218 Restaurant

First time returning after the pandemic, we ordered the usual dishes. All dishes ordered were still very good; the roast duck with thin crispy skin, very little fat is the best in Chinatown. The veggie and steamed fish were fresh and cooked just right. The waiter was friendly. We'll definitely return.

Bare bones, reasonably priced place in a sea of overpriced tourist traps. Really nice congee, Chinese tea, & roast chicken & duck. If you want a vegetable, tho, get ready to pay through the nose. Very friendly staff, too. Old school style.

Stopped in to pick up a few Chinese BBQ items. We got some cha siu, siew yook, and roast duck. I didn't love the duck because some of the pieces were a bit dry but the other two were good. The cha siu was a bit on the fattier side, which is good or bad depending on your taste. I personally like mine with a little fat, otherwise the meat is tough. The siew yook was probably the best out of the three. We ate it an hour later and the skin was still crispy. We had leftovers and even then, the skin was still crispy - straight out of the fridge.

Next time, I'll try their stir fry dishes - or even some of the prepared dishes in the window look pretty good. My only complaint would be that the place smelled a little funky, but what place in Chinatown doesn't? It's a part of the charm.

Another birthday celebration continues. I wanted to go to Uncle lou but it just so called HAPPENED to be closed on Tuesday. Specialty I called in the morning to see if they were open and a lady pick up saying yes until 10pm tonight. But when we got there it was CLOSED WTF.........

So plan B to find another restaurant. Green Garden Village located at 216 Grand st. It was packed during dinner rush. One of the whiteness asked the customers nicely if they could change into a smaller table since they have a party of 2 when they were using a table for 4. They said NO this is why I didn't even want to share a table. Wtf.... we waited for 20 mins or so and just left to find another restaurant......

Plan C (which we don't have and wait to annoyed and tried..so I randomly picked a place) 218 restaurant located at 218 Grand St. This place used to be good. I don't know what happened. The food quality was extremely poor, but at that point we were just exhausted.

So for my bday dinner i ordered
- Bitter Melon with beef [bc one of my friends wanted to try it]
- Clams with black Bean Sauce
- half of duck [just dry]
- Buddha delight [we need veggies ]

But overall dinner was ok, I wasn't thrilled with the food unfortunately, but the company is always GREAT!!!

I decided to not go to this 218 to buy take out anymore. Food is good. But woman worker who is working for casher is terrible attitude.
One time ,I said to her I don't need plastic folks after she put folks in to bag ,she yelled "you have to say before I put in" in very rude way.
And another time,I order 5 dishes as take out. And I asked her to put everything in my eco bag in polite way. And her response is "you put into bag by yourself" No customer was there beside me,why her attitude is always not nice like she is angry at me.

Got a roast duck with roasted pork rice. Good crunch on the roasted pork skin, roast duck is deliciously oily but the cut given to me was a bit too much bone than meat. The soup seems to come with the price and I think it is pretty decent (and such a big portion that you can just use it as a drink throughout the meal). Decent choice and can come back.

Stumbled upon this place after intending to eat at a BYOB place next door that had over an hour wait. It is a standard looking restaurant in the heart of Chinatown, one side of it is opened for takeout and the other is for sit-down. It is nothing special at first glance and even a little rundown and outdated, but we gave it a shot anyway. Turns out, I am very happy we did!

They have an extensive menu made up of various meat, poultry and fish dishes. They sell 1 or 2 types of beer but they let us drink the beer and wine that we had with us which was nice and even provided glasses and ice for it. We ordered a variety of food to split amongst our party of 4 - sautéed green beans, dumplings, roast pork, roast duck, fried rice, and a specialty noodle dish. The food came out within minutes which was nice - however I felt a bit rushed and would've liked to have a little more of a leisurely dining experience. The pork and green beans were my favorite dishes -- so good and the food came out piping hot.

Dinner came out to $22 a person - so cheap for the amount of food we got. I will definitely come back here in the future...dreaming of having that roast pork again. The only thing is, it is 'Cash Only' which I was unaware of until the bill came, so prepare ahead of time.

Every time I go to Chinatown, this is a mandatory stop! I've eaten a fair share of Chinese bbq but this place stands out. We always get a whole roast duck and a pound of roast pork and eat it over a couple of days. The roast duck has such strong flavoring and the skin is very crispy - tastes so good on some French baguette. The roast pork has a sweet but savory flavor and is amazing over hot rice. This place is so good that my fam always requests for us to bring back some whenever we go home!

For the past 5 years or so, 218's honey roasted drumsticks were my go to. Sure they were a bit pricey, but they were worth it. Today, I bought the last 4 of their drumsticks for the day, and they tasted saltier than the ocean, and the meat was hard like jerky. I don't know if they changed cooks or what, but the drumsticks were not edible this time. Please be careful.

My go-to take out place in Chinatown for soy sauce chicken (sometimes when I have a protein craving I just buy half a chicken and eat all of that by itself in one sitting for dinner - yes, it's THAT good). Absolutely love their salt and pepper pork chops. For around $14 bucks (they might have raised prices recently- I forget because we always order a whole bunch of things together), the portion is HUGE -like massively exploding out of the container huge, and my bus ride home from Chinatown with it sending wafts of crispy salt and pepper always makes me so hungry. We call it crisssssspy heaven whenever we get that for take out. Also love their beef chow fun, and most recently also started getting their silverfish and egg stir fry, which is just melt in your mouth delicious and a dish that I used to eat frequently when I lived in Hong Kong and Macau but haven't seen often in Chinese restaurant menus here in nyc.