On a chilly day, a bowl or ramen, soup, or donburi sounds good. Now, I have added another item to that list. Clay pot dish! We visited Clay Pot NYC in their East Village location. They are still relatively new (opened early 2018), but their popularity shows they are doing very well!

A few steps down from the street level, a long and narrow interior with great aroma appears… They have their kitchen right at the entrance, surrounded by a few counter seats. The staffs were busy cooking all the clay pots over the open frame.

Clay Pot is a Hong Kong dish with a style of cooking rice in a clay pot over an open-flame setting. The clay pot allows rice to breath while being cooked, yet keeping all the flavors in the inside of the pot. All the staffs were wearing the same t-shirt that says “Rice to Meet You!” which was quite clever and funny!

The table seating is passed the kitchen, and there are not that many. Each seat is set in a small, tight corners, and you will most likely be sharing the small table with other customers if there is a seat open at your table. Not very comfortable when it comes to seating, not easy to move around, but hey, this is NYC… They had several hooks at a couple of spots on the walls. Since there is no place to put your jackets or anything around your table, it is a good idea to use those hooks.

The interior is quite simple, and the same can be said about their menu. They offer their clay pot with two, three, or all toppings. On the back of the menu, they had super cute instruction on how to eat clay pot. Very nice ad helpful if you never had one before. They don’t offer hot tea, but they will bring you hot water, which is almost as nice as having a hot tea.

I ordered one with Baby Shrimp, Pork Belly, and Chinese Sausage ($14). My hubby went with Chicken, Pork Belly, and Chinese Sausage ($14). Since they are made to order, it takes a short while for the clay pot to come out. It is always better to have a little wait to get a very fresh dish than to have a quick meal that is not fresh.

When our server brought our clay pots, he poured some sweet and tangy sauce on the top. Then, he pointed to the sauces that were placed at each table. They were soy sauce, Sriracha, and their special concoction of ginger and scallion. He recommended to add soy sauce and ginger in our clay pot to enhance the flavor. We loved the ginger concoction, it was so tasty and added a little kick to the dish.

The clay pot is made with jasmine rice, corn, spinach, fried tofu, scallion and your choice of protein. It also had half the flavored-egg as well. So, it had lots of ingredients in it! And the clay pot itself was a bit bigger than I thought it would be, which was great.

They had the three toppings lined up nice and neat, and the clay pot was quite hot, keeping the food nice and hot for a good while. I think having three toppings would be the maximum amount in order to really enjoy each ingredients, without it being way too much mix of everything…but that’s just me.

I didn’t really know what “Chinese Sausage” was going to be like, but it was a good surprise. The sausage was quite tasty, plump and packed with flavor. It had a little sweetness to it. The shrimp on the other side was not as good as I wanted it to be. I was expecting a bigger, fancier shrimp… But then, it did say “Baby Shrimp” on the menu, so it does make sense. It was nice and plump for sure.

The pork was so tender, juicy, and tasty! They had a few pieces of pork, all nice size and thickness. They know how to cook them just right! It was my favorite topping out of the three topping that I chose. And the egg was really good too, marinated to give the extra flavor. It was cooked perfectly so that it was not overcooked nor dry.

And last but not least, chicken on my hubby’s clay pot. When I saw “Chicken” on the menu, I imagined some boring little chicken pieces, but I was totally wrong. The chicken was lightly fried, tender and moist, VERY tasty! It was surprisingly delicious which is always a good thing. 

The corn and spinach in the clay pot was good too. Having veggies in here brought the whole dishes to a one big happy family of flavors and textures. Speaking of texture, towards the end, you need to start scraping with your spoon to get the charred, crispy rice that are stuck on the inside of clay pot. In a way, this was the Asian version of paella, with mixing the ingredients with rice and then ending with socarrat.

They do have a bathroom, all the way in the back. The space around the bathroom door is quite small and congested. The staff also come by this area often to get some condiment refills, cold beverage, or get some other supplies. So, if someone is in the bathroom, there really isn’t a space to stand outside the door and wait… The bathroom itself was nice and clean, roomy and had everything you need.

We were happy we got to try this spot out for their clay pot dishes. After tasting them, I understand the reason why they are popular. The dishes were flavorful, filling, tasty and affordable too. It is especially great on a cold day. Our server, Eric was super nice and polite. He took a really good care of us. I would love to go back again to try some different toppings!

 

Clay Pot NYC – 58 St. Mark’s Pl, New York, NY 10003