Citizens' Committee to Study Mid-Priced Restaurants on the Upper West Side

Rating:  

To be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot about Silk Road Palace but I sure do want to go back there.  On the whole a great asset to the community, I say.

Rating:

Summary: Free wine and OK Chinese food.

Insider’s Tip: Franzia will seek revenge if abused.

No sign of Alec Baldwin­

The essence of the Silk Road Palace is the contradiction between its claim to be a traditional Chinese restaurant, complete with simple decor and unflappable manager, and its generous and continuous offerings of gutter wine. Before you are even seated a glass is filled from a plastic pitcher and handed to you. Perhaps a stranger who waits near you harrumphes that the wine is not very alcoholic, but it hardly matters in such company as the CCSMPRUWS Investigative Task Force, who made sure that nobody shirked their duties in sampling the beverage of choice at Silk Road Palace, for the sake of an informed review. The manager, a soothing man, shrewdly cooed to one of us who was enthusiastically encouraging another, “Don’t force him, please. We don’t want anybody drunk.” Shortly thereafter, someone refilled our carafe.

The food–decent and unremarkable–is a forgettable accessory to the rest of the Silk Road Palanc experience, which this reviewer would highly recommend.