Enter through a Chinese treasure of wooden doors
into a welcoming lounge with cushiony chairs and sofas. Few seating at the bar encourages people to
relax, listen to the music, or even get up and dance. I would imagine that locals meet up here to
socialize. Yes, they do have a “happy
hour.”
SHI is quite large with several areas of dining
accommodations. On a busy night the
noise level can be a bit up there. You
can opt for outdoor seating with a view of the Manhattan skyline. Sunset and after makes it easy to point out
the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and the United Nations as the restaurant
is located a few blocks from the ferry landing.
Check out the swing chair in the patio.
There is a sushi bar on one end. You are welcome to stand
and watch the chefs create. Chef Lai
comes from Hong Kong and Seow Chan the General Manager
of SHI is from
Malaysia. She was most helpful in the
selections of food especially in describing the menu items and country
influence. I went with my friend Deveka
who loves spicy food. I have some
tolerance.
Sushi? That
means sake! That’s an influence I
learned from “Rocky” Aoki.
A small bottle of Junmai Dai Ginjo was quite
refreshing and smooth, sharing and drinking slowly, toasting with “Kampai.”
We
start with some sushi appetizers. There
was a special called Thunderdome. Slices of avocado create the dome. Underneath it is stuffed with spicy tuna. It
sits in seaweed salad that wasn't spicy allowing for the tuna to stand out.
Topped with red fish roe.
Next is tuna, yellow tail and
amberjack sashimi with a Medusa Roll that has salmon, mozzarella cheese and
jalapeno topped with caramelized onions. They are certainly not stingy with the
size of the sashimi. I loved the textures from the cheese and onions.
An appetizer that intrigued me was
the Lychee Calamari. Pieces of lychee nut blended into the batter as well as
some batter dipped lychee. Calamari not rubbery and lychee gave a different
sweet taste. Dipping sauce is a sweet chili.
Onto the entrees, we first indulged
in the Chicken lettuce wrap of chicken (obviously), fried
noodles, raisins, and peanuts. They use Boston lettuce. Hoisin sauce on the
side (I think it was the right side).
Fried
flounder fillet with sweet chili sauce. Fresh sautéed broccoli accompanied
this. Hey, you have to have veggies.
Chili sauce is mild and "spicy tolerable" for me.
Next
was a Vietnamese dish of rice noodles with chicken, crushed peanuts, scallions,
red onions, carrots and bean sprouts. Sweet chili sauce served with this one,
too.
Beef
Beancake. Tofu beancake had some "chew". Beef (Did that surprise
you)? Jalapeno peppers. Needed to pick them out. Deveka didn't have to.
It was
at this point that we ordered a drink called “Freshy” which is made with lychee juice, cucumber juice, a
bit of lime juice shaken, topped with soda & served on the rocks in a tall
glass. A must to try.
We
did have to save a little room for dessert (There is always a doggy bag). Banana
wrapped in egg roll wrapper, fried and served with ice cream.
Shi also has a “to go” section which
is located on the outside with a separate entrance. Seow tells me that most people ordering
tend to get appetizers such as vegetable spring roll, bacon wrapped shrimp, dumpling,
or lychee calamari. As for entrees they get the more common sesame chicken,
general tso chicken, lo mein or fried rice. As for sushi the popular ones are California
roll, spicy tuna roll, salmon roll, or sashimi.
There
is a dj on Saturday evenings playing “house music.” SHI is not a nightclub setting. I do recommend reservations (Phone number (347-242-2450) as
it is such an “in” place. Address is
47-20 Center Street. www.shilic.com
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