Mala Project Reviews

Long story short- I didn’t expect it to be THAT good. The Appetizers are superb, I’m a huge fan of the mini Mantous and these were the best ones I had. I even loved the eggplant which generally as a dish in general. The dry pot was excellent as well. Super tasty!! The service was really great. Our waiter spent a lot of time with us, explaining to us how the structure of the menu und made excellent recommendations. Perfect spot to have lunch or dinner after your shopping stroll through the 5th ;)

This small restaurant is located on 46th st between 5th & 6th ave. I liked their appetizers and vegetable bowl. The food is tasty and spicy. Their menu comes with different spice levels. I couldn't eat extra spicy so ordered dish with just spicy again. I recommend this place if you visit NYC and looking for a Chinese restaurant.

They call this “dry pot”, which I hadn’t heard of before,but we really enjoyed it. There is a long list of ingredients, and you choose what goes into your pot. It tastes a bit like stir fry. I can only eat the “mild” level of spicy, and I wouldn’t recommend trying a higher level of spice on a first visit. Ordering and paying all happens by app, which is very convenient, because you can order as you want, and not all at the same time. I highly recommend.

The food at Mala Project is amazing! Delicious & authentic Sichuan cuisine! Everything we ordered was delicious but defiantly try the dry pots. There is a large selection of meats & vegetables to try, Cooked traditionally in a dry pot - that will make you leave you wanting to come back for more. You can also choose your spice level, from not spicy at all / mild or spicy. I am a spice person but opted for the mild and was perfect. They also have my some chilli oil on the side. And if you have room, defiantly try the DanDan noodles - yum! Friendly staff in a casual and laid back environment. Well priced. Highly recommend this place :)

We visited Mala Project East Village location a few years ago when they just opened and it wasn’t a memorable experience. However, we did see the improvement with their service and food this time. We had Eggplant With Roasted Garlic and Build Your Own Mala Dry Pot to share between two of us and the portion was decent with reasonable price. Their food was overall flavorful and delicate especially the eggplant.

While the Mala Project was close to my hotel, I ordered the hot and sour noodle soup to go and was very happy. There was a lost of spicy options especially the dry pot that I wanted to try but being a solo diner did not allow me the luxury. The hot and sour noodle soup was my best compromise. Lots of noodles, meat, shrimp ball, bean curd but best of all no peppercorn landmines to worry about. Will definitely come back with more family members.

I've been to the east village a lot, but this actually the first time that I tried out the midtown location. Food is amazing (as usual) and the ambience is great. There's a cocktail selection that you CANNOT miss!

We came without reservation and had to wait for 5 minutes, which we were glad to do so, it had been told on the telephone. Simple and warm interior, quick and effective service, great food . We had the dondon noodles to share as an entree, and these were really gorgeous, not so easy to have a great balance when you have only a few ingredients, mildly spicy but spot on. For sure you have to try the dry hotpan, you choose the ingredients yourselves and these are cooked in a very fast way, so everything nicely al dente and with lots of flavor. Taste is the primary goal in here, and they are succeeding! Don’t expect here a service to European standards, but more the American way. The wine could be put in a wineglas instead of in some kind of soft drink glas, but hey food was great and certainly to NYC standards quite cheap. Really seeing forward to come back here !

The food was surprisingly good. Service is prompt. The decor is nothing special, but the food is good and the prices are reasonable

My daughter was introduced to Málà Project recently. She visited the East Village location and loved it so she suggested trying the Midtown location. Our friends from CA were in town and staying a few blocks away. The food was really good. It’s dry pot, and you pick the items that go in it. There were good selections: beef, pork, chicken, seafood, vegetables, etc. You first select a level of spiciness. I then selected pork belly, squid, lotus root, box choy and noodles. We had a large party, so we were only able to get a reservation early...5:30pm. And it got packed soon after. There was always a line, and people seemed to wait for quite a while.

Cute place with really good and friendly servers. The food was outstanding and different. Very flavorful. Loads of vegetarian options as well

The room is not very large, but the seating is comfortable. The cocktails are creative, with unique flavors. The Dry Pot is very good, we had a variety of proteins and Vegetables. The Chicken Fried Noodles were a tasty side dish. The service was helpful and attentive.

I love getting the lunch special at the Mala Project! Mel has been our waitress 3x, and she is awesome! She always makes our meal vegan and tells the kitchen to use very little oil. It's always delicious!

We ventured to the Bryant Park location (original locale in the East Village). We had reservations for dinner which was a good thing because the restaurant filled up quickly. The décor is a modern Asian theme and the space between the tables is adequate. My friend is a vegetarian so we did not have any meat-based dishes. We started with the tasty Mala peanuts.....spicy. The scallion pancake was light and a bit greasy but good. The Dandan noodle (sans meat) was fantastic! We both loved the sauce and the noodles. We ordered the Dry Pot with only vegetables (bamboo shoots, snap peas, sweet potato, bok choy, bean sprout and corn). I really wanted to add one of the five types of mushroom but my fellow diner doesn't like mushrooms. The level of spiciness can be adjusted according to the diner's wishes. The cooked ingredients come out in a large wooden bowl which the diners mix together and serve with rice. The dry pot was excellent. There was way too much food for two people so we boxed it up and each of us took a large portion home. The Bryant Park location had a bar and the cocktails were good. Service was slow but to be fair, the place was packed and I didn't see that many servers on the night that we were there. It took a long time for us to receive the check but we were catching up since we had not seen each other in a very long time. The server was very friendly but appeared a bit frazzled on the night that we ate there. I highly recommend this restaurant but I would snag a reservation if you really want to attend.....which you do if your are a Sichuan fan.

During lunch time there is always a line. A big favorite amongst asian food connoisseurs in midtown NYC. It is a no frills spot, not cheap though and the ingredients are fresh and of high quality. The food can be “very” spicy, but it is delicious. They essentially do very spicy stir-fry/hot-pots served with rice. My tongue was tingling for two hours after my lunch, but I enjoyed it.

This place was so good and it became my #1 recommended place in NYC. I had the Dry pot and it was so good and a perfect level of spices.

This was our first time dining at Mala Project. We enjoy all types of Asian good and wanted to try this place. We placed our order via the phone app and the drinks came out quickly. The ginger ale and rose lemonade offerings were good. We tried five dishes: The Mine is better than yours noodles with shrimp is like a typical lomein. The Mouthwatering chicken was a cold chicken dish. We weren’t expecting that. They did a great job on the fried dumplings which were perfectly fried. The skin was a nice texture that we don’t often find. The dry pots are delicious and portion size was large. We enjoyed both the Fish fillet & pork belly drypot as well as the Hawaiian drypot. The ingredients in the dry pots were creative and scrumptious. We like the tied vermicelli noodles, pineapples, fish fillets. Would certainly come back for the dry pot!

I ordered Málà Project almost every weekend since 2018, up till recently their delivery services have been sucked. I paid 20 dollars per pot to select meats yet when the delivery arrived, all the pots have no meats. And this has been happened multiple times! Very disappointing to the services. Good job, I am going to handynasty this weekend. Bye Málà Project.

The food was outstanding. We had the potato in starters and nanden noodles. Both were very flavorful. The pot rice was also very good. Some spice has this numbing sensation which felt odd before but nice after

This is a pretty nondescript restaurant in Midtown. But the food was excellent-I stuck to vegetarian options and a surprisingly good cocktail. Service was quick and prices were modest.

Excellent Chinese food- spicy food .. although you can choose the spice level. Purple rice is delicious! Must order with your meal ... The spicy peanuts are great with beer / cola. The aubergine was no good ! The vegetarian bowl was awesome!! Over all excellent concept and yummy food

Food here is not extraordinary but it goes on the interesting idea of providing a wok where the ingredients can be chosen individually, and they are then sautéed with the desired level of spiciness. It was freshly done and the service was really great. With a nice crisp white wine it was a very enjoyable simple lunch.

Took the family for some Chinese food and this spot was recommended by a local and man was it on point. If we had known to make reservations all would have been perfect. The drink selection doesn’t include anything normal so room temperature water was the choice. The food was authentic and great seasoning!