Shanghai shumai, dumplings stuffed with sticky rice, are a specialty at Kung Fu Kitchen in the Dining District at Roosevelt Field in Garden City. Credit: Newsday/Erica Marcus

With its spare, elegant design and selection of on-trend vendors such as Melt Shop, The Little Beet and Maoz Vegetarian, Roosevelt Field’s second-floor “Dining District” puts most mall food courts to shame. But the offerings have taken a great leap forward with the opening of Kung Fu Kitchen, a branch of a casual Chinese restaurant with three locations in Midtown Manhattan.

Here you’ll find cooks making lamien, the hand-stretched noodles that are a specialty Northern China. Kung Fu Kitchen calls them “ramen,” but the soup bowls and stir fries they grace have a decided (and delicious) non-Japanese flavor. Have them in broth with chicken, vegetables, beef, seafood, roast pork, spicy beef, roast duck or shrimp; or stir-fried with the same ingredients. Prices range from $8 to $13.50.

On the dumpling front, Kung Fu Kitchen is one of the only places on Long Island where I’ve seen the carb-on-carb holy grail of Shanghai shumai, open-topped dumplings stuffed with savory sticky rice. You can also get Shanghai-style soup dumplings, handmade Northern-style dumplings, scallion pancakes and pork buns ($4 to $10.25).

Kung Fu Kitchen takes over the location just to the left of the Dining District entrance that was Galangal, a Thai eatery. (The “Galangal” sign is still there.)  

Kung Fu Kitchen is in the Dining District at Roosevelt Field, 630 Old Country Rd., Garden City, no phone.

Erica Marcus, a passionate but skeptical omnivore, has been reporting and opining on the Long Island food scene since 1998.

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