Doyers Street is simply a one-block portion successful Chinatown that starts disconnected perpendicular to the Bowery and past curves ninety degrees, similar a lowercase “r,” to terminate against the bustle of Pell Street. A notorious battleground for pack fights successful the aboriginal nineteen-hundreds, it has, successful caller decades, scrubbed retired the bloodstains and redefined itself arsenic a beloved, city-grid-defying idiosyncrasy, constrictive and wonky and overflowing with atmosphere. Shops and restaurants connected Doyers travel and go, but arsenic acold backmost arsenic the warring days it’s been anchored by Nom Wah Tea Parlor, which claims to clasp the rubric of New York’s oldest dim-sum spot. Its sign, erstwhile a agleam burgundy and gold, is faded; the interior has seen amended days, and the legendary ovum rolls—I accidental this with love—have, too. But what Nom Wah does champion is, simply, remain: it’s the colossus of Doyers Street, the past that has made it into the present.
A caller establishment, Lei Wine, opened past June, close adjacent door, and it serves arsenic a potent counterpoint. Modern, sleek, restrained, Lei is the archetypal solo task from the restaurateur Annie Shi, a spouse successful the chic European-inflected West Village edifice King and its midtown sibling, Jupiter. Shi, a girl of Chinese immigrants, grew up successful Queens; she’s spoken astir taking inspiration for Lei from her mother’s cooking and her father’s Chinatown societal life. With mahogany partition panels and folktale-inspired murals, the edifice evokes elements of accepted Chinese design, portion its moody, candlelit interior and austere tableware (including chopsticks with riveted, bistro-style handholds) spot it firmly successful the aesthetic of the present and now. High shelves tally astir the walls successful the tiny, table-packed eating room, clustered with bottles from Shi’s meticulously curated vino list; if a lawsuit requests a vessel that’s retired of reach, a server mightiness drawback a ladder that rests against the partition by the door—fire-engine red, the brightest daze of colour successful the different low-key room—and ascent nimbly implicit diners’ heads.
A fire-engine-red ladder allows unit members to scope bottles from supra diners’ heads.
Lei’s paper is little and tight, featuring mostly snack-size dishes, some chilled and warm, and 2 oregon 3 larger plates that, portion inactive comparatively petite, flirt with the conception of a main course. It is unmistakably Chinese successful attack and ingredients, if not needfully traditionalist successful its execution. The room (tiny, each electric, led by the cook Patty Lee, an alumna of Mission Chinese) seems to run connected ambitious principles of quality and control. The presumption is starkly, artistically minimalist: 3 tiny bowls of pickles (cucumber, radish, celery); a precise triangle of aged-daikon omelette. Raw celtuce, a lettuce cultivar bred for its saccharine stem alternatively than for its leaves, is chopped into neat rectangles of a luminous parakeet green, interleaved with strips of jiggly kombu jelly, and plated atop a vermillion excavation of Yongchun reddish vinegar. An ovoid shao bing—a flaky laminated pastry freckled with sesame seeds—provides a crisp opposition successful temperatures: the bun is oven-hot and puffy with steam, the heavy slab of food tucked wrong inactive fridge cold. You can, if you like, get a broadside of cured lardo, ethereal slivers laid retired connected a achromatic plate, but the logic of the pairing eludes me: the oily bing and milky slick of food already signifier a symphony of richness, and I was happier to devour the lardo connected its own, letting each translucent fairy helping of abdominous melt connected my tongue.
Softness and subtlety are recurring motifs, a striking departure from the existent inclination among modern Chinese restaurants toward forceful, fiery flavors. This can, astatine times, beryllium a small spot boring: that omelette, for instance, a Taiwanese-informed riff connected the tortilla española, was anodyne arsenic babe food, and hardly revived by a drizzle of scallion oil. But the kitchen’s quietude tin besides uncover moments of startling sophistication, arsenic with a scallop crudo nether a tangle of dried lily buds, the floral strands musky and tart against the fish’s supple sweetness. Cat’s receptor noodles, toothsome small swoops of caller dough, are tossed successful a northern-Chinese-inspired ragout of braised lamb that’s scented oh-so-gently with cumin. A small heap of 3 bite-size pieces of zhū xiě gāo—a chewy Taiwanese achromatic sausage made with pig’s humor and sticky rice—looks similar astir nothing, the exteriors coated to a bland beigeness successful crushed peanuts, but it’s possibly the boldest crockery connected the menu, its mochi-like savoriness changeable done with a sharp, controlled flare of heat.
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