NORTHERN MANOR RESTAURANT- IF YOU ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO LIVE NEARBY………..

Good Neighborhood Eats

Like many great explorers before us, you always have to be quick on your feet. The Quest was supposed to bring us to Stony Brook, LI, but our intended restaurant was closed on Mondays. We had to switch gears. So, instead, we headed to Northern Manor Restaurant, located at 251-15 Northern Blvd., Little Neck.

Northern Manor is a Cantonese style restaurant. The place is clean, and the staff was very accommodating. It is a great restaurant if you are lucky enough to live nearby. It’s a perfect local place, although I am not sure I would drive too far to eat there.

Once again, the evening paired Chinese food with our own wines. ANOTHER GREAT REASON TO LOVE CHINESE FOOD (as if we needed another reason), is that so far we have never encountered any problems bringing our own wines to dinner; they never even charge a corking fee. Try doing that at Peter Lugers!!

The meal kicked off with 3 Appeys:

Spare Ribs- the meat fell off the bone, with a subtle, not heavy sauce. Ribs were fantastic!!

Crab Meat Fish Maw Soup- bland, gelatinous crap

Pan Fried Lamb Chops- seasoned with a “Lipton” onion mix,  peppers & scallions. Not too bad, a very different Chinese dish.

Main meal consisted of:

Soft Shell Crab- lightly breaded with garlic & scallion. My first soft shell crab of the season, and it tasted pretty darn good.

Crispy Chicken- a lot of garlic, the chicken was moist. We have had this dish in several other places, and almost always the chicken tends to be dry; not here.

Yang Chow Rice- pork and peas and shrimps, OH MY!!!!

Seafood with Bean Curd- very flavorful with shrimp, conk??, bean curd, and scallops ( loving the scallops, lately)

Jumbo Shrimp with Black Bean Sauce- onions, black beans, nice pieces of shrimp, really tasty.

Wines of the evening:

Relax- a refreshing Riesling that I could easily see drinking in my back yard with music, and a great book.

Blackstone- a Merlot that was flabby & muddy, not very good

Columbia Crest- a better bottle of Merlot that was smokey, with a slight burn going down, and a hint of vanilla.

Gewurztraminer- an Alsatian grape with a deep golden color, and a nectory taste.

Sean Minor- nice bottle of Pinot Noir

plus 2 heavyweights:

Vigna di Pettinco and Poizin -both full bodied, rich, and wonderful!

The meal was a good one, one that I would definitely recommend. If I lived within twenty minutes of this place, it would be MY local Chinese! As always, it was a great night with the Brutters from Utter Mutters. The addition of the wine tasting is a real plus.

Until the next time,

Mee Tsu Yan