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28th St-7th Ave (1)
34th St-8th Ave (A, C, E)
34th St-7th Ave (1, 2, 3)
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I've worked in the city for over 3 years and have never even heard of Home on 8th until a friend of mine told me I have to try it out. He works for the railroad and said that this has been a hot spot for lunch for alot of guys for years. I figured it had to be pretty good to get that kind of following.
So today he calls me up and asked if I want to meet up at Home on 8th for lunch. After the high remarks, being a big fan of Chinese food already, I figured what the heck, lets go.
So after some bad directions, even though it's literally right on 8th Ave., I meet up and find the place.
It looks like just another storefront on a pretty quiet area of Midtown, but once your inside you notice a few things different. The decor is very urban, artsy, and retro if that makes sense haha. I guess you can say it makes you feel kind of at home in a way. There are candles, artwork on the wall, and plants to make it a comfortable experience. The place is very clean, and they have a glass freezer in the back with Bruce Lee toys setup which is awesome! The staff was very friendly, the service was lightening quick, and the lunch specials were mostly $7-8. Maybe a $1 or $2 more than other Chinese places around for lunch, but so far, the place made up for it.
So after about two minutes, no exaggeration, the guy calls my name and my lunch was ready. I ordered General Tso's chicken w white rice. One of 3 staple orders of mine when it comes to Chinese food. I was impressed by the portion I received first of all, and on top of that, the chicken pieces were the size of golfballs. They gave you a very healthy amount for your money, and the chicken was top quality. It was not questionable at all whether it was chicken or not. I must of devoured it in about 15 minutes.
I would highly recommend Home on 8th to anyone in the area. My friend and the rest of the train crew did not let me down. It is a bit of a hike for me, but I can see myself taking the walk maybe once a month to come back and try another of my staple dishes.
Check out my pics of the meal, the seating, and the exterior. I hope whoever reads this will appreciate it.
Eat up!
RM
The area around MSG/Penn is kind of a dead zone for food - there's Brother Jimmy's and the Soup Spot and that's kind of it. Or so I thought until a vegetarian friend hipped me to Home on 8th. This place makes me wish I forgot my sack lunch more often. It's also the perfect place to meet people for lunch or a quick after-work dinner. If I were still on the market I would totally have all my first dates here.
I'm a meatatarian but I've ordered mostly veggie and vegan dishes here and don't miss the meat at all. The peking bun appetizer is my absolute favorite - a little crunchy peppered fake-chicken patty and vegetables stuffed into tiny steamed bread. Food labeled spicy generally IS spicy. I cannot stress what a big deal this is to me - there's nothing I hate more than ordering something with a chili pepper next to it and getting something I could feed my grandparents. But it's never been a problem at Home. Every spicy dish I've ordered has opened my pores without making my mouth so numb I can't taste the other flavors.
I've eaten in and had delivery and both are perfectly friendly and competent. Delivery is generally super-fast.
Tasty entrees, $7.50 lunch special that gets you a TON of food-- plenty of leftovers for tomorrow's lunch!I am not a fan of the pork fried rice that comes with everything, but a little soy sauce goes a long way.
The service is friendly and fast! I also like the quirky decor.
This is it. the place is NOT cheap, and the food is decent. Too much oil.
I lived right around the corner and frequented this place for their plentiful vegetarian menu. My first time I was pretty impressed. Every time there after was a slight disappointment. The food is decent and affordable. Best bet are the appetizers - all the entrees were pretty watered down (if I'm making a strict Asian food review).
HOWEVER I abruptly stopped going when I heard about their labor law violations. There's been small protests in front of the restaurant and flyers being passed all the time. Apparently workers are being paid WAY BELOW the minimum wage (like $2)..and there's something shady about the splitting of gratuity.
I've noticed a drastic decrease in patrons after this came to light.
I guess inexpensive food and a plentiful menu aren't enough for our guilty consciences!
I am a vegetarian, there was nothing around for me to get my lunch until I heard of home on 8th. I gave it a try and loved it. I would not eat it everyday, considering the fat content and etc but it is a great option on the days I want to indulge myself. I have been getting tangy sweet & sour wheatprotein meat. I have to say, I really like their wheat meat(could that be sietan?). It is a little too sweet but delicious nonetheless. I will be trying more options soon.
This is a great addition to the vegetarian/vegan friendly restaurants in NYC. They seem to include veggies with almost every mock meat dish, and everything I've tried there is tasty. Interestingly, everything seems much nicer in the restaurant. You can order take-out (and it's never as nice, of course), but it's definitely a step above in the restaurant. The atmosphere is pleasant. The prices are a little high for what they're serving, but not that bad.
Re. the dishes, everything is labeled clearly as to whether it's vegan/vegetarian. In fact, I would come back here again just because the menu is so clearly marked. They also have a non-vegetarian menu.
All in all, not the fanciest cuisine, but it seems clean and fresh, the atmosphere's nice, servers are friendly, and if you're looking for vegan/vegetarian Chinese, you can't go wrong.
I like that this place has all sorts of mock meats and stuff for vegetarians. Lots of choices! The prices aren't the best but the quality is pretty solid and the takeout comes in very helpful separate containers for reheating. I thought it was funny that they refused to do a ingredient replacement for me recently . . . kind of rude but I understand they must take their dishes seriously, which is nice.
In the shadow of Penn Station, on the 8th avenue side, an area of New York City that has yet to be turned into an amusement park by the forces of 'yuppification' sits Home on 8th. This Asian eatery offers a menu with more range than your typical Chinese food place. You see classic Cantonese favorites alongside Thai specialties.
The vegetable dumplings are delightful. Delicately wrapped, light and airy - they are served with a rich peanut sauce. My ginger and tofu soup was very aromatic, the fresh shredded ginger gave it a powerful taste, I would not recommend it for someone who does not like ginger. I found it tasty, strong, and imagine it to me a great remedy for a cold or stuffy sinuses.
The emperors rice (purple, short grain rice) is famous for its nutritional value. It is tougher than white rice, grainier, high in antioxidants, and pleasing to the eye. The broccoli in garlic sauce is delicious, perfectly sauteed 'al dente', the broccoli is not slaughtered in heat, the garlic sauce isn't prepared into the usual overly thick, Nickelodeon gak - leading me to believe it is low in starch. I ordered my brocolli 'extra spicy' - because it is clear that unless specified ethnic restaurants try to protect the seemingly cowardly taste buds of most people. So if you like your food to have kick, anywhere in New York, just specify.
The portions are large. Prices fair. They play good smoother hip hop, r&b music. The decor on the brick walls includes framed street art, as well as more traditional Asian looks. Good service. If you find yourself starving in Penn Station and prefer not to venture into the tourists traps, or don't have time for Korea town - Home on 8th is a nice location.
For the past week or so, former workers have been standing outside with flyers. Apparently the owners of Home on 8th violated labor laws, paid way below minimum wage, and fired one of the ones who stood up. As much as it sucks to not be able to get my vegetarian house special lo mein, I can't go into a place where they treat their employees like that. If they get this matter cleared up, perhaps I will start going again.
I absolutely love this place. Not only do they have a separate vegetarian menu, but the vegetarian… Read more »
First of all, Asian restaurant and amazing service almost never belong in the same sentence. However, Home on 8th treats service like those Asian parents who would ground and beat you for getting a 95% on your math test. It had to be perfect, and perfect it was. I accidentally dropped a fork and instantly saw the waiter perform a sharp pivot to come and replace it. The entrees were served after the appetizers were finished and the check wasn't at the table until the table was cleared, leftovers were packed and until we asked for it 15 mins later. No herding you out here.
It was Chinese New Years and I accomplished quite a few things with this meal. I finally found another good Chinese restaurant in the city. I finally found good food of any kind near Penn Station. Most amazingly, I finally had an ALL vegetarian meal! (if you don't count the protein shake I had right before. It wasn't dinner...)
Onto the food, the Vegetarian Peking Buns (soymeat, scallion, hoisin sauce) had just the right amount of everything. The bread was fluffy, the soymeat lightly pan fried. Great texture, great flavors. The Cold Buckwheat Noodle with Peanut-Vinegar Sauce was very refreshing. However, I like my noodles al dente and these were too limp for me. The dish could have used some cucumber slices to cut the peanut-vinegar sauce as well.
The String Beans, Eggplant & Bean Curd Sauteed in Spicy Garlic Sauce had bold strong flavors. The string beans were cooked perfectly, crisp and sweet. The Glass Noodle Curry with fried tofu, kabocha, and veggies could have been a bit spicier and the curry slightly thicker and stronger flavored but that's really me just being picky.
I may just have to go back tomorrow to try the meat dishes. Thinking about the halibut sautéed in white garlic sauce and black pepper beef are making me hungry...already. It's a home run on 8th.
Good Vegetarian Chinese option near Penn Station. I ate there twice on a recent trip and both were good meals. The stir fry can be a touch oily but they are accomodating if you ask for a lighter touch. Bok Choy with szechuan seitan was best.
I ate at Home on 8th for lunch for the first time today. Lunch special was $6.95 - for a smaller version of their typical entree + rice (brown +50 cents) + soup or soda. Perfect lunch size and cheap as fast food for high-quality chinese.
i love to order in from home on 8th. great vegetarian food - real vegetables, hearty brown rice,… Read more »
General Tso would be proud. Here's why:
1) The phone people speak damn-near perfect english
2) There is no delivery minimum
3) It's cheap
4) They deliver fast
This place is pretty much a slam dunk in terms of quality as well. Everything I've had here has been some of the best Americanized chinese food I've ever tasted.
the spicy basil chicken is GREAT. forever grateful of the 2-block walk in the middle of the shady penn station area. no longer will i have to cringe past the chinatown express, seedy diners, tgi's, sbarro's and random cr*p that will burn a hole through your heart. cannot wait to try the thousand things on the menu. :)
Fucking delicious.
The ONLY reason that Home doesn't get five stars is that I'm saving the fifth for when they start delivery... a girl can dream. (they deliver now!! yay! 5th star complete.)
We walk there from the office. A bunch of girls in our business casual best walk down the blech that is 8th Ave south of Penn station, a full two blocks and an avenue farther than the standard radius within which we venture from work. Impressive.
Right up front I've gotta say the texture of the vegetarian options is awesome. Spot on, crispy when it should be, tender when it should be and always bettered by various delicious sauces and veggies and great brown rice (or white).
The orange beef skewers are my favorite (for $2.75!!).
Their salad is unexpected and refreshing.
All the fake chicken things are really good too - in large part because of the spicy peanut sauce that comes with.
Hot and Sour soup without meaty broth?!! Yay!
An extensive menu with tons of options and quality ingredients. Fresh snap peas, carrots, broccoli, etc accompany most entrees.
It's bumpin' at lunchtime, and decorated cleanly and nicely. I'd totally go back for dinner if I was ever in this area at night. Crappy Chinese food is SO passe.
I am meat eater but this vegan place motivated me to begin eating my veggies. The place showed me that meat isn't a necessity to a meal.
The steamed vegetarian dumplings were great and Kabacha With Peanut Vinegar Sauce was scrumptious. Service was quick.
While I'd love to play the highfalutin adjective game in this review I don't need to. Home on 8th is really solid. Amazing service. Interesting, fun, tasty food. Nice environment. The price was right too.
_C$
I don't get it. Honestly, nothing special here. The lunch specials are fairly priced, but you could do better. The quality was decent but the food was no where near memorable. I ordered the garlic chicken. It was listed as spicy, but wasn't, and did not taste very much like garlic. The fried rice had an off taste to it and the egg drop soup lacked flavor. At least the delivery process was easy. I feel bad if this is what vegans and vegetarians think is terrific. I want to give it another chance, maybe another dish would be better?
We'd give it a 3... if 3 meant acceptable, but not spectacular.
The mango chicken was way too sweet. The food just wasn't anything great.
Basically, I wouldn't go out of my way to eat there again.
In a seedy neighborhood sits a little restaurant called Home on 8th. From the outside, it doesn't look like much, but on the inside, the environment is welcoming and the servers are really friendly. Their dual menu is a plus (vegetarian - with some vegan options! - and non-veg). I was pleasantly surprised by my meal. I got the Peanut Butter String Bean Tofu Chili dish. I LOVED it. It was perfectly spiced and the string beans were cooked to perfection. Can't wait to come back and try more!
I went here with a large group of friends, and had a great time. It helped that they were Asian, and knew some good things for the "not as well versed" to try. I now know I can live without ever eating pickled lotus again.
One thing that's great about "Home" is that they serve a good amount of vegetarian dishes (with or without fake meat) that are filling and delicious! The vibe is chill, and the more veggie-friendly places I can go with my veggie-wife the better!
Definitely 4-stars given the neighborhood. Good quality Americanized Chinese food, with big servings for the price for delivery around the Penn Station area. Also, a nice enough atmosphere that you can go there with a friend after work. I'm not a vegetarian, but sometimes I like going for the veggie options on a menu. This place has dual vegetarian and non-vegetarian menus, and both have good food. Thumbs up!
This place isn't bad. I like the atmosphere, and it has some interesting art on the walls. As far as the food is concerned, I've had more misses than hits. Maybe it's bad luck, who knows. The dumplings are pretty good, as is the ginger soup and the beansprout salad. However, what I've found is that I start out enjoying the food but I soon get tired of it. Nothing really was worth eating more than once.
For those who loves Chinese food but can't because your vegan, now you can. They serve regular traditional Chinese & Vegan Chinese dishes. Awesome!
For those who never try any vegan dish's, you would love it once you try it.
Speak to my good friend Henry there, have him explain to you how he prepares these wonderful dishes.
It was with some trepidation that I went to lunch here today. The interior looks way too nice for the food to be any good. The inside is clean, the decor is modern, and they have light music playing in the background. Worse yet, there was not a trace of Chinese to be found on the menu!
Much to my delighted surprise, however, the food is actually pretty good. I ordered a crispy Cantonese-style pan fried noodles with beef for 8.95 that was big enough to serve as a light meal for two. The noodles came out super-hot, and crispy but not the slightest bit oily. I thought they were pretty darn good pan fried noodles. The only thing I didn't like was that they came with a real assortment of vegetables, which isn't really a downside at all - I'm just a traditionalist, I guess, and prefer the Chinese cai xin vegetable over all the extra baby corn and cauliflower and the like.
the reviews of this place are great so i'm sure the food is fine... i just moved in around the block and every day people are picketing this business. per the fliers that are being circulated, apparently there are huge labor violations going on, including workers being paid less than $2/hour...
I happened to stumble upon Home one evening after work and decided to give them a try. I am being generous with my stars because there were several things I liked about Home on 8th. Unfortunately, the food was not one of the things I liked.
I love the fact that the staff was extremely courteous and attentive. I liked the decor...simply yet functional. It had a relaxing feel and the music was great (must find out where they cop it!) I also like the fact that they have separate vegetarian and meat menus.
Now for the critical part. I ordered spring rolls, Hawaiian fried rice and an iced ginger tea with honey.
The spring rolls were generous though small. Four spring rolls were presented with a duck sauce on the side. It was bland.
The ginger tea was surprisingly also disappointing as there was more ginger and no traces of honey.
Finally, the fried rice came out and I was also sadly disappointed. It wasn't bad but it wasn't what I expected to pay close $8 for. The portion was generous but the taste, again very bland. I poured soy sauce over it to give it some flavor and I am not a huge fan of soy sauce. The bottom line is I could made a similar batch of fried rice at home with some leftover rice, eggs, shredded chicken and a few pineapple cubes. No seasoning...nothing!
It could be just what I ordered. The food coming to the tables surrounding me smelled heavenly and people seemed to be enjoying their meals. I would give them another shot and maybe be a bit more adventurous next time by delving into the veggie/soy alternatives they offer.
During the UCB Del Close marathon my buddy Robert found this gem and convinced me to check it out. Not only was the place nice abd clean, but the food was tasty. I best remember this place during ny visit next year.
If you're vegetarian like me and are used to picking over menus trying to find the dishes without meat in them, you will be at a loss about what to order at Home on 8th because there are so many vegetarian options! The best part is that, being Buddhist, they have a separate kitchen for the vegetarian orders so that nothing is cooked in the same dishes as the meat products.
I've never eaten at the restaurant but get take-out semi frequently. All of the vegetarian dishes I've tried have been delicious and quite large portions. The food is ready in about 5 minutes, too. The citrus "beef " is one of my favorites. Another nice thing about this restaurant is that many of their dishes are steamed and most of them aren't completely soaked in sauce, so they taste fresh and healthy (unlike most Chinese take-out). There are tons of veggies with every dish and they're always delicious!
Veggie chicken is really good, but the sauces are just okay. Why the heck are the vegetarian "meats" so much more than the regular food? Veggie food should be cheaper than meat, not more expensive.
I don't understand all the hype about this place! Hoping to eat some yummy vegetarian eats, we ordered from this place a couple of nights ago.
The vegetarian BBQ Pork Belly seemed to have rave reviews so we thought we'd give that a try, along with Cold Noodles, Ginger & Tofu Soup, and Vegetarian Basil Stir Fry.
I guess my main complaint about this place isn't that the food was bad. It was alright. The veggie BBQ Pork Belly was not as crispy as I hoped it would be, the Basil Stir Fry was just kind of boring (if I order again I would order it spicy) and the Ginger & Tofu soup had a nice spice to it and I quite enjoyed it reheated for dinner the next day.
I just didn't feel like we got enough food with what we paid for. Everything above, plus a Thai iced tea, was about $32 without tip. I wouldn't say this is totally out of the ordinary for a two person delivery meal in NYC. But usually I feel like I've gotten my money's worth. The little plastic food containers seemed half empty before we even opened them, instead of packed to the brim with Chinese goodness.
So overall, the food wasn't too bad, but the portions were just plain skimpy.
Not awful, but definitely not worth what I paid for it.
Price is decent and I like that they have a vegetarian menu so my friend doesn't feel left out. The general tsao chicken was a little too salty the last time I had it but I would still recommend the place. It's has a nice atmosphere and it's especially good for dinner. Yay! Lunch special with complimentary soup or soft drink. Good portions too.
Heard about this place from my sister and her friends and I'm glad they shared the info. The food here is great; I'm a meat eater but the vegetarian dishes sounded really interesting so I had to try a few..had the "chicken" drumsticks which were crispy and tasted awesome. Their General Tso, anything with broccoli, and the pan fried noodles are hightly recommended. My friends were crazy for the basil stir fry chicken and brown rice on the side. "Home" serves up a great variety of yummy dishes for the carnivore or herbivore in all of us and a decent price (pricier than most Chinese take-out but then again, they are better than most..wait pretty much all Chinese take-outs I've had so far). I don't even feel right labeling Home On 8th "take-out" because it's nice and clean, doesn't have a hint of grease at all, and the staff is extremely courteous yet laid back and chill. None of that hustling you out of the door or screaming into the kitchen business. It's rare to find such good cooking in the tourist trap that is the Herald Square/Penn Station area but STOP BY HOME ON 8TH! You won't regret it.
As most New Yorkers, I have had my share of Chinese food menus shoved under my door. I have tried many and most were good but they were all the same, as if ordering from the same place every time. BUT! For me, this place really stood out. Extremely tasty, nice portions and you can see they use high quality ingredients. Slightly on the pricier side compared to other places, but like I said, high quality ingredients. So for that, I give them 5!
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