SF's Mission Chinese Approved for old Rhong Tiam Space

Early yesterday evening, news broke that Mission Chinese, a wildly popular San Francisco restaurant, was coming to New York and opening in the former Rhong Tiam/Bia Garden space. And last night Community Board 3's SLA Licensing Committee unanimously approved the team's plan for beer and wine for the space so long as they operate as a full service restaurant from 11 AM and 2 AM seven days a week.

Owner Danny Bowien, who will move here on March 1 to open the restaurant later this spring, reports that the menu will be a similar mix of eclectic, reasonably priced Chinese dishes (or "Americanized Oriental Cuisine" as he's put it), including items like ma po tofu, salt cod fried rice and kung pao corned beef. And he's keeping the charitable business model—75 cents from every dish is donated to a local charity—an aspect that CB3 smiled upon last night. The only question is: can this SF upstart and food media darling make the awkward indoor/outdoor Orchard St. space work where Michael Bao and Andy Yang couldn't? We'll see what they do with the space later this spring.
· Mission Chinese Food To Open in New York [~ESF~]
· Mission Chinese Food Is Coming to New York [DJ]
· Mission Chinese Food [Official Site]