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The Cottage
Rating Details »
Neighborhoods: Flatiron, Union Square, Gramercy
33 Irving Pl
New York, NY 10003
(212) 505-8600
33 Irving Pl
New York, NY 10003
(212) 505-8600
- Nearest Transit:
-
Union Square (4, 5, 6, L, N, Q, R, W)
- Hours:
Mon-Thu. 11:30 a.m. - 11:00 p.m.
- Parking:
- Street
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- Yes
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Good for:
- Lunch, Dinner
- Alcohol:
- Beer & Wine Only
23 reviews for The Cottage
I'll tell you what I like about The Cottage.
You're eating your reasonably priced, pretty tasty pile of Chinese food. You're drinking your can of Diet Coke and there's some old crochety Asian guy peeling green beans or something on the table next to you. Then you get to the bottom of your dish and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is staring back at you.
It's like the middle of August and the city smells like garbage, but you're eating your lunch on a Christmas dish. Isn't that great? I mean, I think if I was at my grandmother's house and that happened I'd be like, "Oh drag, Granny's totally getting old and crazy." But when that little Chinese place does it I'm like, "Oh cool they sort of don't care what they serve their food on."
The Cottage has been there for a zillion years, or least as far back as when I was in college. So, when my friend suggested having lunch there while walking through the area, I thought, "why not?" It's gotta be a solid place if it's been here for at least 13 years.
Yeah, what?
I ordered the scallion pancake as an app and did some kind of "make your own" dish consisting of garlic sauce, eggplant, bok choy, fried tofu, green beans. The garlic sauce was identified as spicy, and I asked them to make it extra spicy.
The scallion pancake arrived with a peanut sauce, absolutely the wrong pairing. Whatevs, I'll use soy sauce. The pancake itself was dry and too crispy. Didn't taste like the kind of scallion pancake I was used to.
My friend's dish (a passable lemon chicken, according to him) arrived at the same time as my app. Fair enough, as I took a bit of time making a decision and we ordered the app and his lunch first. But my dish just kept NOT arriving. It was comical and I really wasn't mad since I figured it wasn't going to be good anyway considering the state of the pancakes. I'd just tell them about it at the end and make sure they didn't charge me for it.
30 minutes later, after my friend finished his lunch, mine arrived. It actually looked really good. The fried tofu looked just the way I liked it, the vegetables green and the garlic sauce looked promising. But it was completely unflavored, no seasoning whatsoever. I don't think I've ever tasted anything so bland in my life. Wait, the eggplant was bitter. Fabulous. I asked for it to be wrapped up thinking I might be able to salvage it at home.
To make the experience even more comical, after my friend sent the check back with his credit card, another check appeared by another waiter. Nice.
I can't remember having a meal that was so uninspiring and normally I don't go out of my way to write a bad review, but the food was just.so.sad. How has this place remained in business?
The food is decent but the service is RIDICULOUS.
We left a 20% tip and our waiter, Jack, had the balls to come back and tell us we didn't leave enough and demanded we gave him more. Who does that????
All he got was a napkin with "ASSHOLE" written on it. Jack, you deserved it.
I had the shrimp dumplings with spinach soup and the free wine was a nice surprise. (I missed the giant posters outside advertising it). Dine in prices are higher than take out prices, but they are still reasonable. I'm sure they serve up lots of greasy nasty Chinese food here, but I will try to be careful and order healthy stuff. I'm going to be coming here aloooooot.
The cottage must have the most ambagious name. It looks nothing like a cottage, and definitely does not fit the Chinese res truant stereotype. The library might be a slightly more fitting name.
We ended up here after a VERY long day of flight delays and major planning for meetings tomorrow. This location is also near a friends place. The service was not exceptionally fast- that I can say. However, the ambiance worked for us. It was not loud, music was not blaring, we could have a good conversation and enjoy a drink before we ate.
All in all, we tried the veggie dumplings- I loved these, the beef with scallops, the veggie mu shu and prawns with snow peas. The food did take awhile to prep but hit the spot.
My friends rule is that when you go out for dinner, you must have dessert. Who am I to argue with an edict like that? The waitress threw our tab on the table before we had the opportunity to order it. However, being tired, not having any patience, we called her back and ordered pistachio ice cream all around.
There is a regrettable lack of love for The Cottage on Yelp.
To me, it is everything you'd want in a neighborhood Chinese place. (It's been mine for 5 years.)
If you eat in - they remember you. If you take out - their delivery is nothing short of super-hero-fast (AND the delivery guy takes credit cards). It's inexpensive - without the food seeming so: You can order all-white-meat Sesame Chicken, which is phenomenal by the way.
In short: I highly recommend it. And what's a Chinese place without a quirky name, anyway?
Nothing particularly inspiring, but not bad. Decent size portions, fast service, not as attentive as you might like, but fairly friendly. They have some good chicken and beef dishes and they have good Hot and Sour soup, dumplings are ok, not the best, but certainly not the worst. It's close to Irving Plaza (The Fillmore now) so it's a convenient place to grab a bite before a show.
Listen to the reviews!
AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL!
Seriously this place should not be in business. After living in this area for almost a year I never noticed this place until a few days ago when I picked up a menu. Seemed cheap enough and something new to try. Nearly inedible. I got the house special bean curd and its pretty hard to make tofu inedible but they did it. No way do the workers eat here or think this food is passable.
It makes me mad that places like this exist and do injustice to chinese food, even american chinese food. Even worse are the people that go here and keep places like this in business. Yuck!
Wise up New York.
The Cottage is a discovery unlike any other. A group of us went over for a casual dinner and were most definitely allured by the all you can funnel down wine offer. Sue Us, we know it probably comes out of a box. We had all VEG. dishes that were decent if not as good as our favorite place in Chinatown. Veggie Lo Mein was just what we were looking for, and the tofu was well cooked and flavorful. A Definite return trip is in order.
I kept hoping this was the sister restaurant of the Cottage on the UWS. Perhaps it is, but they've been doing it wrong.
Do they have free unlimited wine? I ordered in, but have passed by many times and have not seen the telltale bottles.
The dumpings with the spicy peanut sauce are amazing, but I ordered chicken with eggplant and it just wasn't all that great. In fact, unless I NEED the dumplings (or just want to make the dumplings my meal) I probably won't add this to the short list any time soon.
Definitely a cut above your average NYC Chinese!
I discovered The Cottage several years ago before going to a concert at nearby Irving Plaza one night. I remember enjoying my meal, but didn't return here until about a year later.
This is a great and reliable place for a good and VERY affordable meal. The menu is more expansive than your typical predictable NYC Chinese restaurant that only offers the usual American style Chinese dishes. They also have a great selection of dim sum and dumplings, all of which are delicious! The vegetables are all cooked just right - crisp and fresh, not soggy and overcooked.
They have a GREAT dinner special for 2 that my hubby and I take advantage of: you get a bottle of wine of your choice from the menu that is valued at $19 (the list contains several really decent choices for that price range) - NOT the awful house wine (I'd definitely steer clear of that!), plus a choice of appetizer, 2 main courses and dessert for $39.95! You can't beat that for a nice casual weeknight meal in NYC!
The Owner, Al is friendly and welcoming. Most of the staff are very friendly and accommodating. On occasion, we have gotten a server who doesn't speak English very well or may be a little curt, but overall, the staff is very nice.
This place is a definite bargain gem!
Surprisingly subpar chinese, especially considering the clean and spacious decor and large waitstaff eager to help. It was just kind of bland. but it was affordable.
When it comes to real chinese, the dingier the better. I'll take chinatown hole in the walls over classier places like this.
Only ordered take out from here for lunch.
From outside, looks nothing liek a chinese restaurant, I mean it is named "The Cottage" for goodness sakes.
Anyway, I ordered Brocolli Tofu cuz I was actually for once, feeling the need to be healthy.
My thought: hot and Sour soup was the only thing that was actually tasty.
The entree was WAY TOO OILY and I had better rice from other chinese restaurants. Come on Cottage, Make me proud of my chinese people!
We're cheap, we make good food, and we're fast not oily bleaaaah T_T
*Update* 10/23 - My coworkers wanted this place again so I decided to give it another shot. ordered their Beef with Snowpeas lunch special. Again soup is great, but the beef was flavorless and not as moist as chinese beef normally should be, Seasoning is bland and Rice.. again.. ai... So now It's oily and lacking in flavor!!!! Ai... I am giving up on this place.
One star from me = really bad times
I went here with my friends, and everything was actually pretty good. Definitely a "classier" Chinese restaurant in terms of decor, name, etc. (My friends and I started to call it the Happy Star Lucky Dragon Cottage House so it would sound more "authentic"). I also got one of the best fortunes ever - "The best revenge is massive success" - SO TRUE! So, why one star? One word...
COCKROACHES!
My friend went back with her boyfriend and there was a cockroach on his LAP! In my eyes, that warrants negative stars. Anyhows, just wanted to warn anyone who may go here that they may need to bring some roach motels with them. Good luck!
One thing I love is the super-mega-too-much-food lunch specials at most Chinese places. At the Cottage, if you make it there for the "early bird" special (3-6pm) for $10.95 you get: Soup, Entree, Ice Cream AND 1 beer or wine!!! I love a deal, and this one rocked! The ice cream was an awesome green-tea flavor, and was a great way to end the meal, although I was surprised that I could even finish it after all the other food.
The interior is spacious, and Mahogany furniture gives it a warm and sophisticated feel. Yeah, it might just be a fancy cover for above average fare, but at it's a thousand times better than staring at those faded pictures of food at every other Chinese restaurant in New York City.
I found this place a few years ago and its been very consistent. My family from out of town love it and are always dying to come here when they visit.. we like to keep it lowkey!
The deal for 2 that Michelle R. describes is awesome! Most recently I had the sesame shrimp and they were very good.
The inside is very clean and roomy; the staff can vary from very nice to stand offish in 'tude but the service is always quick. The takeout/delivery seemed to be BOOMING on a Sunday night and the inside was PACKED... but we didn't have to wait.
The dumplings here are awesome! The service not so much. The wine YIKES. They have a dinner special where for $12-15 you can get an app, a main dish and 2 glasses of wine. Sounds like a good deal until you start drinking. One quick side note. Asian inspired food heavy with sauce and sodium should not be mixed with any kind of red wine ever!
Stick with the dumpling, soups and obvious dishes and you will have a great affordable night without a painful hangover the next day.
Vegetarians, pay heed!
Get the Design Your Own Dish with garlic sauce. $7.75 for takeout with free delivery, $8.25 for dine in. Amazingly, crazily, tasty sauce with vegetables cooked just right (we had soft bean curd, chinese broccoli, bak choy, and carrot). The only problem was that the chinese broccoli lacked broccoli flowers and was pretty much only stalks.
The vegetable dumplings ($4.25) were well done and accompanied by a sweet soy dressing spiked with chilis. You can choose any type of noodle for the noodle soup, which was good, but not nearly as tasty as the Design Your Own Dish Garlic Sauce option. We basically ended up taking vegetables out of the noodle soup and dipping them in the remainder of the garlic sauce.
$24 for two, splitting an appetizer and two main courses. Nice environment and responsive wait staff. No waiting for a table on Tuesday night.
While this place's decor is a lot better than your regular old hole-in-the-wall Chinese takeout, it's not worth the time, money, or calories. Delivery takes forever. Service in the restaurant is rude and slow. Everything is too greasy, even for greasy Chinese.
spring rolls are nice and crispy. greasy and steaming hot. as for the rest of the food... it can go to hell for all i care. it's not that pleasant. sure, the design aesthetics are great... vintage Chinese decor with a little romantic flare... i like it- but if the food is mediocre and dull... why the heck would i waste my money here? i could simply order out from 20 other Chinese places around the neighborhood.
dining in? maybe to have a few wonton strips and a cup of Jasmine tea with a friend... otherwise, i wouldn't be caught dead here. it's almost a disgrace. lol. AMERICAN Chinese food? ick.
Meh. Not too sure what to write about this restaurant. First, what Chinese restaurant names itself "the Cottage"? Joking apart, this might the nicest looking Chinese restaurant I've ever been to: no dinginess, no tacky neons, no formica tables, the decor is actually quite upscale and the service polite and efficient. The food however wasn't impressive: Americanized Chinese food, nothing to write home about... not that it was bad or anything (in fact some of it was relatively tasty), but I'd rather go to the dingy places in Chinatown and get the real deal for a few dollars cheaper. I probably won't be going back. 2-1/2 stars.
The Cottage delivers extremely quickly. Practically as soon as you think of what you want, the food's there. I'm sure they just maintain big steaming buckets of all their menu items, ready to scoop out and deliver on a moment's notice. As for the food itself, I'd say it's average to above-average Chinese food, nothing special. If you elect to dine in, the restaurant itself is surprisingly huge, and pleasant. It is, in fact, much faster to order take out than to eat there, and in fact, I've determined that it's actually much faster to order takeout from The Cottage, than to get something out of the freezer and microwave it.
I've been eating at this place for years, and it's definitely my favorite non-Chinatown Chinese restaurant in NYC. I'm truly shocked that anyone has found the food bland. Everything I've ever gotten here has been super tasty. The shrimp and scallops with hot pepper sauce? Delicious. The House Special Chicken? Crispy deliciousness on a plate. Their scallion pancakes? OMG...I'd eat just about anything slathered in the spicy sauce that comes with these. There have been times in my life when I've eaten here three times a week. And now that I live in Brooklyn, I sometimes make the trip to Manhattan just to eat at the Cottage.
