Kosher Chinese in New Haven
The Jewish Ledger reports that Kosher Express, an OK-supervised Chinese restaurant, has opened in the Amity/Westville area of New Haven.
Sydney Perry, Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven executive director, added, “A vibrant Jewish community requires schools, a mikveh, synagogues and agencies which serve the elderly and the needy, a shochet and a mohel. And a kosher Chinese restaurant. With the advent of Kosher Express, which joins the kosher restaurants providing vegetarian delights, New Haven is clearly thriving. Every fortune cookie should say l’chaim.”
Kosher Express
132 Amity Road (Amity Plaza Shopping Center)
New Haven, CT
203-387-7889
Sun – Thurs: 11 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Friday: 11 a.m. – one hour before candlelighting
Sat. night: open one and a half hours after sunset.
I had take out from there last week, and I can tell you that their house special lo mein is spectacular, and that their steamed dumplings in garlic sauce is pretty good, but the sauce had a bit too much thickness for my liking.
Their chicken with mixed vegetables was fine, nothing special. And their soups were good.
I do have to say that I love the fact that when you walk in you see the pictures of the dishes and a list on the wall above the counters with the numbers of various meals. Its just like walking into a treif chinese place.
My wife pointed out that its just like the kosher place in Fair Lawn, NJ, and I found out that’s because it is owned by the son of the man who owns that place.
It’s great to have them in town, but our experiences have been uneven in food quality. The prices are amazingly low for kosher food, and I wonder if that isn’t affecting some areas of quality. As one local rabbi remarked to me: I can feed a qiddush full of people a buffet of kosher Chinese for $8 a head – that’s unnatural!
I get the impression they are using a small number of sauce mixes – a thick garlic sauce, a brown sauce, etc. – there isn’t much variation between dishes. The menu is aimed more toward uneducated kosher palates than toward anything remotely authentic; it’s good, basic fast food, but nothing more. I’d like to see some fresh Chinese greens on the menu, and some dishes with more interesting sauces like a fermented black bean sauce. I’ve had the real deal, darn it, and I want something closer to it in my backyard.
The owner is a very hard working man, as is his wife and the other members of the small staff. I wish them the best success, which I believe will come from raising the bar a bit on the quality and variety of the menu.
The closest you can get to authentic chinese is a kosher vegetarian place. Most Americans, Jew or non Jew alike, just don’t go for fermented black beans or star anise.
Fortunately for myself I get my full share of deep fried veal ribs, yard long beans stir fried with garlic, braised beef with turnips and super garlicy sesame chicken. That’s because I work as a mashgiach in a kosher chinese restaurant and get to eat the real chinese food the chefs make for themselves.
Unfortunately, arielb, I do go for fermented black beans, but I haven’t found a kosher source of either the beans or bean sauce. I tried dealing with KosherDepot.biz, but my order was twice delayed, and then they never responded to any of my e-mails.
Since you have the mashgiach thing going for you, any chance you want to resell a vat of fermented black beans?
well the closest we get to fermented bean paste is hoisin sauce from wan ja shan. WJS is real authentic chinese soy sauce so if you are using La Choy or “Mrs. Goldberger’s Soy Gevalt Sauce” or even Eden Tamari, you aren’t using the soy sauce that’s the right fit for chinese food. They also have double black soy sauce.
http://wanjashan.com
http://www.okkosher.com/kfgProducts.asp?ir=&V=WANJASHAN%20MANDARIN%20SAUCE,%20INC.
I haven’t tried http://www.coldmountainmiso.com
but they seem to have kosher fermented black bean paste. No idea how to get it yet but it’s the best lead so far.
There’s another supplier of kosher bean paste that’s under the star K but it only has contact information from China.
http://www.star-k.org/directory/comp-k.asp?src=&compid=EBMJBOKJOHBOH_______
It’s probably what is shown in Kosher Depot. keep trying…since you must really love the stuff if you want to keep 5 pounds of it in your kitchen :)
Arielb– Thanks for the leads! I’ll follow up and see what results. You mentioned ‘yard long beans’… sounds like the beans my wife and I had at Bruno in Tel Aviv. Occasionally I see them at my local Shaw’s Supermarket as “Chinese Long Beans.” Very good, a fun change from green beans.
they are my favorite. first they deep fry them and then they stir fry them with garlic. Actually most stir fry dishes are cooked twice like that which is why people go to restaurants! Plus, maintaining a carbon steel wok is a pain in the neck. However I would like to put the effort in recreating some of the authentic “normal sounding” dishes one day. I heard 2 good cookbooks are The Chinese Kitchen by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo and also the many books by Wei Chuan
Kosher Express has gone out of business