Hou Yi Hot Pot is now open at 97 Second Ave. between East Fifth Street and East Sixth Street...
This is the second location for Hou Yi Hot Pot, which also has a spot on Hester Street in the northern fringes of Chinatown. Serious Eats called Hou Yi "comfortable and friendly" and "This is your Manhattan Chinatown go-to for hot pot."
And at 190 Avenue B between near East 12th Street, Kingsley, a seasonal French-American restaurant, opened this past Wednesday...
Here's the Times with some thoughts on the restaurant:
Three spaces — a dining room with a long bar, a loungelike area and a back room, all softly done in neutral tones — serve the same menu that the chef Roxanne Spruance delivers from her semi-open kitchen. She worked at Blue Hill, WD-50 and Alison Eighteen. Gallic touches show through in roasted bone marrow with shallots and tarragon, monkfish with melted leeks and a chicken thigh napoleon.
Kingsley's website is here and the menus are here.
The previous restaurant at No. 190, the 7-year-old Back Forty, closed for good after service last Dec. 21.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Modern American in the works for former Back Forty space on Avenue B
A look at Kingsley, opening this fall on Avenue B