Auntie Guan’s Kitchen 108

Great food from northern China! Try the wonton soup, just the same as what I had when I was young

This is my second time here, really love the food here. I’d say this is the best Chinese restaurant in nyc

Steamed Dumpling’s so good, at least fit my Chinese stomach so well. Saluted pea is always my favorite.

Very busy place and seemed to be worth the wait. Wide variety of items to choose from in addition to the portions are family style. Be ready to share. If you want something unique, try the sour cabbage.

I really cheer for restaurant entrepreneurs. I really dislike giving a bad rating because as an avid Unilocal user, I understand the ramifications. Sometimes though, things are just so bad and the other reviews just so strangely disconnected from reality that one has to speak up. (And I’m definitely overdue for some user-​generated content anyway.) I really don’t take this negative review lightly. Hopefully they learn from this feedback.
My brother and I went to Auntie Guan’s the afternoon of Monday June 6, 2016 and we ordered:
1) Steamed Soup Dumplings — absolute disaster — the biggest disappointment of the meal. Five of the six were broken and without soup and the pork in most of them was very pink and seemed under-​cooked… we ended up throwing most of it away, and survived the portion we ate;
2) Chinese Leek Turnover — not too bad;
3) Cold Noodles — noodles were nice, but the broth too sweet, and see below for what was an overall embarrassing performance.
I should backtrack a little… we originally ordered the Danan Noodles, but after a few minutes they came back to let us know that they were out of certain ingredient (s) and asked if it would be ok to serve the dish anyway. The waitress was sweet, but had a hard time communicating and it felt like the missing ingredient (s) was (were) perhaps critical. We opted for the Cold Noodles.
The first dish to arrive was the Cold Noodles and that’s really when things went downhill. It was missing the spread of sliced beef as presented on the menu. I immediately flagged the waitress and she came back over… showed her the dish and asked her «where’s the beef?»… trying to be somewhat funny but knowing full well I was VERY un-​funny and that she wouldn’t get the joke.
She let out a big Unilocal (not pandering here, it was literally a Unilocal), took the spoon and started fishing around the soup looking for the beef, grabbed the dish and ran it back into the kitchen.
After a minute, she came back out with the same dish in hand and had the HILARIOUS gall to tell us that we must have eaten the beef. We started laughing, but it quickly became obvious that she was serious and very clearly mindlessly passing on a message from the kitchen.
It was at that point my light heartedness turned to a pretty serious level of disappointment. I told her that her suggestion was utterly absurd. She comically scurried back into the kitchen with the dish, likely knowing it was unwise to spend another second defending her accusation.
Moments later a gentleman who appeared to be a cook came back out with the bowl. On it was a very tiny spread of very rigid and very marbled beef that clearly came straight from the fridge — to be fair, I guess refrigerated beef makes sense on cold noodles (shrug). I tried a piece and deemed it inedible. Even my brother wouldn’t eat it and I figure he’s probably the most likely person to eat something to avoid a confrontation… yours truly being the second most likely. (I have a picture but resisted posting in fear of causing too much damage.) Who knows, maybe the style beef was too «authentic» for our palettes — we are only half asian after all. But I’ve had similar beef in Chinatown and liked it.
Anyway, hopefully Auntie Guan’s gets it’s act together. The staff on the floor seemed very nice, but I’m not too confident the same can be said for the staff in the kitchen given the energy they projected. I worked in a restaurant through my high school and college years and know that personalities in the kitchen are absolutely critical to food quality and the performance out on the floor.
Either way, please don’t be fooled by the currently high rating. I have never ever walked out of a restaurant with so much food uneaten.

Every so often, there is a new restaurant that you like so much that you hesitate to write about it on Unilocal.Auntie Guan’s definitely one of these places.
The reason I’m writing this review is because the restaurant truest deserves to be successful so that there will be more authentic Chinese restaurants outside Chinatown. Pretty much everyone who comes here is Chinese.
When I saw the menu, I was excited to see the food from my childhood. The flavors come from spices, not prepackaged sauces.
If you come here, I would get any of these
Wonton soup
Dumplings
Beef noodle soup
Pork Chinese Cabbage cakes
Steamed soup dumplings
Scallion pancake with shredded meat
Griddle cooked potato chip
Braised pork belly w/​vermicelli
Sliced fish w/​hot chili oil (spicy)
Mapo tofu (spicy)
Chinese style braised meat balls
Sautéed string beans
Sautéed pea sprouts with garlic
Shredded potato salad w/​hot sauce

As a native of northeastern region of China, I can attest the authenticity of the food here. It’s no different from the majority of the restaurants there, though may be not on par with the finest northeastern food. All that being said, it’s still good enough to be recommended to other people in nyc. I took one star off because when they used my Unilocal to give me a 10% check-​in discount, they tried to write a five-​star review on my behalf… Not a big fan of this act.

Very authentic northeastern Chinese food. On top of that, this is a very sincere Chinese restaurant that uses very good ingredients. Dishes are super fresh, flavorful and not greasy at all.

I didn’t think Chinese food could be this good! We all love Chinese food but Auntie G’s really takes it to the next level of deliciousness.
They have the best General tsaos chicken I have ever had. It is sweet, spicy, tangy, sticky and the chicken is slightly crunchy and fried to perfection. Enough said? I think so. Check them out!

I tried the popcorn chicken and sadly it’s nothing like it was on the menu or on their monitors, no spices or sesame seeds and no written description so you can only go by the illustrations before you order. disappointing and misleading and not good. Poor service here. Water had trash in it with funny taste. Don’t water your time.

I liked it a lot despite some friends said its not as authentic as the original one in flushing, but again I’ve never been to the flushing one.
our waiter was really nice and funny.
not crowded~

The service was really good. Very attentive and friendly. They serve fast too. The food all have good presentations. But everything all seem plain. For the typical north eastern Chinese cuisine, you would expect something more spicy and flavorful.

Really authentic northern Chinese food. Close to subway station. Will come back again

Spicy Pot ($ 27.99?) delivery was a 3.7 star. It was definitely new flavors to me. It used not only Chinese five spices but more complex spices, Shi Sanxiang (十三香) — thirteen seasoning spices. It’s unique and definitely acquired taste. I tasted anise, glove, cardamom, nutmeg and cinnamon (?). I’m sure there’s more.
Honestly it was so new to my body that I didn’t care for it, at first. But more I dug in, I started enjoying this aquired taste. My Irish hubby has no problem with this flavors. He likes complex flavors of Indian slices. Few days later, he ordered the same soup/​stew again.
This hotpot stew is packed with cabbage, celephone noodles, lotus roots, ear Mushroom, tofu skin, thinly sliced potato and more in a very spicy broth but tolerable. You choose your choice of protein, beef (our pick), shrimp, chicken, or ham.
Thinly sliced beef, like Shabu Shabu meat, was small proportion but enough with the rest of many things in the soup. If you prefer to have it as ramen style, just over order would do. Sharing with a big group, four or five, would get a small bowl each. I personally like it this way so that I’ll have more space for tasty dumplings.
Pork (pan fried) dumplings (6/​$ 4.99). The skin was thick and chewy and packed with juicy meat inside. I don’t like sweet-​soy sauce that comes wth but it was nice with it. I usually prefer vinegar-​soy with ginger & scallion sauce, homemade.

Highly recommend the strawberry milk! Food are super good as well. For appetizers I really enjoyed the pork skin jelly.

Delicious northern Chinese food! We got the mapo tofu, sautéed beef and scallions, and sautéed string beans. The perfect amount of spice for a cold April evening.
Service was also 5stars — food came out quickly and waiters were very attentive.

With the mostly glowing (and potentially fake, ahem) reviews, the new branch of Auntie Guan’s piqued my interest with its promise of hand-​pulled noodles and in general, Northern Chinese food at a fairly good price. The Chinese options in the area ain’t great, so to be fair, I was a little desperate. My parents were visiting, so I decided to give it a shot for a Saturday lunch with them, and I figured they’d have a good gauge of what was good and what wasn’t.
We came in at around 11:45am, and they were still «setting up», despite listing their opening hour at 11am. Yikes. The place also happened to be completely empty, although, to be fair, it was a little early for lunch, and a few people began filtering in once 12:30pm rolled around. The place was actually pretty clean and well-​kept, just very bare, and austere. Again, I’ll chalk it up to being brand new, so hopefully it gets a little better in the coming months. They have a 10% off your bill special if you check in on Unilocal for dine-​in and takeout, so don’t forget to take advantage of that if you’re not ordering delivery.
We went with the braised beef noodle soup, seafood noodle soup, shredded pork in garlic sauce lunch special, and dried tofu noodles with pepper lunch special. One of my favorite meals in the world is a good bowl of braised beef noodle soup, and while the broth was a little watery, I was actually impressed with the flavor, the amount of beef, and the noodles. The fresh noodles had that really good chew, and were definitely flavored with a lot of white pepper, which I personally enjoyed a lot. My parents enjoyed the seafood noodles better, since the flavor was a little lighter, although the use of imitation crab was a little disheartening. Such is life. The lunch specials were pretty standard but flavorful and decently portioned. At $ 7.99, a pretty good deal. Per usual, you get your choice of soup or vegetable spring roll, and white or brown rice. The noodle soup bowls were about $ 9 – 10 for a fairly large portion, so definitely something I’d get in the future.
Service was okay, although largely purposely absent, which was fine, as long as they kept the teapot refilled, ha. Can’t say I’d necessarily recommend dining in, but the food was pretty solid for the price and location. Perhaps it’s a little better during dinner hours, but I’ll likely order takeout in the near future when I’m craving some good hand-​pulled noodles. In all, I’m really glad there’s a new option in the neighborhood and I’m excited to see what the rest of the menu is like.

Lunch special is a great deal. The food is fresh and prepared well. I ordered the sliced spicy pork lunch special. Not too saucy or sweet. Would come back again.

We came for the lunch special. A pretty good deal for $ 8.99. A small soup (the hot and sour was pretty good), rice and a spring roll come with. A large pot of good green tea was served gratis. I found my food to be a little bland but fresh and good. Good portion. I saw they had a large fish tank and I was delighted that they may have fresh seafood and lobster soon. I see they have authentic dishes like pork intestine, fried squid head and pork with sour cabbage and pork blood cake. These are things you don’t see often outside Chinatown or China itself.
I did not see duck on the menu but a picture of a crispy duck kept flashing on a flat screen TV across the room. Hope to see it on the menu soon.
They seem to have a little trouble with English as a second language, so be patient. They do not yet have a booze license. They make their own noodles and dumplings in-​house and give a 10% discount to YMCA members and employees.
This is a very new place, so be prepared for menu changes without notice, which happens with fledgling restaurants. I’m a big fan of Chinese food, so I intend to be back for dinner and take-​away. Please put duck on the menu.

Pretty solid northern Chinese food. Maybe not the real Northeast Chinese style, but having been in Beijing for more than 15 years, I’m happy to see there is some real JingJiang Rou Si (Sauteed Pork with Sweet Bean Sauce) comes to Chelsea area, although they should use more green onion. I like their SuanCai FenSi (Pickled vegetable with vermicelli) as well.
Lunch specials have huge portion. The Dan Dan noodle is interesting as it’s actually pretty good Liang Pi instead of the usual Dan Dan noodle. Will come again to check other dishes.
Service is good as well.