Mission Chinese Food

Danny Bowien has his talents as a cook, but his real genius is for creating a grand sense of occasion, and at this larger, more sophisticated Mission outlet (the original New York branch was closed down by the city, a newer one has just opened in Brooklyn) you get the feeling that he finally has a proper big-city stage to call his own. The great, fire-breathing Bowien classics are as sturdy and imposing as ever (Kung Pao pastrami, thrice-cooked bacon, the lustrous heritage-pork mapo tofu), but thanks to the influence of the talented former executive chef, Angela Dimayuga, who presided over the restaurant’s smash opening before leaving to pursue a career in the hotel hospitality business, you can complement them with a series of slightly lighter Chinese-fusion specialties, like lettuce cups filled with beef tartare, platters of fried rice tossed with shiso leaves, or lobster and coconut, and bountiful family dishes like “drunken fish” dunked in buttermilk and shaoxing wine, and Beggar’s Duck, which is baked like the famous chicken version, in lotus leaves and a coating of clay, and cracked open at table side, in the theatrical Bowien style, with a large hammer.