West Side Cottage Too? Haha, very clever–now clean up the damn roach that’s sitting by my new Nikes. This is how pathetic lunch has become. We walk into a restaurant, notice the dead roach underfoot before we order and go ahead and get the cheap-ass lunch special anyway. Did we mention the deceased creature to management? Of course not–we’re assholes. Plus, the folks here are kind of on the abrupt side. They wave you to a table, take your order, run away, run your food to you and then run away again. The damn thing probably got trampled by one of the nervous servers in a panic to escape having to make eye contact with one of the patrons. My test Chinese meal is usually sweet and sour chicken, which in this case is extremely odd and not particularly good, but the back up chicken and mixed veggies was decent, if not a little greasy, for the insanely low prices. While this place isn’t going to win any design awards, it’s at least a little bigger and less dim than some of those freakishly small Chinese take out places in the city. We know that almost all restaurants in Manhattan probably have roaches, so the bugs are of little concern (or so my brain would like to have me think) and we can recommend this place sheerly on the return on investment. [MF]
689 9th Ave.
212/245-0980