Return of Home on 8th! 11-18-2009

Location: 391 8th Ave
Time: 7pm
People: JLam from MeSoHungry, RB and myself

Feelings: We took JLam to our go to vegetarian friendly Chinese restaurant, Home on 8th. Home on 8th has been our reliable Chinese restaurant in the Penn Station area. It is quick and low key, and the service is always excellent. I also love that they offer you either the regular menu or vegetarian menu. It's not everyday when vegetarians can have a full menu of vegetarian dishes. The carnivores, RB and JLam, flipped through pages of meat dishes while I studied the vegetarian menu carefully.

I ordered curry vegetable with glass noodles served in a clay pot. The main ingredient of this dish was pumpkin, my favorite vegetable of all. The curry flavor and the sweetness of pumpkin blended perfectly together. The texture of the tofu was also perfectly firm, and it soaked up all the delicious flavor in the clay pot. As a noodle lover, I wish I could have had more glass noodles, but it was still a perfect fall/winter meal full of fresh vegetables.

RB ordered his usual mapo tofu. It had a good amount heat and consistency, and the silken tofu was creamy. It is indeed a good comfort food and has a chicken noodle soup feel of home cooking. I often get their vegetarian mapo tofu with emperor's rice, and it is definitely one of the better mapo tofu I have had in the city.

JLam ordered noodles with beef shin since he has been cooking a lot of beef shin at home and wanted to compare. He mentioned it was more flavorful that the beef shins he cooks at home but not sure if that is a good thing. He seemed to enjoy the dish nonetheless.

Home on 8th has really not let us down yet. Their food is never too greasy, and the ingredients are always fresh. I hope they will maintain their quality and keep serving the Penn Station area delicious veggie and meat dishes for years to come.