East Northport residents will have one less spot for Chinese food when Precious, a Chinese food mainstay in East Northport in business for 25 years, serves its last egg roll Tuesday night. A person who answered the phone said the restaurant’s lease is up and the owners are retiring.
Newsday found much to enjoy at Precious when it opened in 2001 in a stand-alone building on Larkfield Road that housed a Pizza Hut back in the 1970s. “The moment you sample something as seemingly prosaic as wonton soup, you’ll feel transported from East Northport to Flushing or Chinatown,” food critic Joan Remnick wrote. The restaurant’s classic menu included steamed roast pork buns, dumplings, cold sesame noodles and scallion pancakes to start, followed by entrees from parchment prawns (a riff on salt and pepper shrimp), sesame tofu, moo shu vegetables, and General Tso’s chicken. Precious’ peacock chicken was “shredded poultry done two ways, with a delicate rice wine sauce and in an intensely gingery dressing,” Newsday’s review said.
Precious joins a grand list of long-running Chinese eateries from a certain era that have closed, like Jade King in Roslyn Heights (1975-2025), Hoi Ming in Sayville (circa 1968-2020), Palace of Wong in Rockville Centre (1967-2015), Hy Ting in Riverhead (1974-2018), Sun Ming in Huntington (1966-2009) and Hunam in Levittown (1978-2007).
Classic Chinese food fans should know that Kwong Ming of Wantagh (1962) is still serving fat, satisfying egg rolls, chicken chow mein and egg foo young.
A global freelancer who has checked her suitcase to raise her young daughter on her native Long Island, Marie Elena will always make time for good mezcal, even better tacos and killer conversation. Preferably, in a corner bar seat. She can be found on Instagram at @mariesworldeats.