We had a hankering for some hand drawn noodles the other day so we ventured to Chinatown to visit the good people at Nan Zhou. If you've never been there, we wonder what you're waiting for.

Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle

Just a few doors down from this amazing restaurant is some major construction at 1016 Race St., a site that was home to a store called Shanghai Bazaar for many years. Over a year ago, Michael Klein shared the news that restaurateur Kenny Poon was planning a food court for this location with eight different options, some of which would be open all day and all night. At the time, the food court opening was projected for February of 2016 but clearly the operation ran into some delays. When we went by, it was clear that there was still much work to be done inside and out for this project, which will be called Chinatown Square.

In the past

Current view

You can see a sign on the building that a restaurant called The Halal Guys will be one of the tenants. Hooray for Middle Eastern food in Chinatown! Per the Chinatown Square Instagram page, we can see additional tenants will include Kurry Korner (curry restaurant), Ice NY Philly (Thai rolled ice cream), and Philly Poke (a specialty raw fish dish, explained here). Given the diversity of cuisines represented thus far, we expect the remaining tenants will all bring something new and different to the proverbial table.

Once the work is finished, the place should look like this:

Rendering of the project

View of the interior

Who's getting hungry?