Tag Archives: Chinese

Xin Fa Bakery Dan Tat

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Chinese Egg Custard Tarts (蛋挞, dan tat among other English spellings) are on display in just about every bakery case in NYC Chinatowns and can be spotted riding on dim sum trolleys threading their way through restaurants at lunchtime. They found their way to China and Hong Kong decades ago via English custard tarts and Portuguese pastéis de nata and are available these days in a wide variety of styles: basic (Guangzhou/English-inspired bright yellow surface), brûléed (Macao/Portuguese influence), egg white only, green tea, coconut, even strawberry, almond, papaya…and the list of creative variations goes on. Some time ago, there was a bakery on Mott Street that sold them to the exclusion of any other baked goods and boasted dozens of flavors; alas, they’ve since closed. New Flushing Bakery offers a rotating assortment including Strawberry Milk Custard, Lemon Egg Custard, Mango Egg Custard with tapioca balls, and Purple Potato Custard. Best I can tell, dan tat are a universal favorite.

Recently, my Number One Spy urged me to go to Xin Fa Bakery (aka Lily Bloom) at 5617 8th Ave in Sunset Park to try their signature egg tart. If memory serves, she likened the line that trailed out the door onto the sidewalk to the queue for a cronut at Dominique Ansel Bakery during its heyday, but she’s never wrong so I ventured out to Brooklyn’s Chinatown. (Actually, there are more than one Brooklyn Chinatown, but that’s a story for another day.)


These exceptional pastries are in a league of their own, heavy for their size and completely unlike any I have ever tasted – and judging from the expectant phalanx waiting at the door as well as a legion of stellar online reviews, most folks agree.


Fresh out of the oven and so hot it nearly pizza-burned the roof of my mouth. But it would have been worth every blister: it was fairly bursting with creamy custard, dense, sweet, eggy, and jiggly.


The crust is layered but not crispy; its yielding texture complements the rich custard perfectly.

They offer other baked goods here – the sign for Japanese Castella cake caught my eye – but I was monomaniacal in my mission. No worries – I fully intend to return.

There is a downside though, and it’s not the ultimately manageable line outside. These little gems have ruined me for any other dan tat I might encounter. So if we ever do dim sum together and the dan tat hail from that restaurant’s kitchen, go right ahead and grab them as soon as they hit the table – they’re all yours.
 
 

Mott Street Eatery 98 Food Court – Part One

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I made it to the soft opening of Mott Street Eatery 98 Food Court at 98 Mott Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown on November 11; the Grand Opening was on the 12th. Only two of the twelve stalls were set up, Domo Sushi, which featured nigiri, maki and such along with an omakase option, and 89 Eatery, the sprawling anchor, teeming with hungry patrons when I visited.

Between my spookomaki and the kuromame for the nattophobic posts, I’ve been eating a lot of Japanese food lately, so today’s choice would be Chinese without further deliberation.

I’ll cut to the chase: everything I tasted was truly outstanding – and considering I had just enjoyed great dim sum for lunch in Sunset Park less than a week ago (post coming soon), that’s saying a lot.

They offer 35 kinds of dim sum…

…25 varieties of soups and congee with you tiao (Chinese crullers) and additional meats available to accompany them…

…and 16 items in the BBQ section along with mix ‘n’ match selections.

Where to begin? I chose three of my favorites from among the impressive array of dim sum, all of which were remarkable:


Chaozhou Dumplings (aka fun guo), fresh from the steamer, featuring peanuts and bursting with crunchy vegetables. Top notch.

The inner workings.


XO Sauce Pork Rice Roll. This was made as a special order with a wait of just a few minutes, and it was also excellent. I’ve often seen XO sauce touted on a menu but not readily apparent in the dish; in this case there was no question. And as you can see, plenty of pork.

The inner workings.


Bean Curd Sheet with Pork. Definitely a fan.

The inner workings.

Of course, I’ll come back for the congee and BBQ – and for the eleven other stalls as they get going. This is definitely my idea of fun.

Stay tuned for Part Two – lots more to come!
 
 
And most important, I’ll say it again: Here is another delicious opportunity for all of us to do the right thing – now, more than ever, please SUPPORT CHINATOWN!
 
 

Product Name: Strange-Taste Horsebean

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That’s what it read on the back of the package. Horsebean is simply another name for broad beans or fava beans, in this case dried for nibbling purposes. Now, if you decide to go ahead and do some independent research on the Google, be sure you search for the single word “horsebean”, not the phrase “horse bean” lest you tumble down a rabbit hole that, trust me, you truly do not want to explore. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.


I spotted these in a Chinese market snack aisle, my happy place of late, it would seem. They’re coated with a crunchy shell, at once spicy, salty, and sweet – the triumvirate of addictive noshing. Another caveat: I was surprised to discover a few of these that seemed almost as hard as pebbles, so chomp gingerly.

There was precious little English on the package except for the following on the back:

“Diehua brand strange-taste horsebeans are produced since 1897. The product has a special taste, fragrant and sweet and crisp, numb and sore, salty and fresh, comfortable and tasty and refreshing, it likes mulberry tree’s fruit color and lusterris Moise….”

[Luscious, maybe? They’re certainly not lustrous. Can’t figure out Moise. Starts out okay, kinda falls apart by the end….]

Followed by one final instruction: “Eating Method: eat right after open it.”

Mission accomplished. Yum.

But I need to make it abundantly clear for those of you who don’t know me that I am not mocking the language in the legend. Whoever wrote it has far more English than I will ever have of any Chinese dialect, and as such they also have my respect. I once had a friend who said that if she could be granted any wish, it would be to be able speak every language of the world fluently. I still admire her for that. It’s not about showing off, it’s about openhearted communication. That’s the first step in connecting with anyone.

And when all is said and done, that’s why writers write.
 
 

Tiger Sugar Rice Balls

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These days, Tiger Sugar and their wildly popular brown sugar boba milk drink along with ancillary products like ice cream pops, milk egg rolls, and even popcorn are a common sight in Chinatowns (and elsewhere!) along with a multitude of wannabe competitors. Two of their more intriguing creations include their innovative take on classic filled rice balls, in this case Black Sugar Salted Egg Custard and Black Sugar Sesame.

Filled rice balls have been around forever, long before there was a Tiger Sugar, and are readily available in the freezer case at Asian markets. Tiger Sugar’s interpretation capitalizes on their signature flavor: since the outer enclosing layer is made from glutinous rice, it’s a little chewy like boba and tastes like their famous drink, but less intense.

There are ten 1¼-inch spheres to a package; all you need to do is boil them for a few minutes (they expand a bit), drain them, and as the instructions direct, “put them into iced fresh milk or sweet soup”. When you see the phrase “fresh milk” in Chinatown, it simply refers to standard whole milk; “sweet soup” comprises any of the many varieties of Cantonese tong sui: sweet, warm dessert soups.


Black Sugar Salted Egg Custard Rice Ball. You might recognize the distinct flavor profile of salted egg yolk from visits to your favorite dim sum parlor or Chinese bakery – so many buns and balls filled with creamy salted egg! Unlike a moon cake, you won’t find a whole egg yolk in there; this filling is made from palm oil, powdered sugar, bean paste, milk powder, egg yolk powder and then, finally, salted egg yolk powder – but it’s rather tasty nonetheless.


Black Sugar Sesame Rice Ball. The filling is sweet and unquestionably black sesame, its texture is a little crunchy and gritty in a good way. Again, most enjoyable.

IMO, they’re both good with a bit of milk poured over, but not tossed into a whole glass of fresh milk. Also IMO, they don’t play well with ice cream – trust me, I tried. But I keep looking for more ideas because I really do like them; I’m convinced there’s an ultimate way to use these in addition to sweet soup. Any thoughts?
 
 

Chinese-Italian Inspiration

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Other than as a source for ideas, I’m not one to slavishly follow others’ recipes; my preference is to innovate rather than replicate. (Not to mention that in doing so, no one can complain that I didn’t “get it right”. 😉) I was once asked where I find inspiration for my own concoctions, so apropos of that question, here’s a recent story:

I had been chatting with a charming woman who maintains a patch in a local victory garden. In the course of our conversation, she mentioned that she was half Chinese and half Italian. (Imagine being a kid growing up with two sets of holiday traditions – so jealous!) She offered me some Chinese long beans that she had grown which I eagerly accepted. I was pondering how to prepare them: I could adhere to some classic time-honored long bean technique but I felt inspired to do something more with them, perhaps to create a dish that might reflect the dual heritage of the person who had cultivated them.

So this was my process. Looking at the shape of the Chinese beans, long, thin, and cylindrical, it was a cinch to come up with an element from Italian cuisine that would match: a member of the spaghetti family was the obvious choice. For this application I chose bucatini (aka perciatelli) since when fully cooked it would be nearly as thick as a long bean.

Now for some vegetables: I decided that Chinese dried mushrooms (aka shiitake) and fresh Italian cremini would harmonize nicely so they became a significant component along with chopped onion and red bell pepper in the base because those are cross cultural, and garlic, of course. Lots of garlic. For a bit of protein, ground pork went into the mix since pork is common to both regions.

And a sauce to bring it all together: Was there one that made use of some ingredients associated with both cuisines? Sichuan Yu Xiang sauce would be perfect. (Yu Xiang means “fish-flavored” but don’t be misled by the phrase – it neither contains nor tastes like fish; rather this delicious blend refers to a combination of ingredients, a little sweet and sour, a little spicy and salty, often used in preparing fish.) It comprises an assortment of classic Chinese condiments including doubanjiang (chili bean paste), Zhenjiang black vinegar, Shaoxing cooking wine and soy sauce plus, the way I make it, some tomato based sauce, so that’s a loose nod to Italy.

IMHO, the dish totally worked.

That’s the cool thing about inspiration – you never know where it’s going to happen, but it always happens when you least expect it.
 
 
Only one question remains: Do you eat this with chopsticks or a fork?
 
 

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival – 2021

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A visit to any Chinatown bakery this time of year will reveal a spectacular assemblage of mooncakes (月餅, yue bing) in a seemingly infinite variety of shapes, sizes, ornamentation, and fillings, all begging to be enjoyed in observance of the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated this year on September 21. Here are two pandan mooncakes, one with preserved egg yolk and a mini version without, from Chinatown’s Fay Da Bakery.

Since 2021 is the Year of the Ox, known for his patience and resolution, I was determined to purchase (and eat my way through – no matter how long it might take me 😉) an assortment of these delicacies in order to compare them and ultimately share them, virtually, with you. For a deep dive into the holiday and these delicious treats, please check out my Chinese Mooncakes Demystified page detailing their similarities and differences in an attempt to shed some light (moonlight, of course) on their intricacies.

中秋节快乐!
 
 
Note: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, some businesses may be closed – temporarily, we hope – and prices may vary. The Mid-Autumn Festival, however, will be with us forever – as long as there are autumns to celebrate!
 
 

Chinese Fried Pancake – Preserved Egg Sausage

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In my last post, I wrote about Chinese Fried Pancake at 136-55 Roosevelt Ave and their humongous Mixed Grain Fried Pancake. (Correct me if I’m wrong but I think they opened sometime around November in 2020 when I was laying low.) Their signage for Preserved Egg Sausage caught my eye.

I’ve had a lot of experience with – and am a fan of – Chinese preserved eggs (aka century eggs, hundred year old eggs, thousand year old eggs, millennium eggs – do I hear epoch eggs?). When eggs are preserved in this fashion, they develop an intense flavor and aroma, the yolk turns a grayish green color with a creamy consistency, and the white becomes a gelatinous translucent brown. But I had never seen them in a sausage format.

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They’re sold as a pair of links, 8 inches long and 1½ inches in diameter; for this photo, I left one whole and propped up a cross section of its twin for display. In terms of taste, I was surprised that it was devoid of any unpleasant sulphurous/ammonia overtones often associated with the original; in my opinion it was quite tasty and not completely out of bounds for the average Western palate.

The bluish grey body of the sausage has the texture of a regular hardboiled egg and is a little salty but not overly so; I’m honestly not certain what goes into the making of it. (Possibly regular egg white with something that alters the color?) Embedded within that are bits of century egg yolk that have the creamy, slightly textured quality of hardboiled egg yolk, and bits of amber century egg white.


Closeup of a slice in what passes for normal lighting in my apartment. You can see the century egg yolk near the top and the century egg white near the bottom.


Closeup of the same slice, rotated counterclockwise and backlit, because I love that color.


So aside from playing with it, I used it in the context of congee laced with chunks of lap cheong (Chinese sausage) and scallions.

You know me: always looking for something different. This counts. 😉
 
 

Chinese Fried Pancake – Mixed Grain Fried Pancake

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Flashback to a couple of months ago when I set out to reconnoiter the changes in Flushing that had occurred during my pandemically enforced quarantine. The escalator was being refurbished that day, so I speedily clambered up the subway stairs with a plan to cover as much territory as possible and a list of new (to me) places to check out, keenly aware that I’d better keep moving, sharklike, if I wanted to fulfill my mission.

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But practically at the top of the staircase, I spotted Chinese Fried Pancake at 136-55 Roosevelt Ave – not on my list, but certainly enticing. Hurriedly, I ordered their signature Mixed Grain Fried Pancake; I requested the “regular” which contained egg, “crisp”, scallion, cilantro, lettuce, preserved mustard greens, and black sesame seeds. But in my haste to cleave to my schedule, I had completely missed the part of the menu listing the available add-ons including tofu skin, shredded potatoes, pork floss, nori, spicy gluten, New Orleans (really?) boneless chicken leg, Spam, Taiwanese sausage, bacon, ham sausage, and more which would have undoubtedly elevated the experience. I definitely need to go back and do some customization.


In any event, it was huge, almost unwieldy, and very filling – but certainly not the way I had intended to start a day of eating my way through Flushing’s Chinatown.

They offer quite a selection of other dishes as well like popcorn chicken, grilled squid, stinky tofu and Dongbei cold noodle to mention some of the more appealing options.


Unfurled, revealing inner workings – telltale post-bite scallopy fringe in evidence along bottom.

But there was also signage for something even more intriguing called Preserved Egg Sausage that I knew would be a prime candidate for some domestic examination when time wasn’t at a premium.

Stay tuned to see what happened next….
 
 

It Knows It When It Sees It

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A long time ago, in a century far, far away (or so it seems), there was an enduring earworm of a hit song entitled “Shrimp Boats Is A-Comin'” popularized in 1951 by singer Jo Stafford. (If you’re under 60 years of age, you can hear it here.) So being of a certain age and a lover of wordplay, the original title for Monday’s post about shrimp balls was, of course, “Shrimp Balls Is A-Comin’.”

Quite by coincidence, a couple of days before it went up, my webhost had dispatched a routine missive to their clients indicating that they had upgraded some underlying code and suggesting that we have a look at our sites to ensure that all was well. A healthy round of clicking revealed no anomalies, so I thought nothing of it.

Subsequently, I published the shrimp balls piece, apparently without incident, but although it looked just fine online, none of my subscribers had received the customary notification that a new post had dropped; everything else about it, text, photos, internal links and the like, worked as anticipated. I tried a repost. Nothing. I assumed that it might have something to do with the under-the-hood tinkering (perhaps involving the outgoing email system?) that had recently taken place, so armed with a steaming mug of coffee and prepared to spend the day staring at my computer screen while listening to music on hold, I called my webhost.

I’ll spare you the details because I’m certain that you’ve all been victims of Customer Support Abuse: scripted questions like, “Are you sure your computer is plugged in?” “Is the caps lock key engaged?” “Have you tried wiping it down with a soft cloth?” and finally, “All right then, I’ll escalate you to Technical Support…” [of course, I had already pressed 3 when I called initially] “…and when [WHEN?] we get disconnected, call us back. Please hold.” 🎶🎶🎶….

Mercifully, I was connected to someone who knew the difference between a plug and a jack, and we unearthed the answer: their mail server’s oblivious algorithm had dutifully flagged the title of the post as porn and refused to distribute the message! So to verify, while Tech Support was standing by, I hastily substituted the rather insipid but assuredly safe title “Another Chinese Snack”, reposted it, and Bob’s your uncle, the announcements were dispatched.

Clearly, algorithms are not programmed to include a sense of humor.
 
 
What follows is the post “Shrimp Balls Is A-Comin'” as it originally appeared; only the name has been changed to – ostensibly – protect the innocent.

Although in retrospect, I think the backstory is more likely to grab you. 😉

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The Japanese inscription エビのボール reads ebi no bōru, shrimp balls, although it’s a Chinese product; the package shows a serving suggestion so don’t expect to find the sesame/cumin seeds or sprinkles of seasoning depicted in the photo. They bear some resemblance to the fish balls I wrote about in my post Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of…Fish? (a particularly popular post among spammers, BTW – IDKW 😉) but rather than being something fished out of the freezer case destined for a soup pot or the like, these are a packaged item destined for snackin’ right out of the bag.


Individually wrapped as so many of these snacks are.


The inner workings. They’re moist, about 1½ inches in diameter, and actually pretty tasty; seems like there’s something more shrimp-related in there beyond what I’m guessing is mostly surimi masquerading as a higher form of seafood – plus the tiniest bit of spice. They have enough flavor on their own that I wouldn’t try to repurpose them into some loftier culinary creation; they might be more at home toothpicked with others of their ilk on a party platter.

 
 

Every Day Host Gluten Strips

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Retrieved from another snack aisle in another Chinese supermarket, these were identified in English merely as Every Day Host Gluten Strips and something very approximately like Hand Ripped Lunch Strip Taste in Chinese, taken character by character. (Feel free to tag in, 朋友们.) About five inches long, the easily unzipped twin strips are a tad oily; they’re salty, sweet, and spicy – which comes as no surprise since the ingredients listed are wheat flour, soybean oil, salt, white sugar, chili and spices. As a matter of fact, the only surprise came from their unusual texture: chewy, puffy, airy, and a bit like biting into a sponge. They’re not bad exactly, just a little unusual.

Here’s the packaging (after I had removed most of the contents) in case you want to either try them or avoid them:

Sometimes, when I come across a product that is sort of okay but not so bad as to be trashworthy, I’ll try to invent a better use for it beyond its preordained destiny. For example, I had acquired some off-brand meat-stick Slim Jim clones. Again, not awful, but nothing to write home to Mom about. Turns out they made great stirring sticks for Bloody Marys – a triumph of snackish fulfillment.

No enlightened second life inspiration for these yet, but I’m open to suggestions!