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Upon the Palace will open this fall
Upon this Palace, the restaurant that has been simmering in the former Salaam Bombay space at 317 Greenwich (and Reade) since February, will be a Chinese restaurant. I stuck my head in yesterday; the manager told me they plan to be open in the middle of October. Obviously we have all of Chinatown just steps away, but it’s still fun to have sit-down Chinese back in the neighborhood.
This means the spot is is going back to its roots. Salaam Bombay closed at the start of the pandemic, after 26 years in that space. But the first record I have there is Fortune Star Chinese Restaurant, thanks to the artist Jane Freeman’s miniature “portrait” from 1993. (One family has owned the building since 1970.)
Construction is coming along, but the manager preferred I did not take pictures. The floor is done, there’s a big bar as you walk in on the left, and the wood dropped ceilings look near complete. There will also be a bar downstairs, he said.
The owners also have Uncle Ted’s Modern Chinese Cuisine on East 8th Street and The Corner on Ninth Avenue and 48th Street.
Uncle Ted’s was founded by Ted Chang in 2014, and is now managed by the Mogao Group. Dishes include crispy pepper chicken, double cooked pork, cumin mutton and ‘our absurdly delicious house fried rice.”
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This was ” Lotus Blosom” Chinese Restaurant back in the 1880s!!! It was an excellent Chinese restaurant with a bar and downstairs Party Room. Who remembers?
I’m excited. I order from Uncle Teds also which is the same owner of the new place coming to Greenwich Street!
the first record before Fortune Star is Lotus Blosom. Back in the early 1980s
A 1987 Hong Kong drama called AN AUTUMN’S TALE tells the story of two expats living in New York (one of them is Chow Yun-fat, who wound up doing some Hollywood films). It was shot in the summer & fall of 1986 and prominently features a Chinese restaurant on the west side of Greenwich Street just uptown from Reade Street. In the movie it’s called “Big Panda” but it’s definitely the Lotus Blossom / Salaam Bombay space. It’s covered in a YouTube locations guide here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0llLS4QWI0 (Good movie, too, by the way – currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.)
amazing! I am sure there are other photos of Lotus Blosom from the 80s! What a great place!
We used to have three Chinese restaurant right in that area- the second was a few doors down, in the Roc/L’Angolo space- maybe Sea Wok?, and another was a block up Greenwich, I believe in what is now the Tribeca Cleaners space.
I remember Sea Wok where Roc was, big aquarium up front. I don’t remember Fortune Star or Lotus Blossom and I have been in the neighborhood since ’78!
Duck River was along that stretch too I believe. Loved that place.