Amazing 66

For her birthday, Ms. Poutine Esq wanted a Chinese dinner, old school style. So large round table and family style dishes. Easy, right? Wrong! It would be in Manhattan Chinatown. Shucks! I haven't had a proper dinner in Chinatown in so long. This would be an issue. Besides, I think the better Chinese food can be found in Brooklyn and Queens. So after some digging and scouring of blogs, I settled on Amazing 66.

Located right on Mott Street, it was right near my favorite Chinatown joint, Big Wong. Things were looking up already! When we arrived, the table was ready and we looked over the menu. My friend didn't know what to order and they didn't speak (or refused to speak) Chinese. So I went and ordered the menu for the entire table. I asked the birthday girl what she wanted and threw in a few of my favorites as well.


First up, chicken. Can't have a birthday without chicken, as my mother would say year after year. I chose a half of the fried garlic crispy skin chicken ($12). This was just okay. The meat was a little dry and there should be loads of garlic on top. The whole top should be covered. They were stingy here. The skin was crispy though and flavor-wise, it was okay. Not a total write off but not a must order either.

The sizzling fillet steak with black pepper sauce ($16) didn't come sizzling. The platter was just for show. WTH?! I was really disappointed with that. That also led to some chewy beef because the meat didn't cook properly. Some pieces were inedible due to the lack of searing and high heat. The fat and connective tissue just didn't cook down.

The fried shrimp with candied walnuts (~$18) were also a disappointment. First, the shrimp was heavily battered. I have never seen that. So the actual natural sweet flavor of the shrimp was masked. The sauce was too orange and sweet to seem like kewpie mayo with condensed milk I'm used to. And lastly, the walnuts weren't candied. They were just regular walnuts.

To represent long life, we ordered chicken lo mein ($9). The long strands of noodles is suppose to represent your long life. As you can see, these noodles were cut. A HUGE no no in Chinese superstition. Sigh...oh well. At least it tasted fine.

For our vegetable dish, we had stir fried snow pea shoots with minced garlic (~$9). This was quite good. Not too greasy and tender. A light flavor of garlic enveloped the greens. I would order this again.

And the final dish of steamed flounder ($22). The fish was huge! They definitely have us the largest one in the tank. Due to its size, it was overcooked. The meat was tough at certain parts. If they had cooked a fish that was the proper size for our party, then it would have been good. The flavors were otherwise clean and fresh.

In regular fashion, they ended the meal with sliced oranges and strangely fortune cookies. Colored nonetheless.

Overall, I was disappointed with the food at Amazing 66. It seemed like they were more concerned with the tourists and Western patrons that do not know the difference between okay Chinese food and great Chinese food. With the prices and quality of food, I won't return.

If anyone has an awesome dinner place in Manhattan Chinatown, please let me know! Otherwise, it's back to the outer boroughs for me!

Amazing 66
66 Mott Street
New York, New York 10013
(212) 334-0099