Fast, cheap, and with enough hustle and bustle to transport you to Hong Kong. XO Kitchen’s walls are plastered with different menu items and daily specials. There are pictures of menu items all over the place. In my opinion, the best course of action if you’re not too familiar with Cantonese food, is to look and point. Forget about reading the menu, it’ll just confuse you.

That’s how I found this dish: zong zi with XO sauce. I saw a picture on the wall and said I want that. Zong zi is sticky rice and various fillings wrapped and cooked in bamboo leaves. The filling can be sweet or salty. In this case, it was the savory variety with pork, peanuts, and bits of egg. My biggest complaint with zong zi is when the sticky rice that doesn’t touch the filling has no flavor, and you have eat through several bites of it before getting to the filling. Here, the XO sauce solves this problem. XO sauce is a spicy cantonese seafood sauce made from dried shrimp, fish, and scallops. It pairs nicely on the sticky rice.

My friend got her usual braised beef he fen which are the wide rice noodles. It looked really good.

XO Kitchen

148 Hester St (between Bowery & Elizabeth) New York, NY 10013