Urban Space Food Halls

[weinoo]

Food Halls are fairly ubiquitous in New York City these days.  And I'm generally not a fan, but yesterday I happened to be in the Union Square neighborhood walking home, when I noticed Urban Space on 14th Street; I'd not seen this location before, though I'd heard of Urban Space Vanderbilt.

 

So I popped in just for the hell of it, and noticed a stall that was seemingly opening for its 1st service day.  I mean, this stall wasn't even in Sietsema's review of Urban Space Union Square, which was only written back in January.  As a matter of fact, it's (as of this moment) not even in Urban Space Union Square's listing of vendors on their website...https://www.urbanspacenyc.com/union-square

 

The stall I'm referring to also appears to be the first of its namesake here in NYC; that is, if it's namesake has anything to do with the Manhattan location.  

 

Lou Yau Kee Chicken Rice is the name of the stall, and the only online reference I currently see is for their delivery menu from doordash.  Other references are to places in Singapore and Malaysia. Anyhoo, I ordered the chicken and rice dish with both roasted and poached chicken...

 

 

Apparently, I was one of the first 5 customers, and both yesterday and today they're giving 50% off, so I might as well have one of these as well...

 

 

The chicken was quite good, but the rice was the star - super flavorful. I like the addition of the yu choy for a green veg.

 

And I'm wondering if @KennethT knows anything about this place?

Edited May 16, 2023 by weinoo (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

How did you snag that extraordinary discount?    Makes it almost free.

[KennethT]

3 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Food Halls are fairly ubiquitous in New York City these days.  And I'm generally not a fan, but yesterday I happened to be in the Union Square neighborhood walking home, when I noticed Urban Space on 14th Street; I'd not seen this location before, though I'd heard of Urban Space Vanderbilt.

 

So I popped in just for the hell of it, and noticed a stall that was seemingly opening for its 1st service day.  I mean, this stall wasn't even in Sietsema's review of Urban Space Union Square, which was only written back in January.  As a matter of fact, it's (as of this moment) not even in Urban Space Union Square's listing of vendors on their website...https://www.urbanspacenyc.com/union-square

 

The stall I'm referring to also appears to be the first of its namesake here in NYC; that is, if it's namesake has anything to do with the Manhattan location.  

 

Lou Yau Kee Chicken Rice is the name of the stall, and the only online reference I currently see is for their delivery menu from doordash.  Other references are to places in Singapore and Malaysia. Anyhoo, I ordered the chicken and rice dish with both roasted and poached chicken...

 

 

Apparently, I was one of the first 5 customers, and both yesterday and today they're giving 50% off, so I might as well have one of these as well...

 

 

The chicken was quote good, but the rice was the star - super flavorful. I like the addition of the yu choy for a green veg.

 

And I'm wondering if @KennethT knows anything about this place?

Thanks!  I had no idea.  When we lived in Murray Hill we would go to US Vanderbilt once in a while for lunch - there was a decent fried chicken sandwich place there, but it was always a bitch getting seats.

 

I checked out the Union Sq one a while ago and nothing really piqued my interest, but that chicken rice place might change that.  Although I will say that the amount of chilli sauce provided is exceptionally stingy - can you get more?  One of the things I love about my favorite chicken rice place in Singapore is that they have a large container of their chilli sauce, extra grated ginger, sweet soy sauce, etc. on each table (it's a sit down restaurant) - you can take as much as you want, which is (in my mind at least) how it should be.

[lindag]

11 minutes ago, weinoo said:

 

 

 

 

The chicken was quote good, but the rice was the star - super flavorful. I like the addition of the yu choy for a green veg.

 

 

Any ideas as to what made the rice so flavorful?

[weinoo]

4 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Although I will say that the amount of chilli sauce provided is exceptionally stingy - can you get more?  One of the things I love about my favorite chicken rice place in Singapore is that they have a large container of their chilli sauce, extra grated ginger, sweet soy sauce, etc. on each table (it's a sit down restaurant) - you can take as much as you want, which is (in my mind at least) how it should be.

 

Interesting - I didn't ask!  (I figured I'd ask you for your homemade sauce the next time I go!!).

 

By the way, did you see the price for one of their whole chickens????

 

 

[weinoo]

2 minutes ago, lindag said:

Any ideas as to what made the rice so flavorful?

 

Cooked in the chicken stock that they poach the chickens in?

 

8 minutes ago, KennethT said:

When we lived in Murray Hill we would go to US Vanderbilt once in a while for lunch - there was a decent fried chicken sandwich place

 

Bobwhite is in this one - but they only offer the sandwiches and "tenders" - I like Bobwhite's fried chicken on Avenue C, but as Sietsema mentioned, this is just an outpost of their OG store, and they're not doing the full monty.

[KennethT]

1 hour ago, weinoo said:

 

Cooked in the chicken stock that they poach the chickens in?

 

@lindag To make the rice for chicken rice, once the rice has been washed it is traditionally lightly fried in chicken fat with garlic and ginger.  It is then cooked using the liquid used to poach multiple chickens - which is essentially chicken stock - but is also flavored with garlic, ginger and green onion.  Also, some pandan is traditionally added to teh rice cooker which helps perfume the rice further.

[KennethT]

1 hour ago, weinoo said:

 

Interesting - I didn't ask!  (I figured I'd ask you for your homemade sauce the next time I go!!).

 

By the way, did you see the price for one of their whole chickens????

 

 

I didn't look anything up yet - I'm going to get takeout there tonight on the way home from work - hopefully they'll still have some left by around 7PM or so.  But if they're asking $17.80 for what you had, I don't think I have the stomach to look at what they'd charge for a whole chicken.  But it's New York, everything is expensive.  Compared to Singapore (which is also considered expensive, haha), where at my favorite place, it's like $7 Singapore dollars (so maybe $5.20 US) for the same quantity that you had, but in a sit down restaurant with service (and no tipping).

[lindag]

15 minutes ago, KennethT said:

@lindag To make the rice for chicken rice, once the rice has been washed it is traditionally lightly fried in chicken fat with garlic and ginger.  It is then cooked using the liquid used to poach multiple chickens - which is essentially chicken stock - but is also flavored with garlic, ginger and green onion.  Also, some pandan is traditionally added to teh rice cooker which helps perfume the rice further.

well, I had to look up pandan as I'd never heard of it.

If anyone her is like me, here's what I found:

click'

[weinoo]

3 hours ago, KennethT said:

I don't think I have the stomach to look at what they'd charge for a whole chicken.  But it's New York, everything is expensive.  Compared to Singapore (which is also considered expensive, haha), where at my favorite place, it's like $7 Singapore dollars (so maybe $5.20 US) for the same quantity that you had, but in a sit down restaurant with service (and no tipping).

 

They're asking $75 for whole birds!  (Which is, I'm guessing, a hell of a lot less than flying to Singapore?)

[KennethT]

24 minutes ago, weinoo said:

 

They're asking $75 for whole birds!  (Which is, I'm guessing, a hell of a lot less than flying to Singapore?)

😲

 

Sure it's a lot less, but that's still insane!

[KennethT]

So I went there tonight and picked up takeout to bring home (I live 2 blocks away).  I got the poached chicken rice with some extra "yu choy".  BTW - what I got was not yu choi but was gai lan (chinese broccoli).  Well cooked and tasty but not yu choi.  The poached chicken's texture and skin texture were excellent.  The rice had good flavor but I thought the texture was a touch mushy but certainly not unforgivable.  @weinoo Did you get a container of the grated ginger?  They originally gave me 1 container each of chilli sauce, grated ginger and sweet soy sauce.  The sweet soy sauce was watered down so instead of being thick and syrupy, it was liquid almost like a dark soy sauce.  The tiny container of chilli sauce was only half full so I asked for extra and he happily gave me another.  Even with the two containers and all of the ginger (which was mostly liquid ginger juice) I still had a bit of range anxiety as I was getting to the bottom of the sauce while I still had a good 1/4 of my portion to go.  So I had to ration...  The chilli sauce was ok - it was more heat than chilli flavor, but that's not uncommon, even in Singapore.

 

All in all, it was pretty good - but they had stopped the discount by the time I got there.  For 50% off I would have been ecstatic.  At full price, it is not something I'd get all the time but I would consider it when I had a strong hankering and was too lazy to make it myself.

 

@weinoo FYI - I don't keep chicken rice chilli sauce around all the time - it doesn't freeze so well - it definitely loses its freshness so I make it fresh when I make it.  It's not hard to make it though - you can make it yourself!!!  See here.

[weinoo]

Those prices are up there for those rich NYU babies!

 

My soy was thicker than yours, but I got no ginger!

[KennethT]

Just an update - I've been back a couple times now and they've been consistent.  I went in tonight and the lady taking my order remembered me from the first time I was there back in May!  They weren't busy so we wound up chatting - everyone working there is from Singapore - and when I mentioned how I'd be there next week, she slipped back into speaking Singlish with me which I enjoyed.  I asked for extra chilli sauce and she gave me 6 containers for the 2 orders, which wound up being a decent amount.

 

Also, they must not be that busy in the evenings as they have a new promotion - after 7PM week days and after 5 on weekends, it's buy 1 chicken rice, get one 50% off.  Also, starting next week, they're also going to be featuring a chicken curry noodle dish which I'm curious to try.  The lady I was chatting with said she tried it already and she really liked it.

 

 

[weinoo]

15 hours ago, KennethT said:

Just an update - I've been back a couple times now and they've been consistent.  I went in tonight and the lady taking my order remembered me from the first time I was there back in May!  They weren't busy so we wound up chatting - everyone working there is from Singapore - and when I mentioned how I'd be there next week, she slipped back into speaking Singlish with me which I enjoyed.  I asked for extra chilli sauce and she gave me 6 containers for the 2 orders, which wound up being a decent amount.

 

Also, they must not be that busy in the evenings as they have a new promotion - after 7PM week days and after 5 on weekends, it's buy 1 chicken rice, get one 50% off.  Also, starting next week, they're also going to be featuring a chicken curry noodle dish which I'm curious to try.  The lady I was chatting with said she tried it already and she really liked it.

 

Ooooh, this is all good news!