French Onion Soup Dumplings

by Celia Sin-Tien Cheng
February 3, 2006

THE STANTON SOCIAL
99 Stanton St
(Ludlow & Orchard Sts)
New York, NY 10002
212-995-0099

In a million years, I don’t think people (including me) would expect me to write a review on The Stanton Social, the trendy Lower East Side (LES) restaurant that opened last April.

I went there by accident, albeit, willingly. I was out with friends. We were looking for some place to have drinks and ended up in the LES. Someone suggested The Stanton Social, and I said let’s go. Okay, so maybe not all that accidental, but I was curious, and I was also with a twenty-something LES resident, so that’s my excuse.

At 9pm on a Friday night, the crowd in the upstairs bar was still somewhat interesting with a few attractive, local neighborhood hipsters hanging out. But as it got later, the crowd got grosser and grosser. I don’t know how else to put it. I had to ask myself if it was possible that the guys just kept getting more and more disgusting.

Our objective that night was not food. My friends and I met up to have drinks. But really, in my book, food is always in the picture. The second floor at The Stanton Social is divided into three sections: extra dining room seating from the restaurant downstairs (in which you better have a reservation or be ready for a two-hour wait), a crowded main bar area and a lounge seating area where you can drink and munch. The wait for the lounge seating was supposedly an hour. I’m pretty sure we waited two, but since we were having fun hanging out at the bar, I wasn’t outraged by the wait, which logically speaking was ridiculous.

Sufficiently liquored up and having a good time, I had entirely no expectations about the food here, except that after a two-hour wait I was hungry. I ordered a bunch of dishes to sample, including the recommended French onion soup dumplings, and was pleasantly surprised by how good the food was. I mean, I came here to drink, not to eat, but the food at The Stanton Social is better than a lot of restaurants where I go specifically to eat. The French onion soup dumplings are severed in an escargot platter, in which six little puff-looking “dumplings” sit. The French onion soup is enveloped by cheese-covered bread balls and it’s yummy. I love the fact that they are bite-sized. The idea is rather ingenious and made me wonder why no one thought of that before? The Chinese have Shanghainese soup-dumplings, but to do this with French onion soup is rather brilliant. The hanger steak also left quite an impression on me, while the mini Kobe-beef burger did the opposite. Kobe-beef burger on a menu always seems to be more of a gimmick and rarely taste as amazing as they sound, and the one here only confirmed my theory.

I know I’ve said this several times about Thor, but with The Stanton Social I really mean it: I don’t think I would return to suffer the crowd and atmosphere. The difference with Thor is that I really crave the excellence of the food. At The Stanton Social the food is good but a two-hour wait upstairs or down — and a meat market crowd where the women all think they are in Sex and the City, and the men, happily picking them up — will certainly make me think twice about going back. Maybe brunch?!

Also in American, Dumplings, LES, Soup