Li-lis: French Fine Dining with an Asian Twist

Paris, the city of love has come to New York City in the form of Li-lis. Li-lis means little ladies. This new upscale, trendy, and romantic restaurant has finally found a home in the lower east side. Li-lis presents a rare, diverse menu that fuses both French and Asian. The lead Chef Chin spent 20 years of dedicated studying to the arts of French cuisine. These skills were paired with his Asian cultural background and thus, Li-lis was born. Asian ingredients, such as lemongrass, ginger, yu choy and more are used with French techniques to produce a rare, delectable taste. As Chef Chin says, he doesn’t want to do anything the easy way, he wants to do it the best.

The lead chef of Li-Lis is the handsome chef Hok Chin (Best Chef America 2014, New York Times Review Chef don’t miss 2010, Guest Chef for Hilary Clinton, Guest Chef for Bloomberg) who is a recent recipient for the China America Trade and Culture Association of New York for Creative Culinary Award 2015. He was born in Hong Kong and learn to cook French food in New York. He started his career in the culinary field at a young age in Hong Kong and after he immigrated to New York in 1993, he overcame all difficulties to become a top Chinese chef in French cuisine. Chin is an innovator with the ability to create creative dishes utilizing both Asian and French cooking. He also cares about the presentation of the dish and always tries his best to create interesting items for the menu. During an interview with chef Chin, he clearly expressed his passion about cooking especially his love for creating fusion food that combines both Asian and French cooking skills as well as the finding a balance with all ingredients that both cultures that represent.

When we first stepped into Li-lis, we immediately fell in love with the warm, cozy, and lofty restaurant offers bar seating for exquisite French wines or an intimate, comfortable dining table. A light French jazz echoes throughout the restaurant, bringing a lively romance to the air. There is an open kitchen for you to watch as the chefs prepare your meal. Every dish is cooked right in front of you with the great efforts of the team that sure to please picky eaters like us.

One of the most popular entrées, the Duck Breast A L’armagnac is a French dish cooked with Asian preparations. The meat is marinated for hours in allspice, five spice, fennel seed and coriander. Asian greens, Gai Lan and Yu Choy are cooked beside the meat. After this, a dry plum sauce is cooked in with sugar, apple, cinnamon and orange peels to be glazed over the duck.

If you are up to a veggie treasure hunt, try Garlic Tiger Prawns. They are a roasted ratatouille mix of zucchini, red and yellow peppers, eggplant, tomato and onion. Everything is pan sautéed so each individual vegetable retains its potent taste. Each dish comes with a good portion of 8 to 10 prawns, topped off with Asian seasonings.

We recommend you to save some room for the dessert (especially the generous portion of every dish), because the desserts are just as scrumptious as their meals. A popular one is the almond pear tart, a classic French dish composed of candied ginger, cherry sorbet and almond paste topped of by sauternes pear, poached in wine. While the tart’s exterior is flaky and buttery, the interior is filled with soft cream where each ingredient highlights one another.

Li-lis currently seats up to 75 guests in their dining tables, bar and lounge area. The food and setting is sure to provide a proper atmosphere and leave your guests feeling pampered. Li-lis is participating in New York Restaurant Week and will also offer special deals for the Lunar New Year. We will definitely be back and bring our big family to enjoy the wonderful dishes that chef Chin and his team has created.

Location: Li-lis, 112 Stanton St, Manhattan. Website: http://www.li-lis.com.

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