Expectations will kill you every time

Today Meredith and I went to lunch at the Chinatown Brasserie. We'd been meaning to go for a while and today seemed just as good a day as any other to try it out. It's been around for a few years, but the last time I'd been there, it was the Time Cafe and Karen Finley performed downstairs and took off all her clothes and said dirty things, because that's what she does. It's different now.

The decor is nice, very red and open. We opened our menus and saw that there was a lunch pre-fix for $12. Good deal, we thought and ordered off that menu. We were supposed to get four dumplings each, but our waitress was new and brought us eight each by mistake. We ordered Crabmeat and Shrimp, Pork and Shrimp, Veggie Spring Roll, Shrimp and Mango Roll and Bok Choy and Shiitake.


The Boy Choy and Shiitake was my favorite. I wasn't crazy about the ones with shrimp. I couldn't taste any pork in any of them (neither could Meredith), so the waitress may have brought us the wrong kind. But irregardless, the pieces of shrimp were too large. The spring roll was fine, but it's hard to go wrong with fried things without meat. Here are the sauces they came with - Spicy Mustard, Chili Soy Sauce and Sweet and Sour Sauce. I liked them all.


Meredith ordered the Three Chili Chicken with peanuts. It was alright. I thought it could have used more heat. For something called Three Chili Chicken, it wasn't as spicy as I was expecting.


I got the Sliced Beef and Ramps with black pepper sauce. It was okay. The ramps were good (and seasonal) but the beef wasn't especially well cooked. It was a little mushy and not that hot (I mean warm, not spicy).


We skipped dessert (they looked good though) and I started to feel sick as soon as I got on the subway. Meredith will tell you that it could have been the caffeine or the bubbles from the soda and that she felt fine after eating there. But I felt gross for several hours. It could have been any number of things. At any rate, we had high expectations that just weren't matched.

All photos in this post are by Meredith. I forgot my camera at home, so Meredith stepped up. She rocks.