Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen

Award for longest name:
Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen
Award for longest name that I can’t remember:
Kung Fu… Little…Ramen…Buns???
Award for best scallion pancakes:
While many scallion pancakes can end up being too oily, these scallion pancakes are light. There’s also the added bonus of thin slices of beef stuffed generously inside.
Award for solid pork soup dumplings:
Six come per order, and the soup filling is nice. The dumpling skin is rather thin and fragile, so be careful! Having anything resembling soup dumplings in the midtown area is nice, and it makes it all the better when they’re actually pretty good.
Award for lazy review:
This one.
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Likelihood of another visit:
Likely.

Soup dumplings were awful; in fact the worst we ever had. I suspect the quality of pork filling was below par. We were only able to finish two out of six dumplings. We have also got a stir fried ramen with chicken. This dish was lacking in flavor. I don’t recommend this restaurant.

Hell’s Kitchen area can always surprise me with its great amount of nice little restaurants or food stalls. Even though many people come here to eat, the line at each restaurant is not long at all. So highly recommend you try around this area for different food options.
Back to this place — recommended by a friend. Came here on a weekday night for dinner. Got seated after a short wait, like 10 mins. The menu option was very limited — like less than 10 kinds of appetizers and all the food options on two sides of a page. We ordered little steamed buns of course. Literally, I can merely taste the difference between little steamed buns sold by different Chinese restaurants in the city. So the buns here taste good to me as well.
The ambience could be improved. The seat was limited to a very small space, which made me sit very uncomfortable. And all tables were side by side, which means almost no privacy between your table and others. This is a thing you need to take into consideration if you want to choose a place not only offers authentic Chinese street food, but also provides a good ambience for talking.

Great midtown spot for lunch or a casual meal! My friend and I split Peking duck buns which were real good although a bit greasy! We also split the shrimp ramen soup and duck ramen soup! I preferred the shrimp as the duck was a bit too fatty and bony but still flavorful!
Highlight of the meal was the veggie dumplings which were amazing. My friend got the pork dumplings which she enjoyed very much!

My coworkers and I were craving ramen so badly but we couldn’t figure out any place near enough that we could go that would be able to seat us and serve us within the 1 hr time limit we had. We thought and thought and finally remembered that we saw this dumpling house by Omar’s. So we journeyed over there (took about 10 mins) and got there at 12:10pm. We were worried we wouldn’t get a table but thankfully we did. We took 5 mins to figure out what to order. I got the House Special for $ 11.50 which came with noodles, a boiled egg, shrimp and veggies. We also ordered the beef scallion pancake and xiao long baos as appetizers.
Within 10 minutes, all of our orders arrived at our table! (There were 3 of us). We were all so impressed by how fast the service was! It was pretty impressive how efficient they are, given that the entire restaurant was packed.
The house special noodle portion size was huge. It came with several strips of beef, maybe 4 or 5 shrimp, lots of bok choi and an egg. The noodles were delicious. I wouldn’t consider them ramen though because to me, ramen is more wavy. The bok choi tasted a little undercooked though. I would have liked cooked softer, so that it’s easier to chew. Everything was very tasty.
I loved the scallion pancakes! You can’t really go wrong with ordering those. They cut it into 4 slices and thankfully my coworkers only wanted once slice so I got two all to myself! As for the xiao long baos, they were very good as well. But by the time we had finished our noodle soup and the scallion pancakes, we could barely stomach the xiao long baos. There was so much food but I’m not complaining (: We loved it. Great service, good food! We will be returning there whenever we’re craving noodles!

I have had decent food here but I just found out today that, from Monday to Friday before 3PM, they will add the tip charge on your bill without even indicating it on the bill, so we have been paying double amount the tip all this time… That’s just disgusting

came here with my shanghainese friend who said that this is the best spot in manhattan currently for soup dumplings. i trust her! we had lunch on a recent sunday and i thought the soup dumplings (both pork and pork with crab roe) here were really good — perfectly thing skin and the exploding soup had good flavor — not bland like all of the xlb’s in san francisco (BOO!!)
we also ordered — leek pancakes with egg (like empanadas), wonton soup, scallion pancakes with beef — everything was yummy but the leek empanadas were a bit too oily for me. complimentary tea was delicious. service was friendly, but not fast — it was a lazy sunday for them maybe. they do not take amex either. BUT i would come back just to eat ALL of the XLBs!

This place was GREAT!!!
The noodles and dumplings are handmade on site and are wonderful! Great tastes, great textures! In no particular order excellent dishes include soup dumplings, mabodofu, sticky rice dumplings, veggie and chicken dumplings. The staff was nice and very knowledgeable and there’s an interesting backstory to the owner. Some days you can watch the noodles being made. Other than these embellishments, it’s very clean and the décor is pretty standard Chinatown/​China functional.
I don’t understand why it isn’t rated higher, maybe because it is newish and people haven’t figured out how good it is yet. The food is magical and the price is right! What’s not to love!
Try it, you wont be disappointed!!!

Been here a few times. Not bad for a midtown spot.
Here is what you should get:
Shanghai pan fried pork buns — these are the best. Don’t get confuse these with the pan fried dumplings
Scallion pancake with slice beef — always good
Noodles — I’ve tried the noodle soup and stir fried noodle dishes — I would opt for stir fried
Feeling adventurous then try Sliced beef and tripe

Noodle was awful.
I ordered special ramen and it was completely different from the photo in menu.
But the soup was good.

To put this review into perspective, I ordered take-​out on a Saturday afternoon. Obviously take-​out is never as good as the in-​restaurant experience, but I expected better.
$ 8.95 for 6 Steamed Pork Soup Dumplings — It doesn’t taste homemade to me (maybe they made a batch and froze it overnight). The skin was too thick and the pork wasn’t packed properly. I expect a clear broth from my soup dumpling, but the broth was chunky.
Sweetened Hot Soy Milk — I love to dip my fried dough in this stuff, and it tasted pretty good. However, my stomach felt a little upset after drinking it.
Great menu, poor execution.

just note that this isn’t actual ramen. it’s lai mien for $ 10+ per bowl. it hits the spot. but it ain’t ramen :)

Met up with my favorite Asian girl Unilocaler (so basically, favorite Unilocaler) to catch up in life. The parameters were simple: good food, convenient location, and with no crowd attached.
I am happy to report that Kung Fu Little Steamed (breathe) Buns Ramen fit the bill! This midtown location is newer and a lot less crowdier than its sister over on the West side. The menu includes a variety of Chinese style ramen, some very simple Chinese home dishes (tomatoes and eggs? I could do that!), some dimsum, and steamed buns.
Crab meat little soup bun — The skin on these buns are thicker than what you would find in specialized soup dumpling shops like Joe’s Shanghai or Nan Xiang and they do cost the same premium manhattan price. They do beat out the average restaurant though with the extremely soupy insides that fills up the whole spoon. I would skip on the crab meat option, as there was only a slight hint of the crab.
Peking Duck buns — These are not peking duck served the classical way, but duck meat stuffed inside a huge soft and fluffy Chinese bao. The bao is lightly fried, giving it a golden bottom. The duck itself was dry and not memorable and will not satisfy real peking duck crave.
Mapo Tofu — Light on the meat and moderately spicy, there’s nothing special about the mapo tofu here. But I can’t name restaurants with mapo tofu thats vastly superior anyways, so this may be well within your expectations.
House Special Ramen — … I friggin forgot what was in it. But the noodles here was surprisingly really good! This is not a Japanese ramen shop so if you’re in it for the broth, this isn’t your place. So go for the stir fried instead of the soup ramens. The chinese style ramen focuses on the taste and texture of the noodles itself; and it’s really good. Probably the best dish out of everything.
They are also available on seamless for delivery. KFLSBR is a great Chinese addition to midtown East, which is plagued with either really expensive Chinese food in Mister K, or Chinese takeout tier. After tax and tips, we spent 30 bucks per person, which is definitely not the same value you would get in Chinatowns. But all things considered, I enjoyed the visit and would recommend.

Décor– clean
Service– prompt
Only had the soup dumplings and the sliced beef with tripe in chili sauce.
Soup dumplings were great and superb. Would definitely come back.

«The best thing about my meal was the diet coke»
I really wish that I had read the bad reviews before coming here but I was starving.
Upon entering the spot, I was quickly seated and I asked my waitress which was better –the fried ramen dishes or the ramen soups. She told me the fried ramen… bad choice because everyone else in the restaurant was eating the soups.
I ordered the beef ramen and the scallion pancake. The food came out really fast. Actually, a little too quickly for my liking but I was really hungry, so I did not mind.
The beef ramen tasted like extra greasy beef lo mein that I could order from a food court in any mall or from a take-​out Chinese/​American restaurant. There was nothing exciting about it. Whatever. I ate, drank my diet coke, paid, and left.
Leaving the restaurant, I immediately felt weird and vomited about 6 – 7 blocks away from the restaurant. Hopefully, it was not anything too serious.

There are three variations of authentic xiao long tang bao with plenty of soup wrapped inside. Plus, their chives pocket has egg in it and they serve ramen!
The service is fast, friendly, and helpful for 3 stars if you can flag them down, but the food is worth a visit without much of a line. I’d choose this over Joe’s Shanghai anyday!

Interesting place. I had dinner on a weeknight and it was about 25% filled with customers. There were a lot of pick-​up and delivery orders though. The food was ok. The steamed dumplings were too hot to eat so I waited 10 minutes for them to cool. The beef ramen was also ok.

Being Chinese American, I grew up going to a lot of hole in the wall Chinese restaurants. While the food was often amazing, I definitely enjoy the clean restaurant experience, clean dishes, space to move, polite and even possibly nice waiters/​waitresses.
Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen has an amazingly large space. It’s clean, with an open kitchen. There is space to sit and not feel crowded. It’s a normal restaurant experience, but with pretty good authentic Chinese Food. Is there better Chinese food out there, yes, but this is the best I’ve had in Manhattan outside of Chinatown.
Please note that RAMEN here is not like Japanese ramen. The noodles are freshly made, but dishes with ‘ramen’ are Chinese style — not typical ramen soups like some may assume.
The Food:
Cold Ramen with Sesame Sauce — No Meat — $ 8.75
Made with fresh noodles, perfectly chewy and delicious. The sauce in this dish is spectacular! Very simple dish, made very well with fresh ingredients. My husband and I both loved this dish!
Steamed Pork Buns — $ 7.95 (6 pieces)
[If you don’t know what Steamed Pork Buns are, they’re like steamed dumplings but with JUICE/​SAUCE inside. So when you eat it, be careful to 1. Not let all the juice fall out and 2. Don’t burn yourself}
Usually this dish comes with large pieces of cabbage on the bottom, most people don’t eat this piece of cabbage, but I do, so I was a little disappointed there wasn’t one here. Pretty excellent steamed pork buns for midtown. There are about half a dozen places in Chinatown that do it better, but since we live in midtown, this definitely satisfied my steamed pork bun craving and was delicious.
Steamed Pork Buns with Shrimp and Chinese Okra $ 9.95 (6 pieces)
I’ve found I don’t like the crab version of this, but decided to give the Shrimp version a chance. It isn’t better than the original pork version above, but it’s pretty good. I don’t think I would get it again, probably would just do two orders of the original steamed pork buns instead.
Scallion Pancake with Sliced Beef $ 6.00 (4 pieces)
My husband loves this dish, I personally thought it had too much sauce, I wish they put about half the amount of sauce and gave some on the side, so you could add as you like. But he was a big fan. The scallion pancake was done very well — crispy. The sliced beef was good too, not too fatty.
House Special Stir Fried Ramen with Shrimp $ 14.99
I felt like of all the dishes we ordered, this was the least ‘authentic’ and made for the typical midtown customer. It wasn’t bad, it just tasted like a better version of typical Chinese stir fried noodles. It was a better version, because the noodles are made fresh, however the shrimp was not fresh. I never crave Americanized dishes of Chinese food, which is why I would not order this dish again. But I would recommend it to others who like this kind of Chinese food.
Bubble Milk Tea $ 4.99
Was pretty good, I don’t like my drinks too sweet, so we got it with no added sugar (the bubbles are already soaked in a sugar syrup), so that already adds sweetness to it. Bubbles were pretty good and so was milk tea. Did a good job satisfying my craving for bubble tea :)
I will definitely be coming back here again, staff spoke enough English to make me feel comfortable. Service was good. Food was authentic and tasty. Would also recommend this place to others!

More of a 3.5.
Not much to speak of in terms of service and décor — it’s a good Chinese restaurant after all — and it doesn’t lose any points because of that.
The food is pretty good — especially the spicy beef tripe (excellent). The soup dumplings are decent (I prefer Joe’s Shanghai or The Bao), and the rest of the food wasn’t particularly memorable (either good or bad).
It looks like they serve Cantonese breakfast too — I’d give that a try.

Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen in Midtown East is comparable to the one in Hell’s Kitchen in terms of the menu (it’s identical, actually), quality, and taste. I ordered the Vegetable Hand-​Cut Noodles, Stir Fried Tomato & Egg, Shanghai Pan-​Fried Pork Buns, and Sticky Rice Shao Mai to-​go. It’s the best way to avoid the automatic 15% service charge that they add. The delivery is also prompt — in fact, it arrived 30 minutes earlier than expected.
The Vegetable Hand-​Cut Noodles was a good choice because the quality of the meat at Kung Fu is not the best. The noodles were piled with julienne cucumbers, cilantro, bok choy, and boiled egg. The thick, wide noodles were my favorite — so chewy!
The Stir Fried Tomato & Egg was good as well, but a bit too sweet. There were plenty of diced chunks of tomato and scrambled eggs. The base of the sauce had very strong ketchup flavor. They also don’t give you a side rice…
The Shanghai Pan-​Fried Pork Buns (6 per serving) were sort of dry. I would have liked the skin to be a bit fluffier. The bottom wasn’t as crispy as I would have liked. The Sticky Rice Shao Mai were big (4 pieces). The skin came off really easily.