Restaurant Review: Lei in Manhattan

Chinatown has always belonged to multiple generations. Young and old share the streets, and it’s the same on Doyers, where you’ll find a dim sum spot in residence since 1920 right next door to a modern wine bar, Lei. Annie Shi opened Lei in June. Ms. Shi hopes that guests will think Lei as part of a longer visit to Chinatown. You can see the traces of a Chinese American childhood: mahogany walls with this red blush, and red is for luck. Annie Shi and her wine director, Matt Turner, have put together a cellar with around 750 wines. It’s abundant and generous. For the food, Ms. Shi had a vision of Chinese homestyle cooking. You might start with celtuce, a traditional ingredient here presented raw. Cool green tiles bookending slippery kombu jelly topped with crispy shallots, surrounded by this glossy pool of yongchun red vinegar — fruity and mild. Crown daisy, also known as chrysanthemum greens, are another traditional ingredient, but rarely seen like this in a salad topped with ribbons of burdock fried to a crisp and reaching for the ceiling. Shao bing is ostensibly a flatbread. It’s really an architecture of layers of laminated dough. It’s all puff and shatter, and served right out of the oven with a slab of cold butter tucked in. Cat’s ear noodles are little thumbprints of dough that cup and catch the source of this cumin-laced ragu, inspired by the Uyghur lagman at Kashkar Cafe. Beef short rib is made in the Shanghai sweet-and-sour style, cured for a day, braised for another day. It’s made not with sugar, but strawberry jam for a more mellow sweetness. You can read the full review at nytimes.com.