Chinese culture dates back thousands of years, and similarly, its food has evolved and expanded over that incredible amount of time. It could take an eternity to sample and truly understand all the nuances of this vast (and delicious) cuisine. So it takes some major cojones for a gwai lo to open a new restaurant that features hand-pulled noodles, a specialty of Lanzhou. Yet that's exactly what Amadeus Bogner did when he opened Hung Ry last fall. Surprisingly, the restaurant has quickly won over the hearts (and stomachs) of both critics and New Yorkers alike. Together with former Cru chef Michael Hodgkins, they embarked on a tour of Chinatown's hand-pulled noodle joints before putting an ad in a local newspaper "seeking master hand-pulled noodle maker," and eventually hired two: Tho, who works days, and Chen, who works nights. Despite some enthusiastic Yelp reviews and four stars from NY Mag's the Robs, I still wasn't fully convinced that these highfalutin noodles were any better than the comparatively lowbrow versions served at the likes of Super Taste and Sheng Wang on Eldridge. Two visits in and I'm still undecided. While Hung Ry's upside (eat your heart out Jay Bilas) is certainly higher than anything found in Chinatown, that doesn't necessarily guarantee better results.
