Good morning. It's Wednesday. Today we are bringing you an important update on a tempest in a green tea teapot, involving an Upper West Side Chinese restaurant that dared to call itself "Shun Lee." |
 | | The dining room at Shun Lee 98th St.Justin J Wee for The New York Times |
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Shun Lee 98th St — the restaurant that opened earlier this year on the Upper West Side and gave rise to local debates, as well as a deep-dive in The New York Times about the emotional power a Chinese restaurant name can have in a city of Chinese food lovers — has decided to rebrand. Welcome, Dim Sum Bloom! |
In a message posted on NextDoor, the restaurant alerted eaters to its decision. Under the headline "Important Announcement," the item said, "we understand that there have been some concerns regarding our brand, which has caused inconvenience for everyone. After careful consideration and taking your opinions and suggestions into account, we have decided to change our brand name." It went on: "The branding issue has been a significant challenge for us." |
Here's the back story: When a sign went up last year heralding a new Chinese restaurant in a vacant storefront on the corner of West 98th Street and Broadway, Chinese food lovers on the Upper West Side rejoiced. Family group texts pinged with celebratory emojis. Community websites whetted the dumpling-craving taste buds of readers. |
The sign read "Shun Lee Cafe" (though the restaurant later called itself Shun Lee 98th St), and it trumpeted the uptown arrival of one of New York's most heralded, storied and beloved Chinese restaurants. Shun Lee Palace, which is on East 55th Street, first opened in 1971. Shun Lee West arrived on West 65th Street, near Lincoln Center, in 1981. Both restaurants have attracted celebrities, foodies and celebrants of graduations, birthdays and b'nai mitzvah. |
New York has been a city for eaters for a long time, and more than a century ago, Chinese restaurants were already a staple of the city's culinary culture among some groups. Many establishments were closed on Sundays. But the Jewish Sabbath ended on Saturday night, and some Jewish people enjoyed dining out on Sunday. Chinese restaurants were there to serve them, helping to create an enduring connection. |
Shun Lee emerged as the fancy, delicious, aspirational Chinese restaurant choice for many upwardly mobile Jews in the 1970s and 1980s. Even with the advent of many more upscale fine-dining Chinese restaurants, Shun Lee has retained special status in the city. |
Coming out of the lockdown days of the pandemic, New Yorkers were restaurant-starved, and they were especially new-restaurant-starved. |
So an uptown Shun Lee? This was sure to be the biggest thing to happen to the Upper West Side-Chinese restaurant culinary industrial complex since Misa Chang of Empire Szechuan came up with the idea of sliding paper menus under apartment doors. (Or at least it would be as seismic as the "Seinfeld" episode when Jerry, George and Elaine grew faint with hunger as they waited endlessly for a table in a Chinese restaurant.) |
Yet as excited diners made their way to the new Shun Lee, they quickly came to an unwelcome realization: It did not much resemble the other restaurants it was named for. Its décor was merely standard. Its menu lacked the signature dishes of its namesake. And the food, though solidly fine, was not necessarily up to Shun Lee snuff. The thing that most connected the O.G. Shun Lees and the new Shun Lee — well, besides the names — was the steep prices. |
Turns out, the new Shun Lee had been opened by Sean Li, a man who worked as an accountant for the other Shun Lees. During the pandemic, when so many stores and restaurants were closing and rents were relatively cheap, he approached the owner of Shun Lee, a Shanghai businessman named Bin Hu, with an idea of expanding into more casual dining. |
Hu agreed to partner in the venture, but before long he decided Li's concept for a downscale Shun Lee wasn't for him. Hu eventually sold his interest to Li but agreed last July to license the Shun Lee brand name for a one-year term. |
Li thought using the Shun Lee name would be a boon, but it was a bust: It brought in diners with certain expectations. |
As I reported last spring, there was a chain-reaction: A man named Danny Cramer who grew up a few blocks away and who loved Shun Lee was excited to try the neighborhood Shun Lee with his mom. They ordered in and were skeptical. The first tell (a realization that brought profound disappointment to Cramer): There was no "Chicken With Three Different Nuts" dish on the menu. He and his mother made other selections but were underwhelmed by their meal. |
Cramer wanted to call to complain, but when he looked up the number on the Shun Lee website, the West 98th Street location was not listed. So he called Shun Lee on West 65th Street. The person who answered the phone told him that the new Shun Lee had pirated the name and that the O.G. Shun Lee was consulting lawyers. |
Mind you, the implication that O.G. Shun Lee might sue was not true — the new Shun Lee had the legal right to use the name — but Cramer only knew what he had been told. |
And so he alerted another person he knew from the neighborhood, Claudia Brown. Brown also had had a disappointing experience with Shun Lee 98th St, and she felt a responsibility to make what Cramer had told her more widely known. She sent a tip to The West Side Rag, a community online newspaper. The subject line was "Shun Lee 98th St — A FAKE." The Rag published a story. |
Again, the restaurant wasn't a fake, it was a licensee. And to prove the point, Li and his team blew up his licensing agreement to poster-size and put it in his restaurant window. |
Then someone saw the giant legal document and alerted me. That's how Chinese restaurant journalism gets born. |
Perhaps it's also how new restaurants are born. |
In the announcement posted about its new name, Dim Sum Bloom's team wrote, "Our initial intention was to carry on the Chinese culinary culture of Shun Lee in an innovative way. However, we encountered significant obstacles as people perceive and love Shun Lee as a high-end Chinese restaurant brand, expecting an upscale dining environment." |
So Dim Sum Bloom removed itself from the long shadow of Shun Lee. "We remain committed to our original intention and hope to bring more delicious Chinese cuisine to everyone by developing our new brand!" |
Enjoy a mostly sunny day with temps reaching the high 80s. At night it is partly cloudy, with temperatures in the low 70s. |
In effect until Aug. 15 (Feast of the Assumption). |
 | | Miki Sudo and Joey Chestnut again emerged victorious from the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on Tuesday.Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images |
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- Cloudy with a chance of hot dogs: Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo defended their Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest titles, but the spectacle was less about the victors, and more about the journey, which this year included torrential rain.
- Basketball in the Bronx: Grenada Built to Win, the summer youth-basketball league at Edenwald, the largest public housing complex in the Bronx, began its 11th season in June.
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When my husband and I were first dating, I invited him to "cabaret night" at the new restaurant some college friends had opened on the Lower East Side. |
We were on a comfortably full F train when a youngish guy in a letterman jacket recognized my future spouse and broke into a grin. |
"Dude," the young guy said, beaming, "you were so great as that detective in 'The Mask'!" |
My future spouse smiled and thanked him. |
We pulled into the Delancey Street-Essex Street station and lost the guy in the crowd as people surged off the train and up the stairs. |
We reached the curb above just as the "Don't Walk" sign began the countdown to "Walk" — a blessed moment to catch our breath. |
I gave my future husband's hand a squeeze. |
"Guess he was a little young to realize you were also the Pickle Man," I said. |
He laughed, the light changed and we crossed Delancey. |
Glad we could get together here. Lola Fadulu will be in tomorrow. — K.R. |
| Morgan Malget and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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