Mama Chang

Peter Chang’s empire keeps growing—but this four-year-old ode to the homestyle cuisine of the Chang women in his family remains a standout. Long-cooked stews, such as fragrant seafood and tofu in a clay pot, are pure comfort. Fancier are plump shrimp-and-chive dumplings, salt-and-pepper shrimp, and lacquered Peking duck with pancakes so delicate you can see through them. Some dishes sneak up on you. Tofu-skin-wrapped mushrooms with baby bok choy seem tame, bland even, until paired with one of the restaurant’s signatures: fiery cumin-fried flounder. The result is revelatory.