Proletariat — Restaurant in New York

Nowadays with the old school (good) dim sum places in Chinatown far to few (or simply more prevalent in Brooklyn's 8th Ave and Flushing), the selection is mixed.

As a general rule, Chinese people always like to find the place which offers the most, "bargain for your buck," without scrimping on quality and when it comes to food, this most certainly is no exception. So based on these factors my family's (current) default dim sum joint is none other than 88 Palace.

Sure if I had a choice I really would rather not be anywhere near East Broadway, but once inside the mall complex that is home to 88 Palace, I forget about the jammed packed streets and pile-high businesses abound. In the end, it's about the food, and this spacious dinning hall has high food turnover - hence, hot outta the kitchen morsels.

Our favorites are: Steamed Fish Balls Steamed Shrimp Dumplings Chicken Feet Fried Shrimp Rolls Shu Mai Shrimp/Beef Steamed Crepes Noodles Chow Fun Peking Style Pork Chops

Dim sum is aplenty here, so if you've never been, give it a try (preferably with a group - so you...

Had been to the previous location next door many many times, and it was truly one of my favorite bars in NYC.

The new location loses almost all of the weird charm that made this bar so interesting, and replaces it with a generic narrow bar with some cool pictures on the wall.

All that being said, the best part was always the beer. So me and some friends go sit at a table in the back and 2 out of 4 of us order a beer to start. The bartender immediately starts acting icy and strange. About three minutes after bringing us our beers, he asks us if someone else can sit with us because “we’re not drinking.”

The whole experience was some weird passive aggressive masterclass in bad service. I guess this was probably just a case of a bad bartender, but, man, this place has lost about everything that made it unique before and added some awful service on top of it. Lots of better bars in the immediate area.

That being said - the beer I drank was pretty good, and I’ve always liked their selection in the past. So two...

Raymond is so helpful in us picking out beers every time me and the wife come through and kind of sets up a well curated experience only a professional can. He seems to know a lot of the brewers personally and the history of the beer styles which is rare for an east coast beer bar bartender.

The new spot is much better looking than the older space which the owners painfully neglected for years. You could tell the staff cared more than whoever signed off on upgrades.

I don’t understand the vegan food. It’s ok enough and is so greasy it’ll give you the squirts the next day. I’ve lead a vegetarian lifestyle for quite a while, dabbling in veganism. I like to make fun of Raymond to remind him yeast is very much alive and beer isn’t vegan at all.

All in all, major upgrade from the closet sized space to a spot you can stretch your wings a little at, though it’s farther from my house. Still a top notch beer bar and better than...