(Photo via @missionchinesefood on Instagram)
It’s been a little over a year since Danny Bowien announced in a TimesTalk with Anthony Bourdain that he was opening a new location of his wildly popular Lower East Side and San Francisco restaurant, Mission Chinese Food. Obviously, a lot has changed since then– among other things, chef Angela Dimayuga has moved on— but Mission Chinese has finally opened its doors in East Williamsburg.
Located at 599 Johnson Avenue, right around the corner from the new L-pocalpyse-themed haunted house, the restaurant shares a building with Elsewhere and like the neighboring venue will have a rooftop space. (It had been slated to open this summer.) Inside, fluorescent lights give off a casual, night market vibe that’s in stark contrast to the clubby, gold-trimmed Manhattan location.
According to New York‘s fall preview, this new one will have “a menu that expands upon the Sichuan-inspired signatures with some Northern Chinese and ‘not so numbing and tingly’ options, plus casual combination lunches, a takeout window for pre- and post-show grub, and a new bread service that might involve a tandoori oven, an assist from Tartine’s Chad Robertson, and sourdough buckwheat injera.”
As you can see here, the menu features Mission Chinese classics like the kung pao pastrami, the salt-cod fried rice, and the thrice-cooked bacon, as well as newer dishes like a mala-sauced bacon-and-shrimp egg roll and a dan dan ramen in a super spicy white sesame broth (the plant-based ramen is made in collaboration with Impossible Foods, makers of the Impossible Burger). Banquet-style dinners for two or more feature a variety of dishes priced at $45+ per head.
Oh, there’s also lobster fried rice. But, trust us, you don’t want to know where that lobster’s been.
Mission Chinese Brooklyn, 599 Johnson Ave., East Williamsburg; 718-628-3731.