Joyful Garden, Chinatown (W50)

I popped into this new (one month) Chinese restaurant in "Chinatown" (on west 50) on my way home from Winter Garden today. I grabbed some things for dinner. I'll tell you about them after I'm done listing SOME of the freaky (in a good way) stuff they offer. Seaweed and raw crab. Pork tongue. Fish belly. Cordyceps flower. Rabbit. Pork liver. Frogs. Geoduck. Yellow Croaker. Goose Fish. Arrow Head Fish. Fish buckle. Rotten Leather. And I didn't include stuff like jelly fish and snails as freaky. You get the idea. I tried to ascertain the regional cuisine they represent, but, I just heard that the owner had a place in NYC's Chinatown. I settled on a safe dish and an experiment. I had the Fuchow (thin noodle wrapping) Dumpling Soup for $5 and the Pork Stomach with Sour Cabbage over Rice for $9. The soup was good. The usual chicken/pork broth and 16 dumplings! A good amount of broth. The stomach was actually quite tasty. It had the texture of an abalone or some other tough mollusk with a porky taste. I'm not sure if pigs have four stomachs like cows, but, this one was non-icky if there are multiples. The sauce was some kind of very light, black bean involved sauce. Chinese food can be ridiculous on the sauce side, so, I was happy with this level of restraint. The cabbage was good. I didn't care for all the green and red pepper. I hate non-spicy pepper. It tastes like herbaceous barf and makes you gassy. The rice portion was huge. Just white rice, A little water logged/soggy. The plaace seat sixteen in four tables on the right and about the same in two tables on the left. There were a few more tables around the bend on the right and two private rooms. The decoration is mostly water tanks. Some with bubbles and some with dinner. It's located in the part of the complex across from the oriental Market (to the right of the entrance). The composition of the patrons was surprisingly mixed for such an ambitious and new place. It was full. I would be food spelunking here once a week if I lived near by. Freaky food that tastes good? Now that is a business plan!