Cold Sprite noodles with chili oil at the new Mission Chinese pop-up store. Photo: Grub Street
Does time heal? Last we heard, all was not well at Danny Bowen’s Mission Chinese. The East Broadway and Bushwick locations closed in 2020 and 2022, respectively, under the shadow of reports that it was a “nightmare” to work at. (The San Francisco location is still open, but Bowen is not involved.) Bowen seems to be moving on, having recently appeared in a taping of Chopped and a campaign for Supreme.
Long before I donned the plastic bib of a restaurant critic, I’d been eating at Mission’s old New York locations (there was also one in San Francisco). At first I was delighted, then I grew weary. By the time of Bushwick, the Mission was more like a rave than a restaurant, with swinging neon lights and karaoke blaring at ear-splitting volumes. Maybe I was too old, or maybe the Mission hadn’t grown up. Either way, those visits dwindled.
Now, this summer, the Mission is back. Quietly (sort of), and temporarily (maybe). From Wednesday through Sunday evenings through July 31, the Mission will be at Cha Kee on Mott Street, cooking up mostly classic dishes. Bowen returned to the kitchen each night with chef Patty Lee and Cha Kee’s staff, who got a crash course in the ethos and cuisine of the Mission. Cha Kee will run its own breakfast and lunch service, then transform into the Mission in the evenings. A sign with a photo takeout menu of Bowen’s favorite Chinese dishes will glow from the back wall, but otherwise the restaurant’s appearance will be much the same as usual.
Returning to Mission Quay (if I may call it that) I realized I missed it, and that we seemed to see each other better during our time apart. On a recent Friday night, the room was packed and lively: a birthday dinner, a pair of men with grizzled beards like Bear, hot girls; gregarious twerking, but more calm and focused; the drinks list that had kept the party going had been reduced to a few cocktails and Tsingtao tea, for the most part. The Mission’s signature dishes, the Chongqing wings and the Kumbao pastrami, are back. It’s as if the authors of the “Why Did I Leave New York?” essays, chastened by Bushwick, are back on a journey of repentance. And like those authors, it’s good to see them again. These are great ideas, great food, and powerful things that have burst onto the scene and burned hot and fast. A friend of mine who lives in Chinatown and is a frequent visitor to the East Broadway location – over 6 feet tall, born in Alaska, and a former forest firefighter – remembers one time when the wings were so spicy that he got a nosebleed.
There are some fun new additions here. I thought Jackie’s Sprite Noodles were quintessentially Mission-esque: bold and irresistibly bad for you. Jackie, one of the Mission’s hosts, is a big fan of Haidilao in Flushing (a China-based chain and home of Dancing Noodles), which makes its cold noodles with Korean cider. Here, Sprite is added to the “fizzy dressing,” giving the noodles a little tanginess that’s smeared with cold chili oil. I found it too sweet, but who’s to blame but to try Sprite Noodles? While you’re there, try the new Crispy Beef “Louie,” braised for four hours and finished with umami-packed sweet soy caramel and Sicilian orange oil, or the revived Cumin Lamb Ribs, punched with dates. I was worried because one of us was vegetarian, but she agreed to the menu (is this a common occurrence?). The “addictive cabbage salad” was indeed addictive no matter what was in the “secret seaweed dressing” and the shiso fried rice, buried under a mountain of shredded shiso, was basically hearty with just enough herbaceous flavour.
Will Mission return on a more permanent basis? For now, that’s unclear. Cha Kee’s owners have invited Bowen to give it another go. “When we closed the last Mission Chinese Food location, I knew I’d never come back,” he told me in an email. “I’m happy to be back and I’m not ruling anything out at this point. I’m so honored to be cooking in this city again and will never take it for granted.”
For now, I’m happy to have him in town. A little older, a little (hopefully) wiser, a little calmer, sure. But he’s not invincible. I bring the forest firefighter back, and he digs into a dish of triple-fried bacon and mochi with poppy seeds, peppercorns, and soy milk skin. His eyes are popping out of his head. “My nose is going to bleed,” he says.
Eat like an expert.
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