Lulu Seafood

Fresh and good selection of seafood. You pick the choice of seafood of your liking and they cook for you for a fee. Overall it's good and reasonable price if you don't order kingcrab.

The food is good, seafoods are fresh, but beware the way they charge is besides the cost of fresh seafood(charge by pound), there is 30% charge of the cooking fee, so when you add up is not cheap, and the kitchen is kind a slow, especially when the restaurant is packed, it takes a long time to wait for the food to come out~

Walking into the restaurant the the impression is that the place is simply decorated and is nothing fancy. Cartoonish pictures of sea creatures and mermaids are placed every few places on the wall or pillars. What draws the eye the most is dozens of tanks of live seafood such as fishes, crabs, lobsters, clams, etc. This is where you choose which one to pick out for the chef's to cook for your dinner that night and most goes by pound according to seasonal prices.

My girl said that the atmosphere reminds her of those street restaurants in Asia.

I found everything to be fresh and simple but simple in a good way. Fresh as could be since everything was swimming in the tanks in front of you when you chose one. The simplicity lets you taste the freshness of the seafood without masking it too much. Lightly steamed or stir fried with your chosen sauces and herbs seems to be the preferred method here.

Some of the selections could be made it multiple dishes from one creature. For example, fish could be made into a souip from the leftover parts like the head, tail, and bone which the main meaty section would be made into a steamed dish smothered in a light soy sauce with vegetables. The king Crab of ours was made into 3 seperate dishes as seen in my photos.

The reviews here seems to be mixed on yelp and Google maps but the bad ones seems to not understand that seafood is expensive thus complaining it's not cheap or the other common theme with complaints there is a 30% charge for cooking what you picked out from the tanks to eat. That complaint is not valid since the way this place works is that they charge you per pound seasonal fair market price for seafood and then charge you 30% to cook it. It ends up be cheaper than most seafood dishes at restaurants this way but some expect what they see on the tank prices is what it should be without understanding there is no profit that way for the restaurant.

Outside of the seafood, there is a selection of vegetable dishes and meat dishes on the menu. The vegetables is made with the same kind of pleasant simplicity as the seafood. I can't say anything about the meat dishes since we didn't order any the night we came. It is a seafood restaurant after all so we thought why not just go with it's strengths? And no the chicken, lambs, and pigs were not held in tanks or cages like the seafood.

Btw. I parked 3 blocks away to avoid the parking fee at the lot right at the restaurant but I found out if you eat here they stamp a coupon for you to park free when you pick up your car. You just need to tip the valet.

My go to place for Seafood in NYC. First of all, it is not a decent place for it's settings, it is more like Chinese street fish market style with little decorations. But the point is they have fresh seafood from array of fish tanks and they cook in most authenticate Chinese (Cantonese way) to preserve the freshness and flavor of seafood. If you like authenticate Chinese food or you are from China, this would be a five star place for you. Otherwise if you are open minded seafood lover and care more about tastes than settings this would also be a unique experience.

(The photo is not from the restaurant, but a street seafood market in China to give a comparison on how seafood market provide fresh seafood in China).

Pick what you want to eat, interesting concept and the food is alright. Fresh seafood so that’s pretty good. Not amazing though and didn’t impress me that much to make me want to go back again.