Han 202

The recession has brought about almost unbelievable offers aimed at cash-strapped Americans—two cars for the price of one, free flat-screen with a new condo, the boom-boom room for the price of a lap dance—and the restaurant industry is hardly immune to the wheelin’ and dealin’. But even in a time of extreme promotions, value is still fairly hard to come by—that two-buck burger often tastes like one.

That’s not the case with Han 202, a spiffy little Bridgeport newcomer luring the locals away from steak tacos and Polish sausages. For bait, Han 202 uses a $20 five-course pan-Asian tasting menu, one ambitious enough that the cost of the meal will interrupt your conversation throughout it.

While looking at the menu: “Wait, so we can pick one of each of five categories for $20?” (Yes.) While biting into a salad of lemongrass beef, just fatty enough and spicy enough to need the sweet, acidic slivers of Granny Smith apple: “So is this $20 deal available every night?” (Uh-huh.) In the midst of figuring out how the salt-and-pepper coating on the baby octopus is so thin but so flavorful: “Who is this chef and does he do this menu somewhere else?” (Guan Chen, and he used to run Evanston’s Ninefish, where a similar tasting menu was met by a few regulars and too many disinterested students.) Somewhere around the time you realize the perfectly cooked grouper covered in charred scallions and sliced ginger tastes as good as it smells: “And since we brought our own beer and wine, this meal is, like, $40 total.” (Yep.) And finally, when the fresh lychee, vanilla ice cream and tomato-mango granita is gone: “When people hear about this deal, the place will be mobbed.” (For Chen’s sake, let’s hope so.)

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