RedFarm — Restaurant in New York

I just finished a meetup dinner at RedFarm with five lovely folks. The atmosphere and cocktails were fantastic. However, there were three big problems with the the food: 1) the extensive menu gave no details about the food, and yet most things I had were bizarre in some unpredictable way; 2) the food combinations within one dish did not work; and 3) the food was cooked poorly. Furthermore, the wait staff offered no explanations, nor did they ask how we enjoyed the food. While perfectly efficient and responsive, the staff were obviously completely uninterested in whether w the the food or experience was pleasing.

I split two starters with a dinner friend: the pastrami egg roll and the arugula, mango, and yuzu vinaigrette salad. My second course was duck and crab dumplings. Then I wanted to finish with a strong finale: the lobster fried rice.

The salad was fine; a bit overdressed and not great fruit, but the flavors were good. The egg roll had a fantastic mustard, but the pastrami seemed overcooked and seasoned Taichung that it took on a beef flavor. Then it got bizarre.

Imagine in your mind what duck and crab dumplings would look and taste like. Now, what I got was a massive plate with four gigantic dumplings, fried with a thick layer of batter and a brown vegetable curry in the middle with tomatoes (which I hate) and close-to-raw broccoli “for dipping.” The dumplings tasted like oil with poor duck in them. Instead of the flavor of crab, there were tasteless shrimp sticking out of each saucer of fried disaster. I cannot express how disappointed I was. I would give it a 1 on a 10-point scale.

Then came the wait. A long wait made me think they were cooking the lobster fried rice with care—taking the tender lobster meat and mixing it with a high-quality fried rice. No. What came out was a gigantic plate with a bland fried rice cramped at the bottom, unmixed with anything. The next layer up was a heap of sweet corn. (Why?) The next layer up were many virtually uncooked and unseasoned Brussels sprouts. What? Then, sticking out of the sides of the plate was a wildly over-steamed whole lobster, claws and tail clipped. Can you imagine anyone would ever order fried rice with sweet corn and Brussels sprouts and lobster? It’s totally bizarre. Of course, I was going for fusion and quirkiness with a lobster fried rice, but this was a $59 disaster. I barely ate any of it. But I felt wasteful—as did my dinner mates, who were also disappointed in my food—so I picked out the lobster and took the rice, corn, and Brussels home. I figure I can take out the Brussels, reheat the corn and rice and have a meal. Then I can fry up the Brussels separately and have them in a pesto pasta or something. Anyway, did the waiter ask if I liked the virtually uneaten lobster. Nope.

So, the morals of the story are: go here for drinks and atmosphere, not food; if you get food, ask the waiter to list all the ingredients, or expect the bizarrely unexpected; and don’t expect you wait staff to care what you thought...

Summary: Creative and delicious dumplings, but overpriced. Great for tasting something new. Not great if you're starving. Try the pastrami eggroll, crab dumplings, and oxtail dumplings. Avoid the scallion pancakes.

Redfarm is an upscale Chinese fusion restaurant with a strong focus on dim-sum style dishes. I went there with a few friends aiming for a dim-sum style meal, but looking at the menu, the focus is more on steamed or fried dumplings rather than the full dim sum experience. You won't find classics like pork ribs with black beans here, but the new pieces that you will find, like the oxtail dumplings, are incredible.

For our meal, we tried the scallion pancakes, the oxtail dumplings, the shrimp and pea-leaf dumplings, the crab and duck dumplings, and the pastrami eggroll.

The scallion pancakes were nothing special. Don't order it. It's pretty much the same as any other Chinese restaurant, and the smoked bacon didn't really come through against the spicy sauce served along side the pancake. For $14, it's really not worth the price.

On the other hand, the pastrami eggroll is great. Katz's peppery pastrami makes a great filling for the eggroll and adds so much flavor to the dish. The sauce isn't even necessary, but the light honey mustard elevates the dish by adding a bit of acidity and heat to balance out the heaviness of the eggroll. This is a great fusion dish, and for $10, it's totally worth it.

The shrimp and pea leaf dumplings were tasty and well presented (they looked like cute little parrots), but I didn't think they tasted any different from normal shrimp dumplings. In fact, I felt like the shrimp flavors were actually covered up by the snow pea leaf, and the umami sweetness of the shrimp didn't come out very well. The sauce didn't help the case either.

The oxtail dumplings tasted incredible. A crunchy exterior on the first bite leads to an explosion of beefy taste within the dumpling. It's almost like a fried soup dumpling with oxtail sauce inside. I have never had such strong, concentrated ox flavoring before, and man, it is amazing. I would highly recommend this dish.

My favorite dish had to be the crab and duck dumpling, though. It was a tricky dish, and the clever way the dish is made really maximizes the taste of the crab. Every bite of the dumpling coated my palate with the taste of crab, even on bites where the filling was just vegetable. The filling paired perfectly with the curry, too, and I really appreciated the combination of Japanese curry and seafood. Using arugula, eggplant, and mushrooms as vegetables for the curry created a complex interplay between dish, sauce, and garnishes. Well worth the $16.

In general, I thought the dishes were interesting but overpriced. The service was great. I was disappointed at the dim sum selection, but they did have some stand out pieces. I wouldn't go there again, but the experience was definitely...

The very first bad experience during the first time in NYC. First of all, unfriendly staff - even though it was Sunday, it was busy but still for a professional services, you have to make the customer feel welcome, always. The waiter of ours is fine, but everyone else who served the food or drinks didn't look so happy working. Move on to the food, tbh it's just alright, nothing really stood out. We had the crunchy beef - starter, which is good. But the fried shrimp dumplings and eggrolls are just stir fried vegetables coated flour and deep fried. BBQ beef fried rice are okay, flavor are exactly like any other authentic Chinese fried rice, nothing special for the price we pay. Especially they missed one of our order, so didn't get to try ox tail dumplings,the one we wanted to try the most. We thought the waiter missed our order, but no, it was still there on the check when we pay, just forgot to show up on the table :( they eventually took it off so it doesn't matter. However, all are nothing compared to what I EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED the most: wanted to pack the left over rice home, but miscommunication in the kitchen caused the rice ended up in the trash bin😢. They did make another one for us after all. Had to wait for another 10 mins and what they brought us was just a tiny box of sloppy cooked rice, NO MEAT, NO VEGETABLES,NO NOTHING BUT SEASONED RICE! Cannot believe! For a meal costs that much, they should have be more generous and throw in there at least 1-2 pieces of beef!? Working as restaurant service as well, I have been in the same situation and always in the case, the restaurant has to make a whole new exactly same dish for the customer, not just give them exactly what they have left! Tbh, there's so many more - and much better option in this city to explore. Don't listen to the hype!...