Precious Chinese Cuisine – Plate 3

The places that are most skeptical of the projects I do are always the asian places run by the old guard. Maybe it has something to do with my accent . . .

Precious Chinese Cuisine was the reason that Hoboken appears in 93 Plates. There are plenty of restaurants in New York that would love to be included in this project, and I’ve even turned down a few places that were interested in promotion for promotion’s sake, but PCC was one that I wanted to include regardless of what they said.

I guess that’s just how it had to go down. Michelle and I went inside and I asked for Tracy (the manager whom I’d been speaking to and already had e-mailed, and had indicated the owner was getting back to her), one of the workers grabbed my card from me and left for the back of the house. He came to the front after a moment and he told me Tracy wasn’t there. The guy might have been the worst liar I’ve ever met. If you put an employee in that position, that’s pretty much all you can expect.

I’ll only forgive Tracy because the Crispy Sesame Chicken at PCC is absolutely to effing die for.

After Benny Tudino’s, Michelle and I spent the day at my friend Steve’s place. Steve was the man who enlightened me to this beautiful chicken. I had been talking this chicken up since Michelle agreed to come out today. It was so good, I already posted about it. So good, when I asked some frequent patrons at the table next to us what the best thing at the restaurant was, they said “probably the sesame chicken.” So good, in fact, that Michelle immediately asked if they delivered to her place in Jersey City (they do, all you JC-ites reading this). Michelle was curious as to how the breading on the chicken stayed so crispy even through the sauce (as was I). Another one converted to the dark side that is the Crispy Sesame Chicken at Precious Chinese Cuisine.

They also have these things with sweet and sour sauce instead of bread when you sit down for dinner. Why doesn’t every Chinese restaurant serve fried wonton chips (thanks Christine)as finger food?

It’s sad to say, but the other item we had is really an afterthought. I’d been interested in the walnut shrimp since I was wowed by the fare at Chau Chow City, so Michelle ordered it to see what it would be like. Most anything we got here would have paled in comparison to the chicken, but the thing that was weird about the dish was that we both remembered walnut shrimp being tossed in a lighter, white sauce, and this was in a sweet and soury glaze. The prawns were huge, the sauce was tangy, the walnuts could have been a better complement to the dish, but a nice dish nonetheless. The problems were #1 it wasn’t what we were expecting and #2 it would take nothing short of a miracle to knock the chicken off its pedestal as the top entree of the day.

So far, the only thing over here that I can confidently say is worth the PATH fare to Hoboken is the Crispy Sesame Chicken. Seriously. I’ll repeat myself; It’s worth the PATH fare and the time it takes to get to the ‘boke to try this chicken. Besides, when was the last time you were in Jersey?

Guest Writer: Michelle Weber

Precious Chinese Cuisine
128 Washington St
Hoboken, NJ
(201) 798-8827