Urban Belly

I was super excited to go to Bill Kim's first restaurant, Urban Belly. I couldn't wait to compare it to David Chang's Momofuku, but when I got my food, I was a little disappointed. Two of my friends ordered the noodle dishes and they loved it, but I really did not think there was anything special about the rice dish that I ordered. The dumplings were ok at best but the side dish of eggplant that I ordered was amazing. I tried my friends noodle dishes, and I was impressed. Definitely not what I was expecting, but really good. All of the dishes seem to have a fusion of many different Asian influences. But overall I was not too impressed. Maybe I had too high of expectations, but I personally would not go again unless there was something new that I HAVE to try on the menu. Nothing blew me away but the food was decent at best. 

I really enjoyed the communal style of eating until some random guy started offering me some of his food. He then tried to tell me about how there is this great Asian grocery market that I have to go to because of the food. 

The first set of dumplings are the pork and cilantro dumplings. They were good but like I said in my post, they were not to die for. The duck with pho spices were good but nothing too crazy. I would have to say that both are a little bland and that is why i drenched the dumplings in hot sauce. 

My 'ok' rice dish. The short rib and scallion. Not a die hard fan of long grain rice because to me it always seems dry, but the meat was good!