Chinatown Storefront Vendors

Posted on by
Reply

Chinatown restaurants are typically superb and I practically live in Chinatown food courts, but don’t overlook the storefront vendors that pepper the landscape. You’ll discover a tempting array of snacks that are reasonably priced, served up in a matter of seconds, and decidedly tasty. The offerings vary from time to time – extra credit to unique comfort foods cohabiting with trays of reliable standbys.

Two such spots are Old Street Pan Fried Dumpling, 135-45 Roosevelt Ave in Flushing, and Jojo Duck, 131 Walker St in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Incidentally, Jojo Duck (九九鸭) is so named because 九九, 9–9, symbolizing long-lasting togetherness in Chinese numerology, is pronounced jiu jiu.

Here are a few selections:
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Pan Fried Leek Dumpling – Leeks, eggs, and cellophane noodles (made from mung bean starch, not cellophane!). A solid choice for my vegetarian friends.


Chili Lamb Burger – Pro tip: examine one first for juiciness.


Pan-fried Crabmeat & Pork Buns (Sheng Jian Bao, 生煎包), always a hit!

Looking forward to warmer and drier weather when we can sample these treats on my Not Your Ordinary Chinatown Tour and Snacking in Flushing ethnojunkets. See you soon!
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes! ❤
 
 

Lunar New Year 4723 (2025)

Posted on by
Reply

The two-week long Chinese celebration of the Lunar New Year begins on Wednesday, January 29 – it’s 4723, the Year of the Snake.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

This year’s celebratory feast featured a whole steamed fish stuffed with ginger, scallions, and onions, bedecked with pea shoot sprouts, chives, and cilantro as the centerpiece.


Accompanying the star of the show was char siu chow fun…


…and an experiment involving a stir-fry of shiitake mushrooms and onions cradled in bok choy, both side dishes boasting a host of traditional ingredients.

The snake is known for a myriad of characteristics depending upon where you do your research: it is associated with transformation (snakes shed their skins), charm, elegance, sensitivity, effectiveness, adaptability, intelligence, determination, and resourcefulness.

One of the traditions that make this holiday so extraordinary is the way in which wordplay and homophones factor into the selection of dishes specially prepared to mark the occasion. For example, at festive gatherings a whole fish will be served, because the word for fish (yu) is a homophone for surpluses.

And speaking of determination and resourcefulness, there was a time a few zodiac signs ago that it looked like my Lunar New Year luck had run out in terms of another one of its traditional foods. It was a mystery involving a particular nian gao (the traditional sweet rice cake and a homophone for high year) that resonates to this day.

Want to know what happened? Please read my tradition-packed short story, “The Case of the Uncrackable Case!”
 
 
新年快乐! Xīnnián kuàilè!
恭喜发财! Gong hei fat choy!
 
 

Burmese Harp

Posted on by
Reply

Decades ago when I lived in Greenwich Village, I was a rabid fan of Village Mingala restaurant, so much so that I tried every item on the menu – multiple times. It was probably my first exposure to Burmese cooking, so my expectations going forward were based around their endeavors as a baseline.

Since then, I’ve ferreted out any Burmese cuisine I could find at food fairs and festivals, the occasional outstanding and now extinct stalls in food courts, and restaurants in state and out. I became so enamored of the fare that I even became proficient at preparing it at home. And yes, photographic evidence of my passion abounds here.

So some months ago, I enthusiastically visited Burmese Harp (8510 4th Ave in Brooklyn) which was barely a few days old. Their take on the cuisine was a bit different from my past experiences. I know that there’s a regional element that accounts for diverse differences in its execution: Shan style, for example, is more herbaceous and aggressive in my opinion. These dishes were significantly more gentle than what I was accustomed to.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Lahpet Thoke appeared on the menu as Pickled Tea Leaf Salad (lahpet is the Burmese word for pickled or fermented tea leaves; thoke means salad): fermented tea leaf, shredded cabbage, fried garlic, sesame seeds, tomato and assorted peas and peanuts.


Mohinga: rice noodles with fish soup, ginger, lemongrass, garlic, onion, peppers, and rice powder.


Assorted vegetable fritters: tempura style vegetables and tofu.


Coconut Noodle: egg noodles, chicken, coconut milk, chickpea flour, tofu, fish balls, and chicken broth.


Myeik Noodle garnered best of show that day: tender squid and bean sprouts, served over flat rice noodles.


Kyae Ohh Garlic Noodle: rice vermicelli, minced chicken, bok choy, garlic, tofu, fish balls, and garlic oil.


Desserts included coconut jelly, coconut sago cake, and Burmese layer cake.

Whether you’re an aficionado or a tyro, give them a try and let me know in the comments what you think.

(For the record, this meal was comped.)
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes! ❤
 
 

Pomo FOMO

Posted on by
1

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

We had just emerged from the east side of Prospect Park and hunger beckoned. Wandering around the neighborhood in search of something perhaps a bit unusual, we stumbled upon Pomo, a Mexican-inspired bar and pizzeria located at 2122 Beekman Place. Mexican pizza is certainly not unheard of but it was at least a little different. It sounded tempting but we kept walking.

But wait. This is Brooklyn. What if they’re not here in a minute? Oh no! FOMO! So we turned around and got this Pastor pizza: marinated pork in pastor sauce, fresh mozzarella, red onions, cilantro and avocado tomatillo sauce.

Glad we did!
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes! ❤
 
 

Fujianese Red Bean Glutinous Rice Cake

Posted on by
Reply

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

One more instapost: Previously, I’ve written about the some of the unique treats we’ve enjoyed in Little Fuzhou along East Broadway in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Here’s another – and this one comes with an air of mystery. I can say with certainty that they are Fujianese, that they are made from glutinous rice and filled with beans (probably adzuki), and that they are “not too sweet” (as seems to be the mantra for Chinese snacks 😉).

Beyond that, I’d suggest that you sign up for my “Not Your Ordinary Chinatown Tour” when the weather gets a little warmer and drier and we can sample these – and lots more – together. (Bonus points if you speak Fujianese!)
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes! ❤
 
 

“Thai” Red Vegetable Curry

Posted on by
Reply

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Another instapost since we’re on the subject of curries.

This one was reasonably Thai. Oyster mushrooms, pea shoots, green beans, red onion and cilantro elevated with a packet of Thai red curry paste I had in the freezer, served over Shanxi planed noodles which is when it stopped being “Thai.”
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes! ❤
 
 

Curry Cauliflower

Posted on by
Reply

This is an instapost. An instapost is what happens when I make something tasty that was effortless to prepare and reasonably photogenic but there’s no overarching storyline associated with it because, well, time.

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Curry cauliflower served with basmati rice and paratha.


Reheated leftovers, having consumed all of the paneer and polished off the paratha on the previous day.
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes! ❤
 
 

Seeing is Deceiving

Posted on by
Reply

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)
How do you follow two months of indulgent Thanksgiving and Christmas feasting accompanied by a generous complement of seductive leftovers plus a procession of hypercaloric desserts without incurring post-holiday anticlimax?

Should you simply resign yourself to the prosaic with a homespun brunch like eggs and sausage, home fries and an English muffin?

Fat chance. And I use the word ”fat” advisedly. Because what you’re seeing here is more than meets the eye.

Those are sunny side up fresh duck eggs and the sausages are Chinese lap cheong made with duck liver; the home fries are anointed with white truffle oil and the English muffins are slathered with my homemade trifoliate orange and cranberry marmalade.


Oh, and a side of homemade johnnycakes.

So thanks to Santa’s sleight of hand I was able to cobble together this antidote to post-holiday culinary blues!
 
 
Stay safe, be well, and eat whatever it takes! ❤
 
 

A Christmas Minute

Posted on by
Reply

The sun was setting on one of those rare snow globe days that would have sent Currier and Ives back to the drawing board.

My daughter Alex and I were fulfilling our annual Macy’s pilgrimage to see Santa. Our mission accomplished, we paused for a long moment to have one last look at the sparkling snowy spectacle that was Santaland.

Perhaps we appeared lost amid the throng of milling, squealing children. A young woman dressed in a green and red velvet elf costume came up to us. It had to be near the end of what was surely an exhausting work day; nevertheless, she approached us gamely.

“Did you come here to see Santa?” she asked, poised to once again point out the line.

“We came here to see his elves, and you are one of Santa’s elves. We came here to see you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You work as hard and give your time and your attention and your patience and your love to these children every bit as much as the jolly gents wearing overstuffed red suits who sit in those cozy little houses do. So we came here to say thank you to you, Caitlyn.”

She regarded us for a second and wiping a tear from her eye leaned in and gave us both a hug. I whispered “Merry Christmas,” and my daughter and I continued on our way.

Alex looked up at me. “What just happened?”

“We just spent one minute of our time giving her something that she might actually remember for years. The most noble thing anyone can do is to help someone, even a total stranger, feel appreciated, feel somehow special, even for a minute.”

As we threaded our way out of Macy’s, Alex took my hand.

“She gets it,” I thought.

 
 

Rumpumpumpom – A Christmas Cocktail (2024)

Posted on by
Reply

I wrote this poignant piece in 2020 and nothing much has changed. So here it is again ICYMI. For best results, please read slowly.

Merry Christmas to all the lovers out there.
 
 
(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

Okay, I freely admit it. As a countermeasure against COVID stress and concomitant dumbfounding national politics, I started listening to Christmas music earlier this year. Much earlier. Like when it was still light out at 8pm.

It seemed that every day brought some new, depressing wrinkle to the headlines, and in order to survive, many folks went on a quest to find something, anything, that would provide some meaning, a dependable sense of personal stability. For me, at least, there was comfort to be gleaned from hearing the cozy, ageless tunes of a generally happier time that, unlike the news, required no rapt attention, songs that just droned their continual backdrop of falalalalas, hohohos, and parumpumpumpoms.

Now, the essence of an earworm is repetition. Rumpumpumpom. Taken out of context, what does rumpumpumpom even mean? From its relentless, nagging reiteration, I kept sensing that the word itself was on a quest to find its own meaning – that sense induced, to be sure, because it was five o’clock Somewhere – another prophylactic conceit that has gained popularity during these times – and my appreciation for that pastime led me to conclude that the rumpumpumpom conundrum would be solved if only it had a proper definition.

And now it does.

Behold the Rumpumpumpom, my custom Christmas cocktail.

Start with a base of RUM mixed with Hood PUMpkin eggnog, in proportions to taste and proximity to the aforementioned hour of the day. Float a glug of POMegranate juice into the mixture and drag a toothpick (or similar) through it to create a festive holiday design (admittedly not my strong suit). Garnish with PUMpkin seeds. Et voilà: Rumpumpumpom with a raison d’être.

Much to my surprise, it actually worked. Rum and nog are a classic couple and the tangy tartness of the pomegranate juice cut the sweetness of the pumpkin eggnog. By the time I had finished tinkering, it was eight o’clock Somewhere and by then I was easily entertained by the red juice and green seeds accidentally providing unintended Christmassy accents. Time for some photos and a few final taste tests….
 
 
And now…it is midnight Somewhere. The quest has been fulfilled, the music has run its course, the room is silent and serene.
 
 
And Somewhere, Someone with more artistic talent and a steadier hand could no doubt squiggle a Paloma Picasso-esque Christmas tree to float atop this libation, perhaps even trimmed with a solitary pomegranate ruby at its apex — and we would toast the holiday together.
 
 
A boy can dream.