Green Bo: Chinatown Shanghai Restaurant

Green Bo Restaurant is often regarded as one of New York City's best choices in Chinatown and with good reason -- Green Bo offers large portions of delicious Shanghai dishes, including scallion pancake, soup dumplings, and yellow fish, at very affordable prices.

After a short wait for a seat, hot tea arrived quickly and my companions each ordered a typical Chinese beer, Tsing Tao($4). We ordered a scallion pancake($1.50) and steamed crab and pork dumplings($6.25) for appetizers -- though they actually arrived with the other food. The scallion pancakes were the typical, greasy rendition. Personally, I'd skip them in favor of the soup dumplings which had a flavorful, if slightly oily, filling.

On guidance from other diners, we stuck with the Shanghai dishes on the menu. We ordered stewed pork ball casserole($10.95), pork rice cake($4.50) and yellow fish with dried seaweed($12.95). The pork ball casserole, often called Lions Head, featured eight large, tender, cinnamon-scented pork meatballs served atop crisp bok choy. Yellow fish with dried seaweed consisted of a huge pile of "fish-sticks" -- moist, flaky fish encased in a greaseless beer batter-like coating with a small pile of salt for dipping. Discs of rice cake, small pieces of pork and bright greens created an addictive combination of saltiness and chewiness. Fearing that we had ordered far too much meat, we added an order of sauteed spinach($6.25) to our meal, which was bright green, loaded with chunks of garlic and perfectly prepared.

Despite plenty of free seats when we left, we were given a clear signal to leave when the check was brought and all our dishes were removed from our table. We didn't mind though, as the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory is just across the street.