Blue Willow 夜来湘

I have to say, this place truly exceeded my expectations. My friend and I had just finished visiting Central Park and were looking for a casual lunch spot when we walked in. The atmosphere immediately caught our attention — it felt like stepping into a high end restaurant in 1920s Shanghai: elegant and classic. We ordered two lunch specials (the portions were quite generous) and a house special eggplant and pepper dish. Everything tasted very authentic and was super 下饭 (the kind of dishes that make you want to eat more rice). The young lady who served us was also very helpful and attentive. We loved the entire experience and will definitely come back to try their xiaolongbao and spicy fried shrimp — the table next to us ordered those and said they were delicious.

Great vibe, awesome food. If you're looking for some authentic family-style Chinese cuisine, this place is it. They serve Hunnan provincial food (which is often spicier than Szechuan food). Standout dish was the Spicy Sauteed Intestines (sounds gross but it's one of those things where you have to try it to understand). Love the included lotus root. Took awhile to be seated but they do have some bar seating downstairs too. Will definitely be back! 🌶️ ❤️

Excellent food. The mapo tofu with rice was amazing (better like spicy though). The hunan stir fry noodles might be the best noodles my wife and I have had (we’ve had a lot of noodles 😅) Very nice atmosphere, very fast cook times. Can’t recommend enough.

Great place to eat dinner with friends. Ambience and lighting were on point! I would definitely come back to get the Sesame Butter icecream again. I am definitely going to be trying out their sister restaurants too.

Everything was mid except the garlic eggplant and ginger scallion fish. I liked the actual vibes of the place tho. The audience wasn’t very Asian. Prob won’t come back - Yellow beef: 5/10, lacked flavor despite appearance. Not spicy at all even though it had three spicy pepper symbols on the menu. Disappointing - Ginger scallion poached fish fillet: 9/10, I liked this a lot. Good flavor, no bones, tender - Chengdu dan dan noodles: 6/10, dry, and flavor was okay - Garlic sauce eggplant: 11/10, loved this!! Great flavor - Sesame butter ice cream sundae: 3/10, so disappointing. Just vanilla ice cream with sesame seeds on top 😐 - Pumpkin mochi cakes: 2/10, got catfished. Thought this was the flat pan fried pumpkin cakes based on the menu picture and description. Flavor was bland, and it was more like a steamed tangyuan