I finally tried Xi’an Famous Foods’ Spicy & Tingly Lamb Face Salad and Stewed Spine & Rib. Brought it to Columbus Park with Yasmin, who is probably the only person I know willing to eat lamb face and spine with me. I’m not sure what was tingly about the lamb face, but the roof mouth bits were crunchy and the meaty parts were tender and tasty. It’s the most expensive thing on the menu at $8.75. It’s a good dish, but I only ate it because there was lamb face in it.
We ordered the Stewed Spine & Rib with the noodles ($5). There wasn’t much meat on the bones, but whatever was there was very tender. I was looking back at my photos and thought there was a photo of me attacking the spine bone, but dang I realized it was Yasmin. The hand-pulled noodles are good as usual.
I practiced with my new camera and new lens (Canon 50mm f/1.4). Hard to shoot the food up close, but easy to shoot the old Chinese people in the park. Those umbrellas in the tree are for shade I think? An old man laughed at me when he saw me taking photos of food. Another man hocked up a mean loogie when we ate said food. No Senior Citizens Chinese Opera this time, but I still love this park. I still have crunchy mouth bits stuck in my teeth.
Xi’an Famous Foods (Manhattan Chinatown) – 88 East Broadway #106 (but really on the corner of Forsyth) New York, NY 10002
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Found the Wah Fung #1 Fast Food on the Yelp. At first I thought the Fung Wah Chinatown Bus got their own restaurant, but I don’t think they’re related. Everyone was talking about the $2.50 pork or chicken special. I went to check it out during my half day of work Friday. All the Yelpers were right about the line. Seems to move so slow, but I think I see why. The guy chops up the meats to each individual order, then has to walk back and forth each time to spoon up the juices. What’s in those juices? I could even do some juice over rice. That’d make me happy.
The $2.50 tray does look small at first, but the guy packs in the meat. He chops up the meat and puts it on and you’re satisfied. But then he takes another piece out to chop and put on your tray and you’re like what a nice guy! Then another piece and you’re like fuck.
Wah Fung No. 1 Fast Food – 79 Chrystie St (btwn Canal & Hester St) New York, NY 10002
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Headed down to Sunset Park with Todd and Audrey to eat some dim sum and so Todd could pick up his childhood lunch box from a guy’s trunk. The East Harbor Seafood Palace is a large and crowded banquet hall. I tried to teach my friends what to listen out for when they call our number in Chinese –”sup ee ho.” Then after a 20 minute wait, they called our number in English –”12!”
For only $12 each after tip, we ate pretty well including a couple of beers. I was surprised they ate the Chinese chicken feet with me. I was also surprised Todd wanted and already knew about the turnip cake, “lo bak go.” He might be as Chinese as me. Or more likely, I’m as white as him.
East Harbor Seafood Palace – 714 65th St (btwn 7th & 8th Ave) Sunset Park/Dyker Heights Brooklyn, NY 11220
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Birthday dinner party in the private upstairs room at South China Garden (formerly known as Cantoon Garden). A big feast that had some throwbacks for me –the salty preserved fish had a strong flavor I recall as a child. I think my parents put it in my congee (juk). Carolyn thought it tasted like bleu cheese. Maybe I’m just thinking of buffalo wings. We all got little gifts from the hosts. Mine was a bottle of this liquid analgesic balm that’s used for sore muscles, but my parents used to put on my mosquito bites …You probably thought I was going to say butt. For dessert we had lotus paste buns (my childhood favorite) that were shaped like peaches. Some people thought they looked like another kind of peach.
Afterwards, we hit up Winnie’s Bar for karaoke. That’s where some of us were messing around with Chinese Hell Bank Notes. We got in trouble because it’s bad luck. To us it looked like Mike was putting Monopoly money down my shirt, but he was actually just wishing me death.
South China Garden Restaurant (Cantoon Garden) – 22 Elizabeth St (btwn Bayard & Canal St) New York, NY 10013
Winnie’s Bar – 104 Bayard St (btwn Baxter & Mulberry St) New York, NY 10013
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Dinner and conversation with Marcellus at House of Vegetarian, a Chinatown restaurant with dishes that are substituted with mock meat. I’ve never been a fan of mock meat and don’t understand why you’d want to eat it outside of health & dietary reasons. It’s doesn’t taste as good as real meat and why would you eat something that is made to look and taste like something you are repulsed by? I can’t see myself eating Mock Human Honey-BBQ Ribs or Mock Fried Roach Legs. …Okay, maybe I’d try it, but I don’t think I’d like it.
Anyway, I went in thinking that I’d rather eat the vegetable only dishes (sans mock meat). But once we sat down and looked at the menu, I figured we’d better get mock meat. You don’t go to Peter Luger’s for the salad. We should live a little. We split Combination Triple Vegetable with Mock Roast Pork and a dish called “Wealth and Fortune.” No description on the menu. The waitress said it was mushrooms. I asked what the “Lucky Season” was. She said cabbage.
The dishes were Chinese stir-fried mixed vegetables with sauce. Both of them similar in context, but different in ingredients. Wealth and Fortune had tofu. Every piece of mock roast pork tasted different. One would be buttery, another salty. But it wasn’t as bad as I expected. I don’t think I would mistake this for pork, but it was a pretty good stab at it. It gets me wondering how these future lab-grown meats will taste. But if that does work out, maybe we could engineer Human Honey-BBQ Ribs without ethical or moral questions. What if it could taste like the race or ethnicity? It would give more meaning to eating Chinese, French or Mexican cuisine.
House of Vegetarian – 68 Mott St (btwn Bayard & Canal St) New York, NY 10013
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I started the night off by going to Limewire’s Ear to the Ground:Tokyo release party. It was great to see my old friends, Kelly and Jeremy. I texted Marcellus to come over, who was at an art exhibition. Then he unknowingly shows up with two America’s Next Top Models. It was sorta funny he didn’t know who he brought. Well I didn’t know either. There was a photographer taking our photos and we got into a conversation about this Japanese treat (Yatsuhashi) he’s been trying to find all over NY. Then somehow I was blocked out of the conversation and I found myself hovering outside the group. The photographer apologized later figuring that I was trying to talk to the models, but I actually was trying to finish my conversation with him about the treat. That’s how sick my food blogging obsession has become.
We left and Matt & Marce took me to Thái Son for me to food blog. We weren’t even hungry. How nice of them. We got some summer rolls and a bowl of Bun Cha Gio Thit Nuong (Spring Rolls & Grilled Pork W. Lettuce On Rice Vermicelli). Affordable and good Vietnamese food. I likee the fish sauce.
Thái Son – 89 Baxter St (btw Bayard & Walker) New York 10013
I should plug my band’s live EP that’s on Limewire – Tigers and Monkeys Live at Lime.
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Perfect weather for this big bowl of hand pulled noodles and pork bone soup. I got some good meat off it and plenty of bone marrow. Cheap around $5. I was like “I Am Legend” on them bones.
Lan Zhou Handmade Noodle – 144 East Broadway (btw Allen & Essex) New York, NY
Related post with more photos and video
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Matt got the cravings for some Flushing Chinatown food late in the evening. So he picked me up in the rain and we headed over to Corner 28. The downstairs $1 Peking Duck Bun window was closed and so was the cheap pick and point prepared steam tray selections. They have an upstairs sit-down restaurant.
The menu was a big book with photos of the dishes (like Denny’s) mixed with photos of their bubble tea drinks. Sorta difficult to find what you want, but I love to see what the food looks like. So I’ll take that. A late night menu with a lot of selections at $6.99. We chose the Chinese Sausage & Smoked Pork (possibly belly?) with Vegetables and Shrimp w/ Lobster Sauce. Matt also ordered the Shrimp Dumpling Noodle Soup and I got the Pumpkin & Clam Congee (rice porridge) at $3.50 each.
I been hankering some Chinese Sausage and vegetables for a while. It did the job. The Pumpkin & Clam Congee was interesting. I don’t think it would appeal to someone who’s used to bland or salty rice porridge, but might work for an American taste who’s never had congee. The Shrimp w/ Lobster Sauce was a little chalky, probably from the flour to thicken up the sauce. The food overall was good and affordable. The selection and quality is comparable to Congee Village House in Manhattan, but a little cheaper. And they’re opened until 1am.
We could barely finish it all. Partly because it was a lot of food and also because I had just turned Matt onto Paul McKenna’s weight loss hypnosis system
. I might have screwed him with that. Look how skinny he is.
Corner 28 – 40-28 Main Street Flushing, NY 11355
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