up.

The mapo tofu and the white wine were more than disappointing. I could not get myself to finish either. The mapo tofu was so sour it was almost inedible. I've never had such sourness in my mapo tofu before. I can deal with spicy but sourness is just not right. The shitake mushrooms did not add much to the dish either and I would have preferred that it be left out. Towards the end of the meal, I was trying to salvage any remaining white rice untainted by sauce.

If you come, just get the snow pea leaf dumpling. Skip the wine. Say no...

The great:

quick service and reasonable prices. Really great set up for a quick variety of dumplings.

The boiled edamame were probably my favorite of the bunch - great herb presence and well seasoned. My only complaint might be that everything inside was chopped too finely.

The chicken and cabbage fried dumplings were pretty great texturally and flavor-wise.

The bacon XO shrimp and pork dumplings had pretty good flavor, but the shrimp tasted just a little off.

I enjoyed that I was about to make my own sauce from the 4 sauces on the table.

The pretty good:

the shrimp and snow pea dumplings - that slightly off shrimp flavor prevented me from fully enjoying, but still pretty good flavor.

The scallion pancake had great texture, but I wanted more flavor.

The roast pork buns were tasty, but overly sweet and slightly overcooked - they were falling apart a bit when we tried to separate them from the paper wrapper on the bottom.

The xiao long bao had great texture, but the broth inside was just a little too bland - I was most disappointed by this as I am constantly searching for the perfect soup dumpling in NJ/NY. That said, they were still pretty good.

Nom Wah Nolita is definitely a place I would revisit. Solid for a quick lunch or...

I took a chance on this spot and I am happy that I did. The staff consists of one person manning the register and several employees working in the kitchen. The kitchen is readily visible when you first step in and was clean, always a plus. The good energy and the way the staff interacted with each other (even at peak dinner hours on a weekend) was an added bonus to our experience.

It was our first time here so we asked several questions and the gentleman who helped us was very patient and definitely knowledgeable on their menu. The food was really good. The overall value was great especially in this trendy neighborhood.

We both had noodle dishes and both were delicious. They have a homemade roasted chili sauce you can add that was so good I refilled my ramekin and took some home for my left overs. The portion size was fair too. I would not recommend the scallion pancakes because the serving size was about half of the standard for those and they were a little greasy. Regardless I will definitely be back here and recommend this place to others.

Lastly the bathroom was clean! Always a plus. Nom Wah is definitely worth visiting if you’re...