Posted by Gordon Mark, August 6, 2008 at 12:30 PM
There is a new branch of the Hong Kong Supermarket opening on Hester between Elizabeth and Bowery at the end of the week, and the awning went up yesterday. This is exciting news considering that Dynasty Supermarket, located in the same building, has only been open in a very limited capacity for most of the past year. This could be because the new Hong Kong Supermarket is actually a partnership with the owners of Dynasty, but that is only a rumor. The new supermarket, which has another branch in Chinatown, will open this Friday, hoping that the date (8/8/08) will bring them prosperity—the number 8 is a very lucky number in Chinese. 157 Hester Street, New York, NY 10013 (nr. Elizabeth; map)
Posted by Gordon Mark, August 5, 2008 at 11:30 AM
Manhattan's Chinatown is seemingly overwhelming, with a nearly endless number of eateries. Where do you go on an empty stomach? What do you order?
As part of our ongoing exploration of the neighborhood, we're pleased to present a guide to cheap meals in Chinatown. As in our guide to Chinatown bakeries and soup noodles in Chinatown, this post will cover what's available between the Canal Street and Grand Street subway stations.
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Posted by Barbara Hanson, July 24, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Hong Kong Supermarket, one of eleven stores in a small chain of such markets on each coast, is on East Broadway in Manhattan's Chinatown. That is pretty much all I can tell you about it. The website that looks like it could belong to Hong Kong Supermarket doesn’t. No employee I encountered, except the cashier, spoke more than a few words of English. My Chinese stops at “Happy New Year,” which didn’t seem likely to be helpful until the 2009 arrival of the Year of the Ox.
I’ve browsed in the helter-skelter store many times, walking out with bags full of stuff that I had never seen before. Grape-jam-filled marshmallows, mango pancakes, and Dreamful Paradise cookies have all made their way home with me. (For a country not known for its desserts, Chinese supermarkets seem to be loaded with every variety of sweet you can imagine, and some you can’t.) I passed the impressive outdoor array of fruits and vegetables, thinking that shopping for a couple of ingredients to make sesame noodles, would be as simple as dropping into Food Emporium for a bottle of ketchup. However, the goofy randomness of Hong Kong Supermarket, which I generally enjoy enormously, was just about to drive me nuts.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, July 8, 2008 at 1:00 PM
I remember my first visit to Vanessa's Dumpling House a few years ago when it was simply named Dumpling House: it was dingy, low on sitting (and breathing) space, and mosh pit-crowded—not exactly a place you'd want to hang out in. After its renovation at the end of last year it reopened as a larger, more welcoming, nicely decorated space, although still crowded. The cheapest dumpling order is now four for a dollar instead of the previous five, but it remains one of the best deals in the city.
Basil and chicken boiled dumplings, and fried chive and pork dumplings.
I split an order of basil and chicken boiled dumplings (4/$1) and the classic fried chive and pork dumplings (8/$3.75) with a friend. While the basil and chicken were perfectly fine (can't beat homemade dumpling skins), chive and pork was my favorite of the two. Few things taste as good as thin, crispy bottomed dumpling skins filled with juicy pork infused with the flavor of garlicky chive bits, especially when an order costs less than what I stick in the washing machine each week. To get more for your money, you can buy bags of frozen dumplings—50 pieces of chive and pork is $9.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, July 1, 2008 at 1:00 PM
I didn't like duck until I ate confit de canard for the first time about one and a half years ago. Since then, I thought duck couldn't get any better than that: poached, preserved, and fried in its own fat.
But it can get better, or at least it can be of the same tastiness caliber. I've had duck at Chinese restaurants before—experiences that I only remember for featuring disappointingly tough meat and chewy fat—but none were ever as good as the Peking Duck at Peking Duck House in Chinatown. After the waiter presented my group of five with our whole roasted duck, he took it to a central cutting table where a chef cleanly sliced the meat off the bone. The waiter returned with a large plate of neatly fanned out duck slices, each one with a shiny layer of golden skin, skin that was was paper-thin and as crisp as the crust of perfect baguette. All of my favorite textures were combined in every bite of crackling skin atop a soft layer of underlying fat and sweet, tender meat. Hell, who needs meat; the pieces that were solely composed of fat and skin may have been my favorite.
Although the duck was accompanied by sliced cucumber, scallions, hoisin sauce, rice, and pancake wraps (which I felt were too thick), it tasted perfectly good on its own. You probably need something to cut through the richness, though.
Peking Duck House
28 Mott Street, New York NY 10013 (near Mosco Street; map)
212-227-1810
pekingduckhousenyc.com
Posted by Robyn Lee, June 20, 2008 at 2:00 PM
The name sliced abalone braised with e-fu noodles really get those salivary glands going, eh? Potentially yes, if you really like abalone. And while the mildly sweet and chewy abalone is my favorite mollusk, it was the e-fu noodles that had me going back for more of this dish from Ping's Seafood in Chinatown.
It was my first time eating the long, slightly flattened egg and wheat-based e-fu noodles. My first impression was that the noodles were unappetizingly soft, but after a few more bites I realized that the texture was multifaceted—soft, but substantial enough not to easily break, light, and just a bit springy. The noodle's uniquely spongy texture is due to the use of carbonated water when making the dough. I don't usually venture into the noodle aisle at the Chinese grocery store (I tend to just eat rice), but I may have to look for e-fu noodles during my next visit.
Ping's Seafood
22 Mott Street, New York, NY 10013 (map)
Posted by Robyn Lee, June 13, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Buddha Bodai and fried taro duck.
I know vegetarian duck tastes nothing like real duck, but that doesn't mean it doesn't taste good. Sometimes I actually do prefer the meat imitating stack of chewy bean curd skins to the "real" thing. While eating at vegan and kosher restaurant Budda Bodai in Chinatown, I immediately went for their fried taro duck, a combination of bean curd skin topped with a thick layer of mashed taro that's lightly breaded and deep fried to a crisp. Taro by itself is already a heavy load for the stomach to bear; deep frying adds another dimension of heavy richness—and,of course, deliciousness.
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Posted by Zach Brooks, June 3, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Bo Lo Bao from Ping's Seafood Restaurant in Manhattan's Chinatown. Sweet and crusty on top, custard filling with chunks of pineapple on the inside, these buns are available as Dim Sum on the weekends. Usually they run out, so it helps to start asking for them the minute you sit down, that way you increase your chances of getting them before you're done eating.
Ping's Seafood Restaurant
22 Mott St., New York 10013; (nr Mosco;
map)
212-602-9988
Posted by Robyn Lee, May 30, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Editor's note: I don't know how things work at your office, but around this time of day, our collective sweet tooth starts acting up at Serious Eats HQ. Enter Sugar Rush. Every afternoon, we'll point you to something sweet—as an inspiration for your sugar fix. Enjoy! I know we will. —Zach
Sesame paste dumplings, or tang yuan in Chinese, are balls of glutinous rice filled with black sesame paste. Bite through the sticky, elastic outer skin and you will be rewarded with a center of toasted nutty goo. The paste isn't very sweet, but the warm sweetened ginger-infused black tea soup makes up for it. Get your sesame paste dumpling action on at Chinatown's Green Tea Cafe, where you can also get dumplings filled with peanut or red bean paste. 45 Mott Street, New York NY 10013 (map); 212-693-2888
Posted by Robyn Lee, May 30, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Doyers Street is one of my favorite streets in New York City, partially because it provides an unexpected pocket of grungy, quiet, deserted charm in the middle of Chinatown (as charming as Chinatown can be, at least), and because it's the location of Excellent Pork Chop House. It's so much easier to order food at a place you've never been before when they name themselves after their specialty.
Obviously, you have to go for the Taiwanese-style pork chop. A bowl of sweet, tender strips of pork served over rice with pickled mustard greens and bits of stewed pork (why shouldn't pork be garnished with more pork?) will only set you back $5, a bargain to experience the perfect combination of tart, crunchy mustard greens and sweet pork in every bite buffered by a clump of rice. You can also order the pork chop by itself or as a side to a bowl of noodle soup, but I think the rice bowl option works the best.
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Posted by Gordon Mark, May 27, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Editor's note: It's time for another guide from our intern extraordinaire and resident Manhattan Chinatown expert, Gordon Mark. You may remember his Guide to Bakeries in Manhattan's Chinatown, posted here last month. Now, he has set his sights on soup noodles, ladling out an equally impressive guide to navigating the food in Manhattan's Chinatown. —Zach
Manhattan's Chinatown is a huge neighborhood that just seems to keep growing. Although it's a good thing that the neighborhood offers a nearly endless number of eateries, you may be overwhelmed by all the choices. Where do you go on an empty stomach? What do you order? Sometimes, when you're faced with such a wealth of options, it's best to narrow your focus a bit. So, following that bit of advice, we're excited to present a guide to soup noodles in Chinatown. As in our guide to Chinatown bakeries, this post will cover what's available in the "main" part of Chinatown (between the Canal Street and Grand Street subway stations). Also, this guide doesn't cover pho or hand-pulled noodles—those tasty bowls of goodness will be dealt with in future Chinatown guides.
Continue reading »
Posted by Joe DiStefano, May 21, 2008 at 1:00 PM
Editor's note: Yesterday, Grub Street posted about Emperor Japanese Tapas Shabu Restaurant in Chinatown, remarking that it had "somehow completely eluded reviewers and bloggers." Well it just so happens that our man Joe DiStefano ate there last week and filed this report. —Zach
It's easy to sell me on foods with exotic packaging and strange names. Over the years, I’ve bought all manner of items, like Big Squid, a 2-foot long sheet of dehydrated cuttlefish seasoned with Thai spices that’s been hanging on my wall uneaten for months. I’m slightly more discriminating when it comes to restaurants; usually I won't select a place to eat based solely upon its name. Unless it happens to have a moniker as outlandish as Emperor Japanese Tapas Shabu Restaurant. When I first saw this new place on Bowery several weeks ago I was fascinated. After all, I love Japanese food, and I love tapas. Not that I necessarily expected to find either at this strange hybrid restaurant, especially with a menu that offers a lunch special of Spaghetti Bolognaise (sic).
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Posted by Robyn Lee, May 13, 2008 at 1:30 PM
Although I had passed Chinatown's New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe innumerable times (as it is conveniently located just a few doors down from Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, one of my most frequented ice cream shops), I never felt compelled to try it until pushed by my trusted food partner-in-crime, Kathy. We gathered together a group of six to get the most out of my inaugural meal, but I left still longing for certain dishes we didn't get to try. Here's a rundown of what we did manage to eat in one sitting.
We started with scallion pancakes, which are nothing like the breakfast variety, but more like a flatbread. The most delicious flatbread ever: crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and harboring chopped scallions within its flaky layers. It's hard to resist immediately shoving a piping hot slice into your mouth—perhaps after dipping into the accompanying spicy soy sauce—but then you risk burning off some delicate inner-mouth skin cells. It's probably worth it though.
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Posted by Emily Koh, May 7, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Most people cite Gray's Papaya for good hot dogs, but if you're looking for more bang for your buck, your best bet is in Chinatown at Jumbo Hot Dog, where you can get a filling hot dog for 92¢ ($1 once you add tax). Cheap Ass Food crunched some numbers for comparison on their last visit: Gray's dogs are 5 inches in length and 5/8 inches in diameter, while this quarter-pound jumbo wiener clocks in at 6 inches and 1.25 inches in diameter. Onions, relish, and sauerkraut cost an extra 25¢ each. Our man Ed Levine stopped by two years ago and wasn't too crazy about them. Perhaps it's time for a second visit, Ed?
Jumbo Hot Dog
Canal Street and Bowery (map)
Posted by Gordon Mark, April 23, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Manhattan's Chinatown is a huge neighborhood that seems to be getting bigger every day. Although it's a good thing that the neighborhood offers a nearly endless number of eateries, you may be overwhelmed by all the choices. Where do you go on an empty stomach? What do you order? Sometimes, when you're faced with such a wealth of options, it's best to narrow your focus a bit. This, then, is a guide to Chinatown bakeries. (For our purposes, we went to both the main part of Chinatown—between the Canal Street and Grand Street subway stations—and to the less-touristy East Broadway section.) With at least a bakery per block (and sometimes more), you should never be too far from one.
Continue reading »
Posted by Ed Levine, September 21, 2006 at 11:20 AM
Soup dumplings from Goodies
I have to say that I've been disappointed by my last few forays to Chinatown, both for dim sum and regular meals. That said, when I started to think about where I would send friends in Chinatown, I came up with a surprisingly long list:
New Chow Chao
Address: 111 Mott Street, New York, NY 10013 (b/n Canal and Hester; map)
Phone: 212-226-2590
Best wonton soup I've ever tasted and one of the great bargains of NY eating: $3.00 for a quart, a meal for two.
Chanoodle
Address: 79 Mulberry Street, New York, NY 10013 (b/n Bayard and Canal; map)
Phone: 212-349-1495
Lots of really fine cheap dishes, including great fried rice, fried fish and chicken, and a pork and clams dish that is scary good.
Big Wong
Address: 67 Mott Street, New York, NY 10013 (b/n Bayard and Canal; map)
Phone: 212-964-0540
Moist, meaty spare ribs that end up on my shirt as I wander around Chinatown.
Goodies
Address: 1 East Broadway, New York, NY 10038 (near Chatham Square; map)
Phone: 212-577-2922
Extraordinary soup dumplings, might be better than Joe's.
Great NY Noodletown
Address: 28 1/2 Bowery, New York, NY 10013 (near Bayard; map)
Phone: 212-349-0923
Salt-baked fish, wonton soup, and Chinese barbecue worth the wait (if it's not too long).
Posted by Ed Levine, August 31, 2006 at 6:35 AM
Hot dogs at Gray's Papaya
Lately I've been pondering the question: How many delicious things can you buy for a dollar these days?
There are the dumpling places in Chinatown that offer five dumplings for a dollar. Over the weekend I went to a relatively new one near Hester Street, Prosperity Dumpling. They're not the greatest dumplings you've ever had, but hey, they cost twenty cents apiece. You can't even buy a pack of gum for that anymore.
Also in Chinatown there is Jumbo Hot Dog, a kiosk located on Canal Street just east of Bowery right where all the cheap buses leave for Boston and Washington. It is truly an oversized all beef, skinless hot dog. Cheap, yes. Filling, yes. Delicious, no.
I didn't search out a great pork bun, but I'm sure there are a couple to be had, and they most certainly would cost less than a dollar.
Probably the best thing I can think of that you can buy for a dollar in this town is a Gray's Papaya hot dog. 95 cents for a not jumbo at all hot dog with mustard and sauerkraut. I ask for it well-done, but they never listen to me. Unlike Jumbo Hot Dog in Chinatown, the Gray's dog has the natural casing that gives all great hot dogs their characteristic snap.
But that's not much of a list. I would like to come up with ten delicious things you can buy in New York for under a dollar. Can anybody help me out here?
Prosperity Dumpling
Address: 46 Eldridge Street, New York, NY 10002 (b/n Canal and Hester; map)
Phone: 212-343-0683
Jumbo Hot Dog
Address: Canal Street and Bowery (map)
Gray's Papaya
Address: 402 6th Avenue, New York, NY 10011 (near 8th; map)
539 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10018 (near West 37th; map)
2090 Broadway, New York, NY 10023 (b/n 71st and 72nd; map)
Phone: 212-260-3532, 212-904-1588, 212-799-0243
Posted by Ed Levine, June 13, 2006 at 8:24 AM
Wandering home from the office yesterday trying to recover my eating equilibrium after 48 hours of dawn to dusk barbecue eating at the BABBP, I decided to flush my system with an order of six ($4.95) pork and chive dumplings at the Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. To please the nutrition gods I was going to order an entree salad with the dumplings, but somehow I forgot. But because my order took longer than usual the friendly counterman at RDB threw in an order of edamame. Take that, nutrition police! The edamame were good (especially after I discovered the little dish in the salt in the edamame box), but the dumplings rocked. Thin, crisp, delicate dumpling wrappers surrounded a flavorful porky filling that could have been a little juicier. I know the romantic dumpling mavens around town think five bucks is too much to pay for six dumplings, but these dumplings are far superior to the leaden, greasy hand grenades that too often pass for dumplings, even in Chinatown. 61 W. 23rd Street (between fifth and sixth avenues). 212-924-9220.
Serious dumpling rating: 92
Other great dumpling spots (non-soup dumplings):
- Sweet-n-Tart Restaurant: {20 Mott Street, NY, NY}
- Chinese American: {106 W. 32nd St., NY, NY}
What are your favorite dumpling spots? Steamed, Boiled or Fried (your choice)
Posted by Ed Levine, May 11, 2006 at 5:44 PM
My friend John T. Edge was in town last weekend, and after a walking brunch in Chinatown (less than stellar dim sum at Jin Fong, great ribs at Big Wong and exceptional soup dumplings at Goodie's) we wandered into DiPalo Diary to see if Louis DiPalo was around. We walked into the store, and there was Louis behind the counter. Amazingly, there wasn't the usual sea of people crowded into the small space waiting to buy the wonderful array of cheese, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salumi that Louis and his family have been selling for almost a hundred years.
Louis said he was right in the middle of making a batch of mozzarella, and would soon return to take care of John T., who was looking for some Italian cheeses that would travel well enough for him to serve them to his wife for her birthday party in Mississippi. Five minutes later Louis came over to see us, washed his hands, and proceeded to give us a half-hour class on Pecorino Romano cheeses he had on-hand.
I am always transfixed by Louis' mastery of his subjects. His passion is infectious, and his knowledge and experience are equally impressive. Louis' prices are incredibly reasonable. He sells real balsamic vinegar for way less than other shops and on-line sources. He has about ten kinds of Italian canned and jarred tuna on-hand, and he can tell you more than you might want to know about every one of them. Louis is a national treasure, and I urge all of you who can to go down to the store. Call first to make sure Louis is there, and also make sure you are not in a hurry.
When you go to DiPalo's you aren't just shopping for food. You're taking a master class in artisanal Italian food products. DiPalo Dairy is at 200 Grand Street in NYC, ph: 212-226-1033. They will ship and take phone orders. They just don't have an on-line catalogue.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 11, 2006 at 7:39 PM
The question of the day: Which is the superior sandwich, a roast pork banh mi or a mixed Italian cold cut hero? Is it just me, or has everyone fallen in love with the Vietnamese heroes called Banh Mi . When I was in Manhattan's Chinatown recently, searching for great chicken soup, I noticed a sign for Banh Mi in the window of what looked like a jewelry store. SliceNY's Adam Kuban and I walked in and ordered one roast pork and one chicken banh mih. Both sandwiches were sensational. The bread was crisp, the meat tender enough, the vegetables were spritely, and the fresh coriander in the sandwich had a lovely fragrance. If you're like me, and banh mi have taken over your sandwich life (at least when a banh mi joint is nearby) head over to:
- Saigon Bakery
138-01 Mott Street (just south of Canal)
212-941-1541
Posted by Ed Levine, March 4, 2006 at 12:49 PM
In recent years the New York Daily News' food coverage has rarely made me hungry. I say that as someone who wrote the Eats column there for a few years in the mid nineties, and someone who used to really look forward to reading restaurant reviews and features by Arthur Schwartz and Daniel Young in the seventies, eighties and early nineties. But yesterday there was a piece by Jean Tang on Chinese dumplings that actually made me jump on a subway to Chinatown to chow down. Many of the places she wrote about were the usual suspects (Fried Dumpling, Dumpling Man), but a couple of them were legitimate finds. China North Dumpling (15 Essex St., 212-529-2670) is the "home of the ugly dumpling." According to Tang, "the tiny Kingdom of Pancakes (7 Allen St. 212966-5658) makes dumplings that are "hearty, with chew and flavor," and "tender beef stew in rich, peppery pork stock." Yum!
Posted by Ed Levine, February 24, 2006 at 1:01 PM
Three months in the slurping, my chicken soup piece came out Wednesday in the NYTimes. For those of you who don't read the Times, I am going to list my ten favorite chicken soups (I sampled a hundred) here, along with a few others I really liked that just failed to crack the top ten:
- Blue Ribbon Bakery 33 Downing Street (Bedford Street), (212) 337-0404. Matzo ball soup, $7.75.
- Cubana Café 110 Thompson Street (Prince Street), (212) 966-5366. Chicken soup with avocado, tomato, cilantro and yuca (cassava), $5.
- Fred's at Barneys New York 660 Madison Avenue (60th Street), ninth floor, (212) 833-2200.
- Estelle's chicken soup $8.
- Grand Sichuan International 229 Ninth Avenue (24th Street), (212) 620-5200. Chicken and pea shoots, $8.95; chicken with pickled cabbage, $7.95.
- Hearth 403 East 12th Street (First Avenue), (646) 602-1300. Chicken soup with escarole, chicken dumplings and pastina, $12.
- Momofuku Noodle Bar 163 First Avenue (10th Street), (212) 475-7899. Chicken noodle soup with Shanghai thick noodles, onions and scallions, $11.
- New Chao Chow Restaurant 111 Mott Street (between Canal and Hester Streets), (212) 226-2590. Chao Chow wonton soup, $3.50.
- Perry St. 176 Perry Street (West Street), (212) 352-1900. Chicken soup with vegetables, avocado and dill, $13.50.
- Pio Maya 40 West Eighth Street (Avenue of the Americas), (212) 254-2277. Chicken soup, $3.25.
- Sripraphai 64-13 39th Avenue, Woodside, Queens, (718) 899-9599. Chicken soup with mushrooms, coconut milk and galangal; Cornish hen in hot and sour soup (tom-zap), both $7.
A few others I really enjoyed:
- Akdeniz 19 W. 46th Street (bet. Fifth and Sixth Aves.) 212-575-2307; Slightly creamy chicken soup that comes to life with a squeeze of the lemon they serve it with.
- Al Bustan 827 Third Avenue (bet. 50th and 51st Sts.) 212-759-5933 Lebanese Chicken soup enlivened with the same lemon squeeze and, surprisingly, a touch of cinnamon.
- Azuri Cafe 465 W.51st (between 9th and 10th Aves.) 212-265-2920; I was lovin' the chicken soup here until I put the first piece of matzo ball in my mouth. It was ice cold. So I cut up the matzo balls into little pieces and let them sit in the soup for a minute or two to heat them up. Brilliant!
- Brooklyn Diner USA: 212 W. 57th Street (between Broadway and Seventh Ave.) 212-977-2280; Fine classic chicken soup with moist chicken and a toothsome broth.
- Teresa's 103 First Avenue (between 6th and 7th Sts.) 212-228-0604; If the noodles were al dente at this Polish coffee shop, this bargain chicken soup ($2.75) would have cracked the top ten.
