Café China

Decorative paneled screens and 1930s-style Shanghai artwork and music elevate Café China from the glut of typical Chinese restaurants in the City. The chef prepares Szechuan cuisine, which means spicy and garlicky, but there's also subtlety when it comes to crystal shrimp dumplings, tea smoked duck and steamed whole fish with ginger and scallions. The menu features more adventurous fare, too (Anthony Bourdain, are you listening?), like Salivating Frog, spicy beef tendon and Mao's Blood Tofu Stew, as well as the Husband and Wife Special—ox tongue and tripe seasoned with roasted chili-peanut sauce. A young, charming couple, Xian Zhang and Yiming Wang, oversee the premises, lovely to all who enter.