Ren 稔 — Restaurant in New York

My friends and I had a wonderful dinner. The staff were efficient and friendly without being overbearing and the pacing of the dishes was on point for a new restaurant.

Ren is not the typical Chinese restaurant with huge family-sized portions. Most of the dishes are meant to be tapas styled so that you could try many different dishes in one sitting...which you absolutely should.

Some of the outstanding dishes (photos included) are the pickled shredded cabbage, smoky fish fillet, crispy sticky rice w. duck confit, spicy squid tentacles, the fermented milk pudding and the pumpkin cake. The pickled shredded cabbage was refreshing; the crispy stick rice with duck was inventive and tasty; and the smoky fish fillet was out of this world. The fish was lightly battered but still retained its crunch and the sauce was both savory and sweet. Incredible.

The pumpkin cake had an amazing texture with a light crispy skin and a chewy interior. Be careful of the runny lava filling (salted egg custard) - it may be hot if you don't wait for it to cool down! The fermented milk pudding was a lightly sweetened panna cotta topped with a traditional sweet fermented rice wine and osmanthus syrup and was a refreshing end to our meal.

There were a couple of dishes that needed the tiniest bit of finessing but were overall solid as well. It's very impressive that the restaurant knocked everything out of the park on their second day and I can't wait to come back again when they get their...

In a neighborhood full of Chinese/Chinese-adjacent restaurants that aren’t generally catered to Chinese people, Ren stands out as an establishment that honors its Chinese roots while fusing textures and flavors that aren’t often seen in Sichuanese food.

Highlights for more traditional Sichuanese cuisine are the cumin lamb and the fried squid legs— both were served with plenty of dried chilis.

Dishes that surprised us included the pumpkin cake, a dish I’ve only seen one other time in a purple yam format in a dimsum restaurant in LA; the duck and crispy sticky rice; and the scallion pancakes, which were perfectly flakey and chewy without being overly doughy.

An area of potential improvement: we did wish the pan-fried buns had more soup in them.

The interior was beautifully done. The playlist was so good (s/o to the Nujabes song that played when we were there). I found myself attempting to read the collection of Chinese books (and failing with my only ever-so-slightly existent Chinese reading skills). If you take away one thing from this review, let it be this— I would gladly...

I was so happy to be able to try this new szechuan spot in the neighborhood. We came on a Saturday night and it was nice and quiet. The decor is lovely- I love all the rounded arches. The bars on the window did give off a prison vibe 🤣 and the windows weren't well insulated- we did feel a breeze coming through on a windy March night.

The food was delicious. I think you can get away with ordering a bunch of small plates and feeling satisfied. The scallion pancake was so perfectly crispy and soft at the same time. The cucumbers are always a classic. The squid was excellent!! I love squid. The fries surprised me the most because it was fried just right. I don't normally like crinkle cut but these were amazing. The spicy hand shredded chicken was so yummy I kept dipping my fork back in to get some sauce. The pea shoots and mapo tofu were delicious as well. I didn't love the Garlic Pepper beef though, the sauce was too sweet for my liking. We finished off with the ginger ice cream which tasted like vanilla ice cream and you get a hint of ginger on the back end- so good!

I can't wait...