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 Ed Levine, July 23, 2008 at 2:00 PM
I don't know about other folks, but I loved seeing Frank Bruni's review of Szechuan Gourmet in the New York Times. It's a restaurant that very much deserves two stars in my eyes. Szechuan Gourmet has been the object of our affection for awhile here at SE:NY, so I wanted to find out why Bruni decided to review it now.
Here's the text of my email to Frank:
What made you decide to review Szechuan Gourmet now? I've always found it curious that the Times never reviewed it, given A) how good it is and B) how close it is to the newspaper's building. As you may or may not know it's been a favorite of bloggers for years. I'm writing a blog post about your review and found myself wondering about the above.
His swift and straightforward response, after the jump:
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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 Joe DiStefano, June 9, 2008 at 1:00 PM
In January, when I first visited the food court of Flushing's Golden Shopping Mall, I had no idea that the mall's Mandarin name was Wong Jing Xian Chan. I don't speak or read Mandarin, although I am studying it. Most of the signage is in Chinese, but luckily I was armed with a cheat sheet from an industrious Chowhound. Unfortunately it covered only one stall, Cheng Du Tian Fu Xiao Shi, or "Chengdu Heavenly Plenty Snack Restaurant," which specializes in Sichuanese street food from the provincial capital Chengdu.
Next time I came better prepared. I brought a fluent Mandarin speaker, Fuchsia Dunlop. I toured the food court with the Chinese food expert and author of the recently published Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper for more than two hours. In that time we grazed our way through only a few stalls. Did I forget to mention that it's not a food court in the traditional sense, but rather a warrenlike collection of tiny restaurants?
Dunlop was amazed by the diversity of eats and gushed that it was "just like being in China." The folks at the food court were equally amazed by us—a British woman who behaves and speaks as if she's Chinese accompanied by an American shooting photos of every plate. What follows is a guide to what we ate combined with my subsequent experiences.
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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 BrianYarvin, May 30, 2008 at 2:00 PM
"Is King's Village worth a visit for serious Chinese food fans? Absolutely!"
The "Chinaburbs."
I didn't think the soup I made was that bad; chicken, corn, and bits of new potato. My wife thought otherwise though. After looking at it for about a fifth of a second, she said, "we haven't eaten at King's Village in a while." I was so happy at the chance to eat in a serious Chinese restaurant that I hadn´t yet noticed the link between my cooking and her thoughts.
King's Village is more than a place to escape soup made from leftovers, it's a perfect example of how New Jersey's best Chinese restaurants manifest themselves; in a free standing building across the street from a 7-11 and surrounded by private homes. Here in Edison, there are plenty of Chinese people, wonderful shops and restaurants, and no town whatsoever. Since there isn't a town, you can't call the place a "Chinatown" and because my own coinage, "Chinasprawl," is too angry, we'll have to make do with the emerging word "Chinaburbs."
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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.
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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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Grand Sichuan founder Xiaotu Zhang debunked the common notion that "authentic" food is always good food in a recent New York Magazine interview. It's no good when it's "too salty, too oily, too spicy. Healthy—that’s good," he noted.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 25, 2008 at 2:57 PM
I have extolled the virtues of Szechuan Gourmet before, but after having another extraordinary meal there yesterday, I must implore you all over again to eat there this weekend. You do not have to go to Flushing to eat great Szechuan food and you can do better than the quite good food served at the various Grand Sichuan branches around Manhattan. Yesterday a friend and I shared three dishes, each one better than the last:
Szechuan Pork Dumpling with Roasted Chili Soy
Photograph taken by Kathryn Yu
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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.
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Posted by Ed Levine, December 25, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Four years ago Alex Witchel took a stab at explaining the phenomenon of Jews in New York eating Chinese food on Christmas Day.
Somewhere, Christmas will look like this: cheerful children opening presents that don't break by noon; a glazed ham taking pride of place on the heirloom cherrywood sideboard as the heady aroma of gingerbread wafts through the house, which is itself set upon snow-covered hills where the leafy pine boughs are filigreed in ice.
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Posted by Ed Levine, November 27, 2007 at 7:54 AM
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Every Chinese food lover I know in New York has been decrying the decline of Chinese restaurants in Manhattan. You have to go to Flushing or Sunset Park to get a good Chinese meal, they all say.
Well, stop the fortune cookie presses. A couple of weeks ago I got a tip from a friend touting a great Sichuan restaurant in a most unlikely location, West 39th Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues. I went with a chef buddy last week the day before Thanksgiving, and, boy, were we blown away.
Szechuan Gourmet, a Manhattan branch of a Flushing restaurant of the same name (I don't even know if the Queens branch is still open), serves some mighty fine Sichuan food. Everything we had was at least a solid B-plus and most dishes were much better than that. The Dan Dan Noodles With Chile-Minced Pork were merely very good, but the Chef's Ma Paul Tofu was sensational, cloud light and fiery hot. Double Cooked Sliced Pork Belly With Chile Leeks was divinely porky and meaty, and the Stir Fried Chicken With Roasted Chile had me wanting to return the next day.
Szechuan Gourmet joins a short list of fine Sichuan restaurants in Manhattan:
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Posted by Ed Levine, October 3, 2006 at 10:08 AM
Is there anything better on this earth than the Chinese-style spare ribs that many of us grew up on? I don't think so. The good ones are tender, porky, and just sweet enough. The late Jerry Nachtman once wrote something to the effect that "I used to think that I could never get enough spare ribs." I'm that guy. I never think that I'll get enough spare ribs, especially now that a small order usually is less than six ribs.
Anyway, here's my top five list for Chinese-style spare ribs in NYC, in no particular order:
- Chinatown Brasserie: 380 Lafayette St. (Great Jones), 212-533-7000. They hired away the long-time barbecue guy at one of the Shun Lees. The ribs and duck here are amazing.
- Big Wong: 67 Mott Street (bet. Bayard and Canal), 212-964-0540: Big Wong ribs make a great Chinatown walking lunch, though you will need an entire roll of paper towels. The ribs are small, sticky, sweet four bite jobbies, served the traditional Chinese way, at room temperature.
- Pig Heaven: 1540 Second Ave. (80th and 81st Sts). 212-744-4333: Love the name, and they back it up with great ribs and even better suckling pig. The ribs here are long, lean, and incredibly meaty.
- Greater NY Noodletown: 28 1/2 Bowery (Bayard), 212-349-0923: Yeah, they're rude, but the barbecue, soups, and a few other dishes are outrageously good.
- Tang Tang: 1328 Third Avenue (76th St. 212-279-2102, 243 Third Ave. (20th St.) 212-477-0460: The crisper, crunchier ribs
There are holes on this list. Brooklyn or Queens Chinese ribs joints, anyone?
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, July 25, 2006 at 3:48 PM
New York Magazine has just published its 101 Best Cheap Eats in NYC. Like NY Mag's Top 101 restaurants, it is a brilliant marketing move by Adam Moss & Co. Full disclosure: I know and like NY Mag cheap eats writers Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld. We frequently chat at parties, but have never broken bread together.
What I love about these kinds of lists are the arguments that inevitably ensue about who was left out and the rankings themselves. The rankings are totally arbitrary and are there solely to spark conversation. What regular folks can quarrel with is what places made the list and what places didn't. And that's where I have quite a few problems with Rob and Robin's list.
For example, how their list could be compiled without either Celeste or Bianca being on it is unfathomable to me. I have eaten at Celeste three times in the last month, and I defy anyone to tell me a better cheap Italian restaurant in NY. Entrees are $13-15 for cryin' out loud, as my dad would have said.
Let's move to Chinese food. Grand Szechuan Eastern is clearly one of the best Sichuan restaurants in this country, and yet it's nowhere to be found on NY Mag's list.
I'll have more to say in other posts, but I love these lists and being able to argue about them.
Posted by Ed Levine, June 23, 2006 at 6:57 AM
I know it's going to seem socio-culturally incorrect to say this, but it's very possible that the best dim sum to be had in NY is to be had at the recently opened, non-Chinese-owned Chinatown Brasserie.
Photo courtesy of eater.curbed.com
Joe Ng has cooked for many years in many of Brooklyn Chinatown's best dim sum joints, and Chinatown Brasserie consultant Ed Schoenfeld discovered him and persuaded the youngish dim sum master with the streaked hair to ply his trade in a chi-chi restaurant owned by the same folks that own Lever House and Lure Fish Bar.
Here's what we sampled, and almost everyone was a dim sum home run with the exception of the not very ducky tasting duck dumplings:
Steamed Pork & Shrimp Dumplings
Shanghai-style Soup Dumplings
Roast Duck Dumplings
Shrimp & Chinese Chive Dumplings
Chicken & Garlic Roll
Classic Egg Roll
Beef, Onion & Mushroom Triangles
Tatsoi Salad with toasted sunflower seeds (obviously not dim sum)
'Lasagnette' with chopped pork and chili sauce.
The Egg Roll was so good it had me thinking I was tasting an egg roll for the first time, in general the dumpling wrappers were delicate and super-thin, and the fillings were deep-flavored with just the right non-mushy texture.
I look forward to going back for dinner to try the barbecued duck, Peking duck and the St. Louis-Style Ribs.
I know foodies have been down on this place because apparently the party the restaurant hosted for the Beard Awards in May when it was still under construction was a disaster. My advice: Go back now and taste dim as they're meant to be.
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, June 10, 2006 at 8:40 AM
Tomorrow from noon to 4 p.m. there is going to be an Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Block Party on Eldridge Street between Canal and Division Streets.
The event, a celebration of the longstanding link between Chinese and Jewish cultures, will also feature Chinese opera, klezmer bands, mah-jong and lots of kosher egg rolls (no pork, I guess). So after you've stuffed your face with barbecue at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, head down to Eldridge Street for an egg roll and egg cream chaser.
Posted by Ed Levine, June 8, 2006 at 7:12 AM
I know no one is going to believe me, but the Ruby Foo's on 77th and Broadway has become what is desperately needed in any neighborhood, a good, reasonably priced restaurant that you can walk into and get a table without waiting. Immediately upon opening ten? years ago, Ruby Foo's became an unpleasant "scene" restaurant that neighborhood residents had almost no shot of walking in and being seated in under an hour.
But I've had three meals there in the last week that were spontaneous evenings out with family and friends, and we were able to walk in each time between seven and eight o clock and be seated immediately.
We sampled twenty dishes during those three meals. The food ranged from excellent to more than acceptable, with only two dishes that I wouldn't order again, an overbreaded fried calamari and a flavorless Asian slaw.
The highlights:
Great Malaysian chicken potstickers, some of the best I've had.
Sesame Crusted Tuna with wok seared spinach and shitake mushrooms
Wok-seared sizzling filet of beef with asparagus, spinach and spicy ponzu sauce
Meaty spare ribs served with the awful Asian slaw noted above
Shockingly tasty Kung Pao Chicken with Cilantro and Peanuts
A solid tuna, smoked salmon and avocado hand roll.
Crispy yellowtail roll
Spicy tuna roll
Ruby Foo's is a huge multi-level restaurant (I believe it has 300 seats), so that may be the reason we were able to walk in and get a table each time at a prime hour. The Rockwell-designed restaurant still looks great and now you can get a good meal there without a reservation. That's big news. Ruby Foo's uptown is at 2182 Broadway (between 77th and 78th Streets). The phone number is 212-724-6700, but I don't think you'll need it.
Has anyone ever eaten at the Ruby Foo's in Times Square? Better yet, has anyone eaten there recently?
Posted by Ed Levine, May 22, 2006 at 2:56 PM
I had a friend, Stuie Bleckner, who died fifteen years ago. Stuie was a good soul, depressed and confused about a lot of things, but crystal clear on many others. He was one of those cabbie philosophers who could engage just about any fare in a highly personal but unintrusive conversation. He did the same thing with his friends, of which I was one of many.
Like many cabbies, Stuie loved to eat, and had incredible eatar (eating radar) He turned me on to more great food in unlikely places than anyone else I've ever known. On Friday I was meeting my friend Bob for lunch. Bob, who was in fact much closer to Stuie than I was, suggested a Stuie dumpling spot called Chinese American (yes, that's the name). Stuie must have been holding out on me, because I had in fact never been there .
Chinese American turned out to be a totally nondescript joint on West 32nd St. that was clearly a Greek coffee shop in a former life. There was a small counter as you walk in with a window into the kitchen, and a small counter next to the window where the Chinese cooks left the food for the waitresses to pick up. Ugly acoustical tile and bad flourescent lighting completed what would have been a classic picture except for the fact that the joint serves Chinese food.
And pretty damned good Chinese food at that. Anyone who walks through the door here has to have the fried dumplings, which have beautiful brown crispy exterior, surprisingly thin dough casing, and juicy, tasty pork filling.
The rice noodles with chicken were pretty boring, but the fried pork with scallions was good enough to have me already thinking about a return visit.
In fact, the dumplings are good enough that I might make Chinese American a daily stop on my way to work.
So, my late great friend Stuie, you held out on me. I don't really mind. It gave Bob and me a chance to raise our glasses of Diet Coke and our used chopsticks to you one more time. We miss you, Stuie. Your memory lives on in places like Chinese American, 106 W. 32nd St. (between 6th and 7th avenues) 212-564-4597.
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, 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.
