During the break between terms, my parents did not want me to go home, so I decided to fly to New York to visit friends and explore around.
Before heading to NYC, I came across a video by my favorite vlogger, Fred Liu, who was exploring cheap food options around Chinatown. He had all positive things to say about the authentic, delicious, and affordable food in NYC’s Chinatown.
Inspired by his video, I invited my friends to join me on a food hunt. After being away from home for so long, we were all craving some good, authentic food from home. I’m glad NYC cured us of that.
Chinatown
Mei Lah Wah is a popular Hong Kong-style yum cha restaurant that is especially well-known for its pineapple pork buns (菠蘿包). Despite its name, ‘pineapple’ bread doesn’t actually contain any pineapple as an ingredient; rather, the shape of the bread is designed to resemble a pineapple. As an Asian myself, I had never tried something like this, and my reaction after the first bite was just as dramatic as Fred’s in the video. IT WAS SOO GOOD. The bun was baked to perfection, with a crispy outer layer and a slightly sweet flavor that paired perfectly with the savory pork filling. One bun costs only $2.8, making it a great value and a perfect choice for a quick snack. This is for sure my favorite food that I’ve had in NYC.
Wah Fung is a really popular restaurant in Chinatown that sells Cantonese-style barbecue meat rice (燒臘飯). We have this kind of bento restaurant back in Taiwan and most of them are really good, but I rarely eat them because they contain a high amount of calories. The menu at Wah Fung offers a limited selection of pork, duck, or chicken in either small or large portions. As three adults, we got roasted pork chicken and duck rice (3 in 1) in both large and small portions, but we were only able to finish the large one and were already full. The price was reasonable, and the serving size was more than enough to fill us up. I would definitely come back to this restaurant if I lived in NYC and was craving Chinese food. However, if you are just visiting, there are other restaurants worth exploring.
This restaurant was highly recommended by one of my friends. He claimed that cheung fun was so good that his girlfriend dreamt about it. Yi Ji Shi Mo is a small hidden gem located in Chinatown that specializes in cheung fun (腸粉), a Cantonese dish consisting of rice noodle sheets rolled with fillings like beef, pork, or shrimp. I’ve always loved the shrimp-filled cheung fun, and Yi Ji Shi Mo did not disappoint. The rice noodle sheet was incredibly soft and practically melted in my mouth. The sauce, which is the soul of this dish, was bursting with flavor and complemented the roll perfectly. This is considerably the best cheung fun I’ve ever had in life.
I came to Spicy Village specifically to try their pork pancake (肉夾饃), which is another snack I’ve always wanted to try but never had the chance to. Since this is my first time trying it, I’m not sure how to rate it, but overall I think the meat is juicy and the taste is really good. In addition to the pork pancake, the restaurant also offers a wide range of affordable Chinese dishes. I’d love to come back next time to see what Spicy Village has to offer.
Flushing
Other than Chinatown, there’s Flushing. Flushing is an area in Queens, and I feel even more like being in China than in Chinatown. Since the entire area is basically an Asian community, it offers more variety of Asian cuisines here. My friends told me they come here all the time for authentic Taiwanese food, and I’m more than happy to go with them and try it all out.
First off, I tried the fried stinky tofu (炸臭豆腐). This dish is a famous Taiwanese street food with a strong smell. It is definitely not something that is commonly appreciated by foreigners, so I was thrilled to find a place that offers this in the US! People say that good stinky tofu needs to be decently stinky, but since I don’t consider it to have a smell, my standard is that it needs to be crispy with the sauce cooked inside the tofu. I was pleasantly surprised by the dish at Taipei Hong, as it was really good and even had pickled cabbage to go with it. It is fairly similar to the ones back home. I’m actually so satisfied and happy to have this.
Other than KFC (both Kentucky Fried Chicken and Korean Fried Chicken), there’s Taiwanese fried chicken (台灣鹽酥雞). It’s a really popular Taiwanese street food where you go to a food stand and pick out things you’d like to have them fry. Chicken, tempura, veggies, fries, and pig blood rice cake are my go-to’s. The prices here at Legend Chicken are relatively expensive, so we only picked up chicken, tempura, and pig blood rice cake to try it out. I’m so excited to have pig blood rice cake since it’s one of my favorite foods, and it’s nowhere to be found in the UK. The chicken was the best out of all three, but overall it was a bit dry and lacked flavor. However, I’m still satisfied. My friend said there are a few other Taiwanese fried chicken food stands, so maybe I should try some other ones next time.
My original impression of bubble tea in Western countries is actually pretty bad, but to be fair, that impression was from decades ago. Bubble tea has now gained popularity internationally, leading to many Taiwanese bubble tea brands opening stores around the world. This time coming to the UK, most of the bubble tea brands I’ve tried are surprisingly good. The flavors are really close to what I’ve had back home, so I do have faith in what I’m going to have here in the US. I was really surprised to see Chun Yang Tea, considering the brand’s limited presence in Taiwan. My friend got the original bubble milk tea: brown sugar pearl with fresh milk. The pearls were perfectly sweet and had just the right consistency. I opted for something more sour and tried the plum green tea with pearl. I have never had this before, but it did not disappoint. The drinks here are quite decent, and I would be willing to try any drink off their menu without hesitation.
Having all these foods made me so happy. My conclusion for this food hunt is that if you cannot afford a plane ticket back to Asia, just fly to JFK. You can find anything in NYC. This is the American dream.
