Updated May 5, 2023, Posted September 8, 2022

Occasionally, I can grab food for myself after work, and I tend to look for noodles. My partner is not a fan at all of noodles, so I took this liberty to look for something that they would not enjoy. Despite the hot and humid weather in NYC, I rarely mind eating hot soups with noodles. Silky Kitchen has a location near where I live in Astoria, so I thought I’d try out its location out in Midtown near Times Square.

Ambiance

The decor of this restaurant is very no-frills. You walk in, order at the front, and they call your number. The seating area is a bit interesting in that it’s a wavy, shared table setup. I can only guess the reason for this is to create more space for allowing more patrons as well as adding some modernistic design elements to it.

Food

The Hot & Sour Fish Soup Noodle ($15.80) came with pickled peppers, braised fish fillets, and rice noodle. I ordered this mild spicy because the front cashier said that medium is very spicy. I will say that this wasn’t spicy at all, but if medium spicy was exponentially worse, then it could have been. Despite this being mild, it still had plenty of flavor in the broth. It reminds me a little of sour pickled mustard soaking in the broth. The fish fillets were very tender and pretty good albeit not much seasoning on them. The rice noodles were very delicate and pretty good, although slightly overcooked for me. Regardless, I thought this was pretty good overall.

The Hot & Sour Chicken Gizzard Dry Noodle ($14.97) came with small sliced chicken gizzards, peppers, and rice noodles. There was no soup, and most of the moisture came from what was used to saute the chicken gizzard and peppers together. It was ordered mild, and it was still a bit spicy for me. Make sure you have some liquids in case if mild is still too spicy. The good news is that the “mild” spice is more heat-like, and it will not linger. Overall, this tasted pretty good though I probably wouldn’t order it again because of how spicy it was even at the mild heat setting.

Final Verdict

Silky Kitchen actually was pretty decent for a fast casual Chinese noodle shop near Times Square. I plan to come back again and try some other rice noodle dishes.

Yelp Jabs

really good rice noodle, one of the best I’ve had in the US

If this is one of the best this Elitist has had in the U.S., then they haven’t had much of anything. It’s far from the best, but it’s acceptable.

My niece got the stew beef which seemed super fatty and gross looking. I got the pork rib meat which was more fat than meat–like thick ribbons of fat.

This Elitist probably is not culturally aware of stewed beef. The meat cuts here are probably less catered to your average American taste bud. I looked at this Elitist’s pictures, and there was really nothing out of the ordinary. The Chinese waste very little of their meat which is why skin and fat was included in the meat portions.

Revisions

  1. May 5, 2023 - Added Hot & Sour Chicken Gizzard Dry Noodle
  2. Sep 8, 2022 - Initial revision.