Steve Cuozzo

Steve Cuozzo

Food & Drink

Bogus Hamptons Chinese food sticks it to Manhattan

Hamptons habitués, rejoice! You don’t have to wait for Memorial Day to spend $32 for takeout-grade “black” prawns without a hint of black bean sauce.

Red Stixs, a “celebrity”-fave “Chinese” place on Route 27 in Water Mill, has spawned a Manhattan clone.

Yes, you can now enjoy the same ridiculous cuisine and doofy service that make the East End a summertime joy without spending three hours on the road. Sure, $44 dishes “for two” cost $32 for one person if ordered as a “half portion” — although waiters don’t warn you — but think of what you’ll save on gas!

Owners Michael Reda and David Lee might howl over a stink-bomb column about a restaurant open only a few days. But when they replaced Chin Chin, a popular and well-reviewed favorite of mine for 27 years, with share-house Chinese, they asked for it in the kisser.

Elegant Chin Chin served a creditable brand of uptown Chinese, neither bland nor watered-down. Its closing further prunes Midtown East’s dwindling stock of “luxury” Chinese establishments — a style for which I have a soft spot when it takes its soy, ginger and scallions seriously.

But a dumpling truck on the street would better respect Chin Chin’s memory than Red Stixs’ bogus “Beijing” menu, served amid near-bare surroundings that look as if they ran out of dough for decorating.

In the Hamptons, Red Stixs (named for its plastic, red chopsticks) is a stomping ground for C-listers like Dina Lohan, who got “absolutely hammered” there, Page Six reported.

In the real world west of the Shinnecock Canal, Red Stixs is a mockery of Chinese cuisine in any form — even of old-school American-Cantonese.

In the real world west of the Shinnecock Canal, Red Stixs is a mockery of Chinese cuisine in any form — even of old-school American-Cantonese.

Red Stixs’ Manhattan chef, Skinny Mei, previously worked at horrible, boldface-mecca Philippe for nine years. His menu might improve over time, but right now it’s a lot like Philippe’s, including mushy, hand-pulled noodles that could moonlight as baby food, slathered in tomato sauce like Chef Boyardee.

The house taste in music is just as tacky: The sexy murmur of Chin Chin’s monied locals (who included many actual Chinese people) gave way to 1970s-’80s disco (Maxine Nightingale!) evocative of a Westhampton Beach pool bash.

Staff closely resemble summer help unschooled in the simplest tasks. A request for an Aperol spritzer yielded a mysterious, cassis-based beverage. Waiters mistakenly brought chicken instead of shrimp. Busboys who furiously “cleaned” our table left a soiled mess.

Dessert was the last straw: In a possible first in the annals of the pastry arts, sludgelike velvet cake and Key lime pie tasted almost exactly alike.

Book your table now, kids, before Dina and her pals beat you to it.

Red Stixs, 216 E. 49th St.; 646-964-5878