Buddha Bodai Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant
5 Mott St., New York, N.Y.
Hours: 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Menu: https://www.buddha-bodai.com/menuUpdate.html
Suitable for: Dim sum lovers of any persuasion
The very instant that LeeLee and I decided to visit New York City for Christmas this December, I started plotting out where we were going to have Christmas dinner. Naturally, a visit to Chinatown quickly popped up as the best course of action in order for us to glean the true New York holiday-dining experience. But where, specifically?
It took a lot of prayerful consideration to land on Buddha Bodai, an all-veg dim sum restaurant smack-dab in the middle all the Mott Street action. And after eyeing their online menu for several days leading up to the blessed event, we turned up in the late morning hours of Christmas Day, along with seemingly the rest of New York, to put our names on the wait list, which by that point was an hour long for a party of two.
But we didn’t mind about a lengthy wait time. We had shops to scope out, people to watch, fancy chopsticks to ogle in store windows. Well before our hourlong wait was up, we got a text saying our table was soon to be ready and to come on back to the restaurant.
Within minutes we were seated and left to our own devices to make our way through the extensive menu. There were really two paths for us to walk down – a more typical one-entrée-per-person, or the dim sum route. We decided to go for dim sum, and I began to enthusiastically mark up the menu.
Now, LeeLee said I was ordering too much food, but I waved him off with an “Oh, pooh,” and kept marking. Before giving our list back to the server, I did X one dish off – I can’t remember what – but left seven more, with LeeLee shaking his head all the while at my folly. I didn’t care. It was Christmas and by gum we were going to feast.
The first order up was our jellyfish, a plant-based concoction that was awfully tentacle-like and tart, the way I would imagine real jellyfish to taste. At first, LeeLee was a little skittish around it, but he soon came around.
After that, the feast started rolling in hot and heavy. Two different kinds of dumplings, a sticky bun, a ham roll, some fried oysters. We made light work of everything but the oysters, which we found to be too … oystery. (Later, when I spoke with my mother on the phone and mentioned the oysters, she said, “Well, you never liked real oysters in the first place, so why would you think you’d like the vegetarian version?” Point, counterpoint.) At any rate, the dumplings were amazing, perfect little pillows of veggies, and the buns were just so fluffy and chewy in all the right ways.
Finally, out came the spring rolls, a little later than we expected but still a treat. To be honest, I had hoped the server would forget them, as we were already lolling about the table crying Uncle, but she did not, and we ate two out of three. Looking back, I wished I had put the third in my purse for our post-lunch trip across the Brooklyn Bridge, but I did not.
Our server asked us if we wanted dessert and we just sighed. No, no dessert for us on this day. We had stuffed our faces plenty.
When we left, the restaurant was still jam-packed, the wait list continuing to grow. And it’s easy to see why. Buddha Bodai certainly did not disappoint! It’s definitely worthy of your next holiday feast — or any feast, for that matter!
:)