Momofuku-esque

Look for a new restaurant to open in Inman Square toward the end of the year. Currently called East by Northeast, the project is coming to the space that used to be Benatti. Chef Phillip Tang, who has cooked at Lumiere, T.W. Food, and Hungry Mother, hopes to be in business come early December.

The food will be local, sustainable, Chinese-inspired cuisine, according to Tang: small dishes, dumplings, all manner of porky items (Tang will be getting whole pigs from Vermont), and -- la! I think I just heard the angels sing -- house-made noodles. (I continue to mourn Benatti's excellent house-made noodles of the Italian variety, but a good Chinese-style bowl would help ease the pain.)

Possible dishes include pickled vegetables, soy-marinated bluefish with carrot salad, scallion pancake sandwich with braised beef shank and radish, and roasted pork loin with garlic-chive pesto. Noodles will come in vegetarian and meat versions: say, seasonal vegetables, vegetable broth, and poached egg for the former, a summer dish of cold noodles with cucumbers, house-made bacon, scallion, and sesame dressing for the latter. 

This should appeal to anyone smitten with New York's Momofukus. Though it sounds different in many ways, it's probably the closest that Boston has come to David Chang's culinary stylings.