The heart of Uncle Lou’s menu is the section called Lo Wah Kiu favorites. In Cantonese, lo wah kiu means old overseas Chinese—the first generation immigrants. So this part of the menu is filled with Cantonese dishes from Siyi, as old timers call the region west of the Pearl River Delta from which the great majority of Chinese immigrants came during the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Some of these dishes are woven into the menus of restaurants around Chinatown. Steamed fish with ginger and scallion (or with pomelo zest, not pictures here); crisp roast chicken in soy with fried garlic, a sit-down version of the roast birds hanging behind windows around the neighborhood; and fried eggplant stuffed with fish and shrimp paste, served with fried stuffed chiles and tofu. Cantonese cuisine in NYC has been losing ground for decades to other Chinese styles—Hunan, Sichuan, Shanghainese, and the rest. Those of us who love the simplicity of Cantonese food, the way the seasonings always defer to the main ingredients, are always on the lookout for restaurants that make it well. There are some weak spots on Uncle Lou’s menus (the dim sum section for instance), but it makes a forceful defense of old-school Cantonese cooking, including some dishes that the lo wah kiu may not have seen for a while.