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.”