Golden Diner, NYC

An Asian diner.  I've seen lots of fusion cuisines before, but, I hadn't ever stumbled upon an Asian diner until I spotted the menu at Golden Diner, in New York.  I was intrigued.  The menu had your expected diner dishes, like a wedge salad, burger, club sandwich, pancakes, coffee cake, etc, except ... all have a bit of Asian flair to them.  That wedge is garnished with chili crisp.  The burger has gochujang sauce.  The club sandwich is actually chicken katsu.  The coffee cake is green tea.  Etc.

I was even more drawn in when I saw how strong the reviews were in general, AND when one of my most trusted locals told me she adores the place, and in particular, the pancakes.  So although I never made it there during August when I was staying in New York, I finally made it last week, and dragged 10 others with me.  For context, the diner seats only 20, so we took up more than half the restaurant.  Our visit was at dinner time.

Setting

Counter Seating.

I absolutely loved that they have classic diner counter seating.  The short order cooks were working the line right behind it.  Coffee cake was in the display on the end.  Such great vibes (and don't worry, it filled up quickly!).  No jukebox, but they were blasting some solid tunes the whole time.

Table Seating.

The rest of the seats are at tables for 2-6, made up from a combination of benches and chairs.  The diner seats 20 total inside.  The decor isn't really diner-eque, but the brick and white lace curtains had a charm to it too.

There is additional sidewalk seating.

Drinks

To drink, they had a few wines available (1 sparkling, 2 white, 2 red, 1 orange), a few beers on draft or by the can, a couple korean spirits, and some soju or korean wine based cocktails.

Sparkling water was Topo Chico, which I love.

Omija Negroni. $14.

"Seoul night plum suju, omija 'campari', sweet vermouth."

I briefly considered getting plum wine, because it had been a while since I'd had it, but when I saw they had a play on a negroni, I wanted to try it.

I didn't really care for it.  It was rather sweet, lacking any bitter notes.  Not much booze flavor either.  I wouldn't get it again. *+.

Savory

Since we were there at dinner, not breakfast or brunch, we mostly went for the savory lunch/dinner appropriate dishes, rather than the breakfast all day, although that was available too.  We opted to share a few things, starting with one salad (which was hard to pick, as all the salads had really interesting components to them), and their most famous sandwich, the aforementioned chicken kastsu.  We skipped the share plates with popular Korean fried chicken wings or some interesting sounding vegan nachos, and the burger as that seemed the least unique.  If we had ordered one more dish, it certainly would have been the vegetarian hero, which has marinated yuba in it, and sounded fantastic.  If you are noticing the extensive vegetarian and vegan options, you are absolutely correct.  This diner has extremely strong vegan offerings.

Chili Crisp Wedge Salad (Vegan). $17.
(Dressing on the side).

"Chili crisp a la Fat Choy, iceberg lettuce, vegan ranch, blue "cheese", mushroom "bacon"."

I struggled to pick between the two interesting sounding salads, but was drawn in by the chili crisp and mushroom "bacon" in this one.  It just happened to be vegan, which certainly isn't what you think of when you have a salad known for 1) blue cheese, 2) ranch, and 3) bacon.  I'm also certainly not vegan.

But honestly, I couldn't tell it was vegan.  The ranch was creamy and flavorful enough, basically, well, it tasted like generic ranch.  It was fine, but I'd love more buttermilk tang, or interesting herbs in it.  It certainly didn't taste oddly vegan.  I had it on the side as I was worried about not liking it, but normally the salad comes smothered in it.  Average ranch dressing: ***.

The chili crisp they also put on the side, and it was good.  Nice size bits of "crisp" and not too oily.  A notch above average chili crisp.  This is something I regularly drizzle on my own salads, so this was a natural salad topping for me.  ***+.

The salad base itself, two iceberg wedges, was not as crisp as I'd expect for a wedge salad.  Kinda limp and pale too.  I know it is iceberg, which isn't exactly known for being a robust lettuce, but, it was pretty boring.  Same with the bits of tomato, and harsh red onion.  ***.

The vegan blue "cheese" was fascinating.  It tasted, and looked, quite a bit like blue cheese.  It was white with blue veins.  It had funk to it.  Uncanny.  I am not a big blue cheese fan, but, this was interesting and novel as a vegan item.  ***.

And finally, the mushroom "bacon", which I adored.  Great crunch, nice umami flavor.  There was far, far, far too little of it.  Just a few little bits.  This was my favorite component of the salad, and the most minimal.  **** for taste/texture/etc, but * for quantity.

Overall, this was a fine salad, and there is no way I'd ever think this was vegan, but, it could do with fresher base lettuce, more "bacon", and a better onion component, like fried onion strings or something.  I wouldn't get it again. ***.

To the salads, you can add avocado for $3.50 or crispy chicken for $10.

Red Cabbage Slaw. $5.

I adore cole slaw, and when I saw it was available as a side, I added it to our order.  It normally comes on the club sandwich.

The portion was a sizable mound.  It really was just red cabbage and mayo.  I think I expected carrot at least.  It was a bit soft.  Well dressed, but the taste was just mayo.  Not much seasoning, if any.

As a standalone slaw, it didn't work very well.  I wanted it crispier, more flavorful, potentially more components.  But, used inside the sandwich, I see how it would totally work.

** as a side, but not holding this against them as most people get it inside the sandwich.

Pickled Diakon. $5.

One of my other guests saw that they had pickled diakon on the menu, and immediately ordered it.  I may or may not have stolen a bunch.

It was good, nicely crisp, good pickling flavor.  $5 worth of diakon?  I'm not sure about that, but I liked it.  ***+.

It normally comes with the Korean fried chicken wings.

Chicken Katsu Club. $19.

"Panko breaded chicken katsu blt w/ red cabbage slaw, bulldog sauce, and kewpie mayo served on milk bread."

Take the classic chicken club, and make it fusion.  That gives you their top selling sandwich, the chicken katsu club.  Most of my group wanted this.  

The portion was a full sandwich, cut into 4 wedges, with three slices of bread, one separating the chicken and slaw, the other the lettuce, tomato, and bacon.  Not a single person was able to finish it, even when served without a side.  They seemed to really like it, although one guest lamented that it was too hard to eat because it was so tall.  Another took all the leftover 1/4 and 1/2 slices from the group home, and was quite pleased with her bounty.

For $5 more, you could make it "deluxe" with fries and a pickle, or $6 you could opt up to home fries.

Out of the rest of my group, one other ordered the vegan grilled cheese and tomato soup, and one had the matzoh ball soup, neither had much reaction to their items.

Sweet

And there, of course, we get to desserts.  A primary reason for me to pick many places.  Here you find a pastry item (green tea coffee cake), a cake (thai tea tres leches), and pudding (pistachio rice pudding).  All sounded good to me.  

And then there is the pancakes.  My co-worker's top recommendation, but also, the top recommendation of many others in reviews too.  This is probably Golden Diner's most well known dish.  The pancakes technically aren't on the Sweets menu, but rather, the All Day Breakfast section, but we ordered them as dessert.

Honey Butter Pancakes. $15.

"Double stack of fluffy, moist and savory pancakes served with honey butter maple syrup and whipped honey butter, finished with lemon zest."

Behold, the famous honey butter pancakes.  The serving is a stack of two diner plate sized large fluffy pancakes.  They come pre-sauced and buttered, no additional is provided unless you order and pay for an additional $1 each.

The honey butter and honey maple syrup were both good, and while the pancakes were pretty smothered in the syrup, I wanted more.  The pancakes were quite plain without it.  **** syrup/butter though.

You can add a berry compote for $4 more, and I wished we had.  I just really wanted more flavor in this dish.

Pancakes: Second layer.

The pancakes were cooked really unevenly.  As you can see in the first photo, the top pancake was light and perfectly colored.  The pancake under that one?  Wow, so dark!  At first I really thought it was burnt, and wondered "wow, how could they plate that and not notice!"  

But actually, the uneven cook was fine.  The top one was light and airy, this one had a bit of a crust to it, which I liked.  The pancakes were a bit bland though - no real buttermilk tang, no cornmeal grit, nothing like that.  Just, plain pancakes.  Good pancakes, nicely thick pancakes, but, plain.  ***.

Pistachio Rice Puddin'. (Vegan) $11.

"Coconut milk, orange, candied cardamon pistachios."

Because I can't resist a pudding, and because I was saddened by the lackluster rice pudding at my office the previous day, I also ordered their newest menu item, the pistachio rice pudding.  It also happens to be vegan.

It was attractively served with orange supremes and pistachios on top, in a layered parfait style glass.  The rice pudding was fine, the rice nicely cooked, not too mushy, not too al dente, nice sized grains.  It was quite thick and rich from coconut milk.  I loved the bits of pistachio for crunch, and there was plenty of it, so every bite got some.  The pistachio also added a lot of flavor.  The orange supremes added a bit of freshness, and juiciness, and went well with the pistachio, but I'd rather see fresh berries.

Overall, this was absolutely fine, but I found myself wanting a bit more of a complimentary flavor, maybe some whipped cream too.  ***+.

Green Tea Coffee Cake. $7.

"Made with hojicha and matcha."

And lastly, we ordered the coffee cake, made with both hojicha and matcha.  It was served warm, but otherwise unadorned.

The color of the base was not particularly appealing, somewhat green-gray, but it was clearly loaded with green tea.  The flavor was, well, green tea, fairly strong in the hojicha direction.  If you like green tea flavor, this delivered.

The crumble topping layer was equally as thick as the base layer.  It was quite crispy.  It was good, but not remarkable.  

Overall, this ate pretty dry.  I wanted whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream to make it a real dessert.  Pairing it with some berries would be nice too.  Most of my group didn't even try it, so even though we only had one piece, we had plenty left.  I took it home and had with breakfast the next morning, and enjoyed it more in that setting than as a dessert.

Overall, perhaps worth trying if you really like green tea, and for brunch, but not what I'd recommend for dessert.  ***.