On Facebook recently, Robert Coren reported on a possible problem with the website for a Han Dynasty restaurant — handynasty — because it was subject to misparsing as handy + nasty.
And then the new issue (March 31st) of the New Yorker arrived, with a restaurant review (by Sylvia Killingsworth) of the Han Dynasty at 215 W. 85th St. in Manhattan — a review that even gets in a note about problems with its web address.
Noodles at Han Dynasty:
From Killingsworth’s review:
When it comes to Chinese food, Upper West Siders have always been better off venturing uptown, toward Columbia, or downtown, toward everything else, at which point they might as well make the trip to Flushing. When word arrived that Han Dynasty, a popular Sichuan restaurant chain in Philadelphia, which opened a branch in the East Village in 2013, was coming to the neighborhood, hopes were high. Finally, a contender for “real” Chinese — spicy Sichuanese, rather than the blandly sweet Chinese-American takeout fare of places like Shun Lee and Ollie’s Noodle Shop.
On West Eighty-fifth Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam, a cavernous dining room with heavily filigreed molding and a theatrically high ceiling awaits its discerning patrons. A row of banquettes borders large round tables with lazy Susans, set for parties of seven. But will they come? It’s hard to tell, because there are two barriers to Han Dynasty’s success uptown. First, its Web address, http://www.handynasty.net, can be a special problem for anyone trying to order delivery online (it has run into trouble with some porn filters). Second, it’s not clear that the Italian chain restaurant which previously occupied the space failed because of bad food — the vast dining room is genuinely hard to fill.
The review is mixed, but generally quite positive. Still, Killingsworth is worried about that cavernous space.
March 19, 2016 at 7:56 am |
I would have reserved “www.han-dynasty.com”.
March 19, 2016 at 9:56 am |
@chrishansenhome–There’s a theory in web-design circles that a hyphen in a URL is supposed to be bad for SEO, hence the aversion to what otherwise seems like an obvious fix. From what I read, this is kind of a myth, but if so, it’s a persistent one.