A Cantonese Comeback

Although a rich diversity of Chinese regional cooking is always available within the five boroughs, popular favor tends to fix on one style at a time. For the past several years, that spotlight has fallen on Sichuan food, the lip-tingling spicy-peppercorn cuisine of the southwestern province, which has risen to enough prominence that schoolchildren now know that the hometown term for the peppercorn tingle is má là. “Who’s been anywhere good that isn’t Sichuan?” a colleague of mine moaned recently, having gone numb to the numbing.

Lately, however, I’ve noticed Sichuan’s dominance is waning. Cantonese is once again on the rise. This region’s cooking — at least, Cantonese American cooking — informs what most Americans reflexively think of as “Chinese food.” Cantonese immigrants came to this country in numbers in the late-19th and early-20th centuries and shaped their cuisine to suit American palates, while Cantonese cooks in Hong Kong absorbed the influence of British and international tastes. Cantonese-style Chinese is both an eminent regional cuisine and an evolving amalgam. Dim sum is Cantonese, but so, without too much stretching, is the cha siu “McRib” Calvin Eng serves at Bonnie’s in Williamsburg, which helped usher in the renewed taste for haute Cantonese in 2021.

Not long after Bonnie’s opened, a group of New York–raised Cantonese Americans opened Potluck Club on Chrystie Street, which fills nightly with crowds under a giant movie marquee ordering dressed-up versions of takeout classics like Grand Marnier shrimp. It has been popular enough that the Potluckers added Phoenix Palace, a second place on the Bowery, though I prefer the original. Yao, a higher-end, tasting-menu Cantonese restaurant, has been humming along on Clinton. And now to join them comes Cha Cha Tang on Sixth Avenue, the name a bowdlerization of cha chaan teng, the Cantonese term for the casual diner-style joints that dot Hong Kong.

Cha Cha Tang is the work of less a single guiding light than a board of directors. At the top of the pyramid are veteran restaurateur John McDonald, of Soho’s Lure Fishbar, and Wilson Tang, who helped jazz up Nom Wah before selling his stake in the flagship and keeping the offshoots. The chef is Doron Wong, an alum of Yunnan Kitchen, and while the different stakeholders may pull in their various directions — Tang orchestrated some variations of Nom Wah–style dim sum, and it’s easy to imagine McDonald guiding the party-time vibe of the dining room with its soundtrack of Prince and Janet Jackson — Wong’s assured cooking is what holds everything together.

His egg roll — served in thick slices, kimbap style — is both crisp and admirably greaseless, the result of a three-layer egg-crêpe wrap. The scallion pancake tastes sharply of alliums and can be ordered on its own or as part of a “caviar canapé,” dotted with crème fraîche and a spoonful of Osetra. It’s the restaurant’s entrant to the great Caviar Bullshit Olympics of 2024, but caviar and scallion pancakes is a happier marriage than, say, caviar and chicken nuggets, a high-low competitor from Coqodaq.

I do wonder whether these are the kinds of flourishes that bring people back. Customers may flock to try (and post to their Instagram Story) the latest caviar canapé or a wonton soup made cute with Spam dumplings and Italian macaroni, but will they return for it week after week? The perils are real, as McDonald well knows: The Cha Cha Tang space has housed a couple of his restaurants in the past several years — El Toro Blanco and, more recently, Hancock St., whose logos still hovered on the computer screens behind the bar when I visited.

I’m not sure Cha Cha Tang’s operators know just what kind of restaurant they want it to be. The soundtrack bops; the low-lit, Deco-fixtured design is jazzy and sophisticated. You can order a whole roast duck on the weekend or bacon-and-egg noodles any night. And even still, there are flashes of greatness that would keep me coming back. A Macao-style chicken curry, less sexy than a katsu-inspired pork chop drowned in foamy cheese sauce, is delicious, studded with olives and thick with coconut milk and mild smokiness. Likewise, a steamed branzino with fermented black beans and scallions knocked me out: It tasted not like cheese or caviar or the deep fryer, just pure and honest with a little extra sweetness from caramelized soy. It is, not for nothing, probably among the most traditional Cantonese dishes on the menu.

There’s a glimmer of something here that may keep Cha Cha Tang around longer than its predecessors were, maybe even longer than some of its competitors in the New Wave of neo-Cantonese spots. But competition is fierce, and attention spans are short. Recently, a new Fujianese spot, Nin Hao, opened in Prospect Heights. And over on Clinton Street, I loved a recent meal at Yong Chuan, whose best dishes hail from a region hitherto unknown to me: the seafood-heavy port city of Ningbo in northeastern Zhejiang.

Scratchpad

Cha Cha Tang

257 Sixth Ave., nr. Bedford St.; chachatang.com

Consolation Duck
Whole ducks are served only on weekends, but the restaurant offers a pretty tasty pulled-duck sandwich seven days a week.

Breakfast to Finish
The star of the dessert menu is a Hong Kong–style French toast filled with taro cream, topped with condensed milk, and thoroughly deep-fried.

A Warning
Google Maps also displays the similarly named Cha Chan Teng, on Mott Street, though that restaurant is permanently closed.

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