Philippe Chow Downtown — Restaurant in New York

One of the worst meals I have had in memory. We went to celebrate something for one of our small party of 3. I had never been to & actually never heard of this place, but discovered it via NYC restaurant week. Reviews on google seemed fine. I looked at the online menu and saw they were a bit pricey - $21 for lettuce cups, etc. so I assumed for that price they were probably pretty good.

We arrived to a large panda statue outside. Okay. Well, kitsch can sometimes work. Go downstairs and there is another one. Well, ambiance didn’t look too bad other than that, so we’re still optimistic.

Service was good. No issues. We were seated promptly, Got drinks which were a bit too sweet and not very cold, but that can happen. They were $15 and generally ok so didn’t want to complain.

We looked at the menu and prix fixe, asked a few questions, and ordered the chicken satay “everybody loves it” with “famous peanut sauce.” What arrived was a pounded flat, not grilled, covered in thin orange brown sauce. Not promising. Tried it. Not at the right temperature (slightly warm) and simply terrible, I mean terrible flavor. Worst satay I have ever had in terms of the quality of the chicken itself, how it was prepared/cooked, and the sauce. Almost inedible - and this is only the second time in my life I am saying this.

Rest of meal was better than the satay, but not by much. Veggie rice lukewarm and unremarkable, white rice was fine - hot and fresh, and lettuce cups very average, chicken dishes completely unremarkable. Chicken quality tasted “off” too. Hard to describe - but had a bit of an odd texture and the taste was off. We normally buy organic chicken so maybe that was the difference? Not sure.

Desserts ok - red velvet was actually average vs bad. Wine was pretty decent in terms of taste, pour size, and temperature.

Bill: $90 per person. One person had a la carte soup and chicken dish, one person had the $45 prix fixe, the other person had the $60 prix fixe. 2 cocktails and 3 glasses of wine amongst us.

Tip was automatically included.

I highly advise you DO NOT go. I did not take many pictures because i was focused on catching with the other two folks. The satay photo would have...

I don’t often leave bad reviews but couldn’t leave this one go. I’ll say to start I didn’t complain when I was there. I would normally have said something but it was the last night of our stay and I didn’t want to ruin it by getting into it with the staff, they had bad attitudes and I could just see it not going well. Also this review maybe a little harder due to the price. If this had been a fifth of the price and just your regular week day Chinese takeout it would have been fair to okay. But this place presents itself as high end but delivers bottom end.

Service: our waiter hung around with his hands in his pockets all night. I had to get up twice to get service.

Food: Pork soup dumplings were the best thing we had. Probably a 4-5/10.

Sweet & Sour chicken - presented well but the chicken was tough as old boots. Sauce was nice.

Peking Duck - we knew going we would have a long wait which we were totally okay with. When the duck came out an hour later, luke warm with a funny taste we were fairly certain it was just quickly reheated and were confused by the wait. Its takes a long time for a freshly roasted bird to cool down so we’re certain it was not freshly roasted.

Cocktails - average

Service fee of 20% was built into the bill. Which was frustrating as there was no way it was 20% service.

Atmosphere - starting off nice but 10 minutes in the music was blasting so loud we could barely hear each other talk. Which again I’m cool with in a certain setting but not trying to enjoy a $500 romantic meal.

Over all the restaurant seemed dirty and a little run down. The staff were all just having a great time between themselves, which is a shame. With as much staff that was on, every table should have gotten the chance of amazing service.

Seems like it’s lacking a manger who cares and good quality control.

$440 including tip for two people (maybe we ordered enough for three, we were so excited to get everything)

Very...

Not fine dinning, not even regular dining, just bad. Me and my bf came for the $45 3 course restaurant week and were very disappointed in the food, service, atmosphere, almost everything. Right off the bat the waiter was wearing a white coat 3 sizes too big and covered in stains and then did not come to check on us once after we ordered to ask how the food was or if we needed anything. At 8:30pm they turned the lights way down and started blasting music, we had to yell at each other the rest of the meal. Tables were way too small for family style so every time they brought something over we were shuffling stuff around and having to pick up our drinks and reorganize things. Bathroom was not clean and in disrepair, no toilet paper holder, broken flush button on the toilet and weird shared sink area…so bad I actually took a picture to show my bf. Food reviews as follows

Dumplings sampler: shrimp filling was okay but wrappers super soggy. vegetable and chicken had no flavor. Lo mein: this was fine but have had similar or better at takeout places Chicken satay: horrible, could not eat it, sauce was horrible and chicken had no flavor, flagged down a manager and sent it back. Crispy beef: way too sweet, it was like eating candy and mostly breading with tiny thin slices of meat Bejing chicken: also very sweet but overall fine, again have had better from takeout Veggie fried rice: okay but again I’ve had better takeout fried rice for way less money. Green beans: fine Desserts: nothing amazing but closest thing to “fine dinning”

They did give us the 20% discount that they usually give when someone was staying in the hotel so that was nice but also auto 20% gratuity. Overall our bill was $136 for the 2 of us which I think is both the most expensive and least good Chinese food we have ever had. There are way better places for Chinese food in nyc that are cheaper and provide a more...