Here, There, And Everywhere

Sunday night, my family and I headed out for seafood, the perfect match for a hot June night. Eastchester Fish Gourmet serves clean, honest seafood, the kinds of dishes I crave when the weather gets hot. Truth be told, I feel nostalgic for afternoons that sweep into evenings on decks above the Atlantic in Massachusetts, where lobster comes with a plastic bib and a bright cylinder of corn. New York is full of many culinary possibilities, but I've never felt that the dining scene here ever truly understood a proper New England seafood meal.

I considered the steamers, of course, but they are messy and I was wearing silk. Instead, I settled for east coast oysters, five different ones (Peconic, Blue Point, Malpeque, and Beau Soleil) that were as clean and briny as any served on any fine coastline. My softshell crab appetizer was crispy and well suited for the caper and pepper sauce that accompanied it. The bed of chopped spinach underneath was a nice final touch.

And then, my lobster. They had no chickens in house, so I bumped up to the next bracket, 1.75 lbs. of pure Maine crustacean. Any New Englander will tell you that the smaller lobsters yield the sweeter meat and the greed of diners who order the 3 or 6 or 9 lb. beasts is never rewarded. Lobster is a true measure of quality since it's eaten with nothing but drawn butter and this specimen didn't disappoint. I remember a time when I hated lobster, the one food in my home that my mother permitted me to pass up. More for her, she always figured, and now I know the error of my ways.

Dessert gilded the lily--I could have (and should have) stopped after my shellfishpalooza--but I needed that pineapple upside-down cake, didn't I? Or maybe I just needed the caramelized banana ice-cream that came with it.

From linen tablecloths to cafeteria dining, my next night out found me in Flushing, back to the Golden Mall for noodles, dumplings, and other assorted snacks. At Xi'an Famous Snacks, one must never leave without trying the Liang Pi noodles (cold, thick, glutinous noodles served in a secret sauce with slabs of tripe) or the lamb burger, a spicy combination of lamb and cumin served on a thin and crispy bun. You would never expect from the dinginess of the place that this stall has played host to Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain, but they know good tripe when they see it. Next door, the noodle-pullers at Lanzhou Handmade Noodles served us beef and noodles in broth, far tastier than whatever incarnation I had the last time I came (skip the gristly beef itself, but drink the cilantro-flecked broth).

At House of Xie, another mall stall, we sat down to julienned potato salad, slick with chili oil. Then: a perfect, sticky bun filled with savory beef and sweet onions; thin sliced kielbasa, served cold; chewy pig ear cut into fine ribbons. Nan Shian Dumpling House graced us with chive and meat dumplings, pan seared. They were soft-topped and brown-bottomed, like any good fried dumpling should be from a combination of steam and oil. A good dumpling sticks to the bottom of the pan. We ate ours with black vinegar and black garlic.

Back on the street, we stopped at the duck bun vendor for $1 duck buns, flesh and a perfect square of crisped skin served on a white, doughy bun with hoisin, scallion, and cucumber. There is no better dessert.

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Eastchester Fish Gourmet

837 Post Road

Scarsdale, NY 10583

914.725.3450

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Xi'an Famous Snacks

Golden Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

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Lanzhou Handmade Noodles

Golden Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

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House of Xie

Golden Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

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Nan Shian Dumpling House

Golden Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

Flushing Is A Foreign Country

I went there for dinner because it's cheap and exotic and because I love the scared look on people's faces when I try to get them to try weird Chinese stuff.  Last year, the New York Times wrote about Flushing, calling attention to the dingy (and very un-mall-like) Golden Mall, the bottom floor of which houses a food court (if you can call it that).   One of the court stalls interested me.  It was a place called Lan Zhou Handmade Noodles.  

In the grimy basement, a Chinese man with a bluetooth headset and baseball cap took dough and made noodles to order.  That involved smacking the dough down on a cold surface and winding it over his hands until he had perfectly uniform pieces the width of spaghetti.  He cut these into boiling broth and served them to us fresh.  Soups range from the basic (vegetable) to the meaty (oxtail) to the exotic (pig intestine), but the broths are all the same: rich pork and beef bone broth with a hint of star anise.  

My soup also had salty bok choy and scallions.  The noodles themselves had a spicy, star anise thing going on as well.  They were springy.  We were the whitest people in that windowless mall. 

I stopped at a bakery two doors down for a bubble tea.  I didn't get the name.  Unlike most bubble teas I have had in my lifetime, this one wasn't made from the flavored powders so commonly found in Chinatown.  Instead, my barista pureed fresh watermelon with ice and served it cold with lots of tapioca.  

Finally, I stopped at a food cart for snacks to take home.  I bought steamed pork buns (4/$1.25), doughy fist-sized balls stuffed with dumpling filling, and a large (and somewhat tasteless) scallion pancake that came wrapped in parchment paper.  My loot cost a whopping $11 total, and that included the trendy bubble tea.  

If you can stand a trip on the 7, or have a car like I do, it's worth the trip.  

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Lan Zhou Handmade Noodles

Golden Shopping Mall

41-28 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11355

Spicy, Tasty, Salty, Sweet

I finally made it back to Flushing for Chinese food.  We couldn't have timed it better; having Saturday night dinner in the outer boroughs means no negotiation with maitre'ds, no hour long wait, no deus ex machina needed to provide an actual table.  

Our destination was Spicy and Tasty, a small Chinese spot off of Roosevelt Avenue to which Frank Bruni awarded two stars last year.  Sitting in Spicy and Tasty, it's hard to imagine the Brunz here with his portfolio bag, notepad, impeccable dress.  Like most Chinese restaurants in Flushing, this one has allowed decor to fall by the wayside.  The service--what little of it there is--consists of servers tossing down menus, bringing us our Tsing Taos, grudgingly taking our order, and bringing (and later boxing) our food.  There's tea, but despite my request, no water.  

As it turns out, the icky service matters very little.  What matters is the spicy, spicy food.  Those of fragile palates, do not fear; when I say spicy, I mean not only the tear-provoking rip of hot pepper.  These dishes are layered, complex, warming, supple, and generously flavored.  There also so, so good. 

We ordered four dishes, which, it just so happens, would have been enough for an army of us--and we were just two.  We defended our ordering to ourselves: how else could we judge the restaurant and all it had to offer?  And what could possibly be better than Chinese leftovers?

Sauteed Chinese cabbage with dried chilis surprisingly took the cake as the night's best dish.  Crisp, generously sliced cabbage came in a sea of brown sauce adorned with dark chilis.  Shrimp with pickled turnips did not disappoint.  The shrimp themselves were smaller than prawns and larger than rock shrimp and danced with large chunks of toothsome and salty turnip, minced ginger, red pepper flakes.  

Spinach almost matched lamb in proportion in a dish called lamb with red chili sauce.  Not to be outdone, fatty and ample sliced pork came with its own peppers, this time small, red, and hot.  Each dish had its own brand of spice and no dish could have ever been confused with its neighbor.  Maybe that's what made the meal so satisfying.  The total price tag for a meal that will likely offer us two days' worth of leftovers?  $63, including tip.  

Of course, we needed something sweet to end our adventure into the belly of Queens.  We considered it fortuitous that the Yi Mei Fung Bakery happened to hock its wares right at the entrance to the 7 train.  Inside, were attracted to a case of creamy looking pastries, tarts, and birthday cakes.  My friend ordered one with a dark chocolate disc on top.  

Here was our confusion: the cake's frosting (light, airy, resembling buttercream) tasted more like actual butter.  We kept eating it to try and figure it out.  Was it a mistake?  Had a young pastry chef accidentally replaced sugar with salt?  The frosting was salty.  Salty!  The cake itself, angel food stuffed with coconut cream, was not salty.  Why, then, was the frosting?

We had to get to the bottom of it.  Maybe this was some Chinese joke on us.  I went back to the counter and ordered a pastry the size and shape of a sub sandwich billed as "coconut creme."  The thing had been dusted with toasted coconut and was split open at the front, resembling a donut's unfortunate cousin.  We used our hands.  And guess what?  The frosting, once again, was salty.  Very confusing. 

Later research conducted by yours truly indicated that Yi Mei Fung's baked goods rival, Tai Pan Bakery is known to produce the best egg custards in all of Flushing, if not New York.  I think next time I'll head there instead.  

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Spicy and Tasty

39-07 Prince Street

Flushing, Queens 11354

718.359.1601

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Yi Mei Fung Bakery

135-38 Roosevelt Avenue

Flushing, Queens 11354

718.886.6820

A Weekend In Queens

I was invited to be the date of my college roommate at a Long Island City wedding last night and, being the type of person who never passes up free food or booze, I was obliged to attend. No one should ever expect anything good from wedding food, even if the event comes billed as "fancy." Wedding food routinely fails to impress. I should know. This was my twelfth wedding since 2005.

Actually, the central conflict of a wedding I attended over the summer revolved around an overcooked steak that I politely passed on. I was accused of being a bad guest and I don't take criticism well. These days, I push the food around to conceal my distrust of banquet food.

Given the fact that I entered last night's soiree with diminished expectations, things could really only look up. So I was pleasantly surprised when a moist red velvet wedding cake (the ultimate Magnolia Bakery cliche, I know) made an appearance at my place setting. I can unequivocally say that the cake--threaded with layers of cream cheese frosting--was the best wedding cake I've ever had. That, and the somewhat majestic view of the city, unencumbered by any familial or other obligations, made the night very worthwhile.

Today's Queens adventure would have been the perfect remedy for a hangover had I overimbibed last night, which, incidentally, I didn't. A drive to Flushing yielded brilliant dim sum at Gala Manor (right off Main Street, for the intrepid). Baby clams came swimming in a thick and salty brown sauce. Stuffed shisito peppers and soy sauce were fresh and bright. Several varieties of dumplings (shrimp, mushroom and shrimp, vegetable and shrimp, pork and... shrimp?) and a weird mochi stuffed and fried with something unidentifiable were the makings of the perfect brunch.

Twenty-five dollars poorer--perhaps the steal of the century, FYI--we ventured to the Flushing Mall, where my friend begged me not to cruise the stalls of the food court. But I had to. And left vindicated, honey dew bubble tea in hand. My friend had never tried a bubble tea herself but I won her over.

My conclusion, weekend's festivities done, is that one can spend a perfectly awesome weekend in the boroughs without even touching foot to island. I'm no anti-Manhattaner, but maybe the perfect respite for winter city blues lies on the other side of the river.

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Gala Manor
3702 Main Street
Flushing, NY 11354
718.888.9232