Uluh Restaurant Is a Sleeper Hit Teahouse | Eater NY

"Named for the Chinese gourd and open since 2019, the restaurant at 152 Second Avenue, between ninth and 10th streets, has become part of my repertoire and a sleeper hit when it comes to tea. It serves over 30 teas—most from China and Taiwan—in an extensive collection of pots and cups matched to the styles (herbals, high-mountain oolongs, green, black, white, and a lone pu'er from Yunnan); a photographer friend who leads tea ceremonies told me it has “way more options than any Chinese restaurant I’ve ever seen” and that “there are a few bangers.” I’ve had the fragrant Li Shan oolong and an herbal chrysanthemum blossom served in a glass pot so I could watch the flower bloom; servers are generally fastidious and reserved and assume I know my tea. The cavernous dining room, with a stone accent wall and a giant portrait of Andy Warhol, can get loud later with its hard surfaces, communal tables, and base-heavy tunes. It’s also a satisfying place for tea and a snack: dim sum offerings include Shanghai seaweed dumpling soup, loofah dumplings, Sichuan-style pig ears, and ice jelly, and small plates range from beef and tripe in chile oil to Nanjing salted duck. The full menu—signature dishes, stir-fries, the “Uluh ten,” spicy dishes, vegetables, soups, noodles, and items aimed at New Yorkers (there is a General Tso’s, but also chile fried chicken and Xinjiang cumin beef)—caters to Chinese students and graduates; after several visits I developed a semi-regular order of stir-fried cabbage with soy sauce or Chinese broccoli with goji, a solid mapo, beef with cilantro (with a cumulative heat), and the fish in green peppercorn for a tingly, numbing, intensely savory hit." - Melissa McCart