The Maltese Bacon

Eating in Brooklyn: Lan Zhou Hand Pull Noodles

It's amazing that you can still eat handmade noodles for $6. But that's the Chinatown Paradox isn't it? As the zig zag of inflation and deflation confuse food costs all across the board, Chinatown prices manage to stay compelling. I am referring to the noodles at the Sunset Park branch of Lan Zhou Hand Pull Noodles, a couple blocks off the N stop at 8th Avenue and 62nd St.

The Mixed Beef Noodles comes with tripe, gelatinous cuts, and sliced beef. The broth was not as tasty as I would have liked, but there are plenty of condiments to spruce it up. The Duck Noodle Soup broth was more flavorful. They do not skimp on the fresh noodles, and for once I had trouble finishing them. Afterward, we went to the new giant supermarket one block southwest of the train stop. The condiments section alone is to die for, not to mention the wide variety of fresh vegetables.

 Lan Zhou Hand Pull Noodles
 5924 8th Ave
 Brooklyn, NY 11220
 (718) 492-7568‎
 For photos of the noodles at Lan Zhou click here.

 Lan Zhou Handmade Noodles (This is a Manhattan location of hand pulled noodles, but I'm not sure if it is the same owner as the one I went to above.)
144 E. Broadway (b/w East Broadway & Pike St.)
New York, NY 10002
(212)566-6933

Noodle Blitzkrieg: Part 1 of Probably Several

Here's an initial offering of three places I love to get noodles at:

Chao Chao Noodle Soup

New Chao Chow
Open from 8:10am to 10pm, this noodle shop does a brisk business with the locals, from the knuckle-tattooed Chinatown tough guy to the older lady wearing giant sunglasses ("My usual. ONLY SHRIMP! I don't eat the otha stuff. You guys don't have Chinese parsley today?" ) The place is cheery, the service is quick, and the small soup is a perfect size for lunch. The combination rice stick noodle soup (Hu Tieu), is a composed dish ($4.25), with the broth appearing on the side. The noodles come heaped with fresh fish cake, sliced pork, ground pork, bean sprouts, fried onions, one shrimp and sliced pork innard, which I gently push to the side. The shrimp is an indication of the Chiu Chow people's coastal roots in Guandong on the eastern side of China. The basic flavorings of the dish hark back to the Vietnamese Hu Tieu noodle soup, which may have come from the Chiu Chow population that emigrated to Vietnam.

New Chao Chow
111 Mott St.
North of Canal St.
(212) 226-2590

Naeng Myun

Li Hua
This is what I crave when the dial hits 90 degrees, and I don't feel like walking in the summery stink of Chinatown. It's naeng myun, an icy cold beef soup with chewy sweet potato noodles (or buckwheat noodles in other recipes) and topped with brisket, Asian pear, hardboiled egg, and sliced cucumber. It's like eating a sublime beef slurpee. I was initially intrigued by naeng-myun when I read that a Mr. Jung-Hyun Kim had opened up a restaurant in Seoul so that he could eat this dish three times a day everyday. He eventually opened up 4 more restaurants in New York, Paraguay and Korea. There is movie material here somewhere. (A man opens up one naeng myun restaurant after another to mourn a long lost sweetheart, separated by the 38th parallel, who he used to share this dish with. One day, she walks into his Paraguay branch, which he so happens to be doing an efficiency inspection of. "Of all the naeng-myun joints in town, you had to walk into mine," he says. "Well, this is technically the only one on the continent," she replies. ) The naeng myun is not listed on the permanent menu, so just ask for it. If you don't feel like eating romantic naeng myun, don't miss the duk mandoo-guk, a soup of dumplings and sliced rice cake in a murky white beef and egg broth.

Li Hua
171 Grand St.
At Baxter St
212-343-0090

Pho Bo Vien

Pho Bang
Pho Bang is my diner. I have done everything short of my taxes here, using their space as my psychic and organizational center. Many an hour there has been spent reading, scribbling, staring at the nice Vietnamese lady in the poster, and even writing a half-baked short story set in Pho Bang itself. The waiters are sweet and let me be. They were a little baffled when I had my birthday dinner there last week. They were like, this chick has friends?

Their house specialty, the pho beef noodle soup is a great restaurant version. I don't mean to use "restaurant version" as a huge qualifier, but you have to understand. I can't gush like crazy about any restaurant phos. In all my years, our family has only found 2 acceptable pho restaurants to eat at (one in San Jose and one in Virginia) because the criteria is a definitive home-style broth and the standard of measurement is my mother's, which is famous. But really, the one at Pho Bang is nice, I've eaten the pho tai with rare beef about 80 times. Sometimes I get the beef meatball one (pho bo vien), which has fun, chewy bite. I also recommend the one special they advertise on the wall, a rice noodle crepe stuffed with pork and mushroom and served with ham (banh cuon) and all their vermicelli (bun) dishes.

Pho Bang
157 Mott St, New York 10013
North of Grand St.
212-966-3797

Controlled Chaos: Jing Fong

The interior of my brain

My friends, Mike and Diana, were in town from Oakland and a bunch of us met last Sunday at Jing Fong. It should be called Jing Fong Convention Center - it fits nearly 800 people, with plenty of aisle room for dim sum carts, their lady pushers, host men in black, waiters, fidgety children and people running around chasing after hot ticket carts. Not to mention, there is bizarro red and pink decor, accentuated by blue and pink neon lights.

Paul came late and he had hard time finding us, even when we were waving, because at any given moment 10 people in the room are waving someone in. The food was great. Diana, who taught me how to stir fry romaine lettuce at the age of 18, said that Jing Fong was no slump compared to that of the dim sum found in our hometown*, which is saying something. (*Referring to the city of Cupertino, where Chinese culinary distinction is achieved through all the computer money floating in the air.)

The fish paste stuffed eggplant was slimy, oily and very good. The fried taro was a fantastically crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside. Spareribs, choy sum, all manner of shrimp dumplings, barbecue pork buns and dumplings, fried shrimp nests, sticky rice with pork in lotus leaf, and on and on, until we were lying belly up. The only thing that was off was the fried turnip cake which needed more cooking. There is a buffet stand where you go to pick up the turnip cake, eggplant, choy sum, rice noodles, pig's blood, etc.

We walked off the dim sum by making a stop at The Chinatown Ice Cream factory. I got the Longan flavored sorbet. Apparently, one of the family members of the establishment broke ranks and opened up a shop of his own.

Then we sat on a rock in Columbus park. There was an old Chinese man who had all these birds hanging in the trees. He moved them tenderly around to get them better situated (a nicer place in the shade maybe?)

Jing Fong
18 Elizabeth St
(212) 964-5256

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
65 Bayard St
(212) 608-4170

Best Mixed Use Space: Banh Mi Saigon Bakery/Jing Jing Gem Stone Jewelry Store

currently eating: pork liver pate and ham sandwich with pickled carrot/radish, cilantro, cucumber

sandwiches also available:chicken, sardine, veggie, meatball, roasted pork (most coma-inducing and most popular - showcases Chinese influence at this shop which makes sense since they come from the Cholon area of Saigon, according  to  The Porkchop Express)

138-01 Mott St., New York, NY 10002
just south of Grand St.
212-941-1541

Chinatown Stop: New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe

The Exponential Law of Peking Duck: If there is one person who orders Peking Duck in a restaurant, it is impossible for incoming diners to resist ordering it too, especially if they are eating with family. 

Also of note, the soup dumplings at New Yeah are smaller than the ones you see around town, which makes them slightly easier to eat. And they've got a pleasant ambience  - good for taking out of towners. It's a nice change from what Sietsema dubbed the "operating room" feel of the New Green Bo across the street, if you're in for that sort of thing.

New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe
65 Bayard St.
New York, NY 10013
212.566.4884