China Fun is a jack-of-all-trades neighborhood eatery with an impossibly long menu and a dizzying number of options. In restaurant terms, it’s been something of an Upper East Side institution since it’s opening by the Wu family in 1991. While the menu may boast a variety of pan-Chinese dishes as well as a full page of Japanese offerings, it’s no surprise that its strength is in Cantonese-style cuisine given that owner Dorothea Wu—grandniece of General Chiang Kai-Shek and a Taiwanese immigrant herself—has a personal affinity for soup dumplings.
Among the menu’s first impressions is a well-rounded list of a la carte dim sum. A good start would be crystal mini soup buns with pork ($7.75), which are meatier than your average xiao long bao. The scallion pancake ($5.95) and fried pork dumplings ($7.95) are comfortably familiar as is the steamed roast pork bun ($3.25), which, while sufficiently tasty, also serves as a cruel reminder of Upper East Side pricing. Whereas a Chinatown banquet hall might serve a trio of these fluffy dim sum favorites, here, for the same price, you’re presented with a single lonely bun.
Northern Chinese offerings, like cold sesame noodles with spicy Chinese parsley sauce ($7.25) and ma po bean curd with minced pork ($12.50), are muddled and disappointingly devoid of any fiery Szechuan flare. The little red chilies next to menu items seem marked as a spice warning for the play-it-safe consumers of sweet and sour chicken ($15.95) and not for those accustomed to the cuisine's natural heat. Crispy whole sea bass ($22.95) topped with scallions and ginger is sheathed in a thick crackly crust that contributes soul food texture, but sadly overpowers any hint of the fish’s true flavor. Meats listed under “Cantonese BBQ” are, however, all safe bets, including: roast duck ($16.95), crispy chicken ($13.95) and honey spare ribs ($13.95).
Not long ago there was also a branch of China Fun on the Upper West Side, but a kitchen fire combined with increased competition, shifting consumer preferences and other economic factors forced its closure in 2013. For the neighborhood’s benefit and to preserve a bit of history, let’s hope the Upper East Side original fares better in the days to come.
BY: TIME OUT COMMUNITY REVIEWER MICHAEL PEARSON