Draft:Golden Unicorn

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Background[edit]

Golden Unicorn is a restaurant serving Chinese food, meant to reflect the culture of local Chinese immigrants. Established in 1989, the much-lauded restaurant pioneered the neighborhood's first upscale Cantonese-style banquet-style dining restaurant with dim sum service.

Menu[edit]

The menu contains traditional dumplings and buns, such as steamed shrimp dumplings and steamed pork buns, along with large meat orders such as Peking duck and steamed spare ribs, and innovative ideas, like sesame seed mochi balls and piglet buns(fluffy exterior with an egg custard filling and piglet decor). Golden Unicorn pioneered traditional dim sum combined with other cultures to create innovations like these.

Praise[edit]

Golden Unicorn has gotten positive from many critics, such as Michelin,[1] and even held a spot in the five best restaurants of NYC by Food and Wine Magazine at one point, remaining the only Chinese restaurant to achieve such a feat.

COVID-19's effect on Golden Unicorn[edit]

Darren Liu, the son of the current owner, said it closed its doors last year during the pandemic, which forced management to rethink their business model. “Pre-COVID, we would always do carted dim sum service, which is bringing around a cart with steamer boilers on the bottom, where it would constantly heat the dim sum dishes, so when a cart is driven to a table, it’s really fresh and ready to go. And of course, now, we had to retire that just for safety reasons,” Liu said. “We had to just pretty much adopt a new model, which is takeout and delivery, which we never did before because dim sum is not really a type of food that does well when delivered.”[2]

Anti-Asian Violence's effect on Golden Unicorn[edit]

Asian hate crimes have emptied the streets of Chinatown, as many restaurant workers feel unsafe due to the increasing levels of violence. This means less tourism for Asian restaurants, which can cause financial drought for many establishments. “We need more support on the government level,” said Johnny Liu, owner of Chinatown’s second biggest restaurant, the Golden Unicorn, speaking through his son Darren Liu. “We get no money for arts and tourism even though we bring in taxes.”[3]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Golden Unicorn – New York - a MICHELIN Guide Restaurant". MICHELIN Guide. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
  2. ^ Park, Minju (2021-07-02). "Challenges remain as this dim sum restaurant reopens". Marketplace. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
  3. ^ "Chinatown struggles to recover amid anti-Asian violence". 2021-04-26. Retrieved 2024-02-16.