Posts from the ‘Flushing’ Category

Hunan House

It wasn’t that I thought pupu platters and moo shu pork were Hunan food; I’d never even considered that regional Chinese food existed. And I can’t fault Gresham, Oregon or the era when I took my first job bussing tables at Hunan Garden. Even twenty years later in a city filled with actual Chinese people, we have kung pao and lo mein slingers with names like Hunan Balcony and Szechuan Delight.

Luckily, we also have restaurants representing less-celebrated corners of China like Dongbei, Quingdao and Fujian, something that not all cities in the US have. (I truly didn’t understand when in the ‘90s a Queens transplant to Portland complained about the city’s lack of good Chinese food. Many of the restaurants serving Chinese and Thai at the time were really Vietnamese.)

And finally, Hunan food. I’ve gathered from reading Fuchsia Dunlop’s Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, sampling the Hunan section of Grand Sichuan’s menu and a meal at a Hunan restaurant in Shanghai, which is about as close as I’ll get to Changsha in the immediate future, Hunan food is spicy like Sichuan cuisine—some say spicier— but doesn’t use the tingly peppercorns.

I didn’t find the food at Hunan House to be particularly chile hot. The cold pigs’ ear appetizer was mildly spiced and consisted of chewy ribbons of meat and fat lightly slicked with oil in a very straightforward presentation that was more about texture than strong flavor. I kind of missed the orange pool of oil that dresses similar Sichuan dishes.

Chairman Mao’s pork, a rich star anise-heavy braise of pork belly cubes with green bursts of wilted spinach and sliced scallions to trick you into thinking the dish contains healthy components, has always been a favorite from Grand Sichuan and was successful here, too.

I had no idea fish heads were part of the Hunan canon because I’ve tended to encounter the toothy castoffs in Southeast Asia, the most famous example being Singaporean fish head curry. At first we worried that our choice was a dud. The waiter asked, “you know that’s a fish head?” But after noticing at least three other tables with the same red chile-and-scallion-smothered dish, we realized he was concerned about our non-Chinese palates (I really wanted to type palette to see if anyone would go apeshit on me).

No worries, we picked the bones mostly clean, despite the fish head’s size (in Singapore you can specify if you want a small or large head) being better suited for more than two diners.

Ack, the stems (I completely had forgotten that I was aware of their existence and swore to never eat them). I could’ve sworn the menu simply read sautéed water spinach with green pepper, though the online version I’m currently looking at definitely says water spinach roots. Once again, I got tripped up by a Malay/Singaporean preparation of what they call kangkung. I was expecting leaves in chile sauce, not a whole platter of stems! I don’t want to make a big stink and go as far as saying I have a stem phobia (it’s like you’re being cute and drawing attention to quirks unnecessarily like in that Sloane Crosley story—a few months ago in an attempt to better myself and become more compassionate by reading things I assumed I would hate but that others love, I checked out her book from the library…and couldn’t get past the third story—where she claims to have a made-up disorder where she can’t read maps) but when I get a banh mi stuffed with more cilantro stems than leaves, I am not happy and if I make kangkung belacan, myself, I use leaves only. Stems go in the garbage, no matter how wasteful.

With all of that said, this dish that was far more challenging than a fish head, ended up being delicious. Light chile heat blended with the salty funk of black beans and hits of ginger and garlic.  I didn’t even miss the Sichuan peppercorns I had been craving at the start.

Hunan House * 137-40 Northern Blvd., Flushing, NY

Follow

Share on Tumblr

Udu Hotpot

1/2 Hot pot is exactly what it sounds like, a pot of hot liquid (often hot in chile heat, too) where particpants can cook their own food. Yet the name always sounds like a facile double entrendre that could go so many directions. I’ll spare you the meanderings of my mind. The phrase stumped a former coworker of mine (see end of Happy Family post) in ways possibly only hilarious to me.

Sitting around a steamy vessel of bubbling soup is just what you need during the dregs of winter. I prefer restaurants dedicated to hot pot rather than taking my chances with off menu options like at Little Pepper. I was originally thinking Little Lamb, but when I heard about flashy Udu Café with personal TVs, at-table internet access and a checkbox ordering approach, I had to see it for myself (also to witness all the gauche FOBs that New Yorker Chinese were complaining about on Yelp in that strange backlashy manner of established groups distancing themselves from newcomers. Now that I think about it, I’m very judgmental about Oregonian transplants here, always picturing an earnest, indie, social justice trooper).

Backwards judgmental: the only other Caucasian in the joint, a moderately hip white dude with an Asian girl, naturally (now I’m judging) seemed unahappy to see us walk through the door like we were ruining his Flushing fantasy.

We were given a regular table, a two-top that was too small for serious hot-potting. This happens a lot at Asian restaurants, as if they don’t expect the white people to order very much food and then get dismayed when there is no place to put all the plates. The little side table was already being used by the mother-daughter duo across from us who had a whole four-seater to themselves.

This is a booth with the set-up I was describing. It’s common for groups to play C-pop, though one large party was just watching last week’s episode of The Office.

There are seven broth choices, and we picked Sister Su spicy pot, and insisted we wanted it really hot against protests (it was really spicy). I didn’t see an option for half-and-half broth like at Little Lamb, but later we noticed that everyone seemed to have the divided style. I guess you have to ask. You almost need the relief, not so much from the chiles but because the peppercorns start to commandeer every nook and cranny in your mouth and you lose the ability to taste anything.

There are approximately 121 dunkable items you can order–from straightforward chicken or mushroom to charcoal cheese or pig intestine country style, nothing wildly esoteric like pizzle. I do not know what charcoal cheese is. We ordered eight things, which was plenty. With the exception of $38.95 Wagyu beef, most selections are under $5. They do add up quickly, though.

First, you mix up a dipping sauce at the station we happened to be sitting next to. I honestly have no idea what an ideal sauce should be. Shacha, always gets depleted so I know that one is popular. Our waitress saw me taking photos and insisted on making the sauces “beautiful” before I shot that section and spent a few minutes topping off all the empty slots and cleaning up any spills. But my before photo turned out better than the tidier after, sorry.

Shacha, sesame paste, chopped garlic, sugar, cilantro. Seemed sensible enough.

Short rib, shrimp and tripe (way in the back). The flimsy shreds of tripe gets lost in the broth. Fat strips of honeycomb tripe would’ve been preferable, but that might be more Mexican.

Lamb. I would’ve taken more strongly flavored lamb and nixed the beef.

Shrimp balls, pork dumplings and “Hello Kitty tempura.” I’d call the latter fish cake not tempura.

We couldn’t decide what vegetables to order so the vegetable combo bucket sufficed. Corn is impossible to eat with chopsticks and the tomato was just weird. Next time, more pumpkin. Cabbage is cheap filler but I love it.

Full of stuff. I like the Hello Kitty face bobbing beneath the surface in the back.

The meal is ended with warm peanut and black sesame-coated mochi.

It’s not like you can miss the place.

Udu Hotpot * 133-50 37th Ave., Flushing, NY

Follow

Share on Tumblr

Little Pepper

1/2 Sometimes thwarted plans don’t bother me. Saturday night I had intended to try Flushing’s Hot Pot City. All you can dunk hot pot with unlimited beer? A place after my own heart. But unfortunately it was no more, literally, a dry erase board at the bottom of the staircase read “no more hotpot.” And they hadn’t simply run out of soup--the second-floor space had morphed into a foodless bar.
Ah well, that left me with two nearby favorites: A Fan Ti or Little Pepper. When in doubt it’s always Sichuan. Plus, last time I attempted Little Pepper it was full and I had to settle for Spicy & Tasty (which isn’t really settling).

I’ve been enough times now that I was determined to try new things. However, the cumin lamb was a necessary repeat. I’m still not sure why it’s served in foil, the char-edged meat and onions are clearly the mark of high heat sautéing. Sometimes pools of orange oil are alarming, but not so with Sichuan food. You need that oil.

Also sitting in a wonderful pool of spicy oil was the largest serving of dan dan noodles I’ve ever seen. Normally, these pork-dotted coils come in a small vessel similar in size to a single rice serving. It’s hard to tell scale from the photo but this was practically a salad bowl, and I’m pretty sure they cost less than $5.
I don’t recall portions being so huge in the past. We only ate about a third of each of our dishes and had so much left over that the to-go containers were bulging. But I order with future meals in mind. I noticed the other twosome sitting near us only ordered one braised dish and a vegetable. That’s probably more normal.

I tried branching out and asked for the ox stomach in mashed garlic. That didn’t sound terribly appetizing but I figured it was just tripe, and I wanted to see what a cold appetizer would be like with mashed garlic rather than the usual chile oil. Sadly, it was a no go. Maybe next time. The one thing I noticed was that the tingly peppercorn effect was very muted in all of the dishes that normally would showcase it (these tendons, the noodles and lamb). Maybe it was just an old batch of Sichuan peppercorns—I have the same problem at home.

Cauliflower with smoked pork was one of two pale-on-pale white dishes. I was imagining a crispy, roasted vegetable, which is kind of silly because Chinese do not oven roast (hmm…and this amusing thread appeared right after I wrote this). No, this was a steamed, soupy dish with most of the flavor coming from the very smoky meat. It seemed kind of like an excuse to nibble fatty meat under the guise of eating your vegetables.

Venturing into the braised section of the menu was new for me.  I wasn’t ready for organs, so fish it was. Enough fish for six people. This was also a chile oil-free presentation. The flavor was delicate with a very mild flaky fish (I did not ask what kind). The secret to livening things up is to get a bit of the salty-hot pickled chiles in each mouthful. It’s the difference between a staid and tongue-searing. (9/13/08)

Read more

Spicy & Tasty

Apparently, I didn’t get my fill of Sichuan food in China because last weekend I couldn’t stop thinking about tracking more down. Little Pepper was my first choice, but it was full at 8:30 on a Saturday. We could’ve waited but it was a good opportunity to give Spicy & Tasty, just around the corner, a re-visit.

I think some prefer Little Pepper because it’s grittier and less English-friendly. Somehow that implies authentic. But still in a fluorescent and formica vein, S&T is hardly upscale. I find the food comparable, if slightly pricier. We scored the only open table for two.

I settled on beef tendons from the long list of cold appetizers. It turned out that they had exhausted their supply, but in a way I lucked out because they topped off the plate with tripe. Double whammy. And to their credit, they did ask first before substituting. I know not all Americans are as tripe-crazed as I am.

Cold dishes are made on demand at a bar in the front of the restaurant. And the balance of chiles and peppercorns is right on. You feel the heat and the numbing tingle, but it’s not so overwhelming that you lose flavor. And the fresh crunch of cilantro stems enlivens the thinly sliced meat.

Next time I’ll branch out and try fish but I wasn’t in the mood for the unknown. I knew that enhanced pork was up my alley and similar to a dish I’d recently eaten in Beijing. Essentially, it’s a stir-fry of fresh pork, leeks and chiles. Everything gets a caramely sear; the vegetables turn sweet and play off the chile hotness.

The translations explain little and make it difficult to know what you’re going to get. For instance, there’s lamb with red chile sauce, lamb with chile pepper and sliced lamb in sliced fresh hot pepper on the menu. I have no freaking idea how any of those differ. In fact, I can’t remember which one the above photo is though I suspect it’s lamb with chile pepper. The chile used was dried and ground and seemed to only show up in random bites of food. This was wonderfully gamey and oily, but I actually prefer a less saucy lamb like the cumin dusted version at Little Pepper.

I’ve tried making dry-cooked string beans before but they never quite turn out like this. These taste almost meaty and chopped preserved vegetables scattered throughout was an unexpected touch.

Lord, I can't believe my last visit was four years ago, and almost to the day. Is this what aging feels like? (11/17/07)

Heading through Flushing on the way back from a tough afternoon IKEA shopping on Long Island, I knew it was the perfect time to check out this restaurant I'd been hearing about. Since the car was literally bursting at the seams with enough cheap furniture to add up to $475, James was hesitant to park on the street. A parking garage was requisite or he said we couldn't stop for dinner. That was like a mean dad thing to say, and I wasn't so sure they would have indoor parking nearby. I was nervous. But luck was shining on us because there was a Sheraton on the same block as Spicy & Tasty with a parking garage. And this hotel experience was almost equal to the food.

I love hotels. Or more properly I love being in foreign cities, and as I recently discovered, Asian ones. It's so not "Lost in Translation." I mean mid-range hotels with stores and services in them, travel agents, random clothing stores, and the like. Our last day, a rainy Sunday in Singapore we strolled around the food court in the basement of the Meridian hotel. The food stalls were open, but there were also quiet halls on other levels with glass facades, darkened rooms and closed doors. Boutiques, graphic design firms, the only life being a room filled with teenage boys playing computer video games. It was fun and felt like you shouldn't be there since we weren't hotel guests (though it was all public space). The Sheraton LaGuardia (as it was called, though not all that near the airport) had the same feel, levels and stairs and businesses on the perimeter and a fancy, near deserted Japanese restaurant you look down on from above. It was like a mini-vacation wandering around, and accidental. We were just trying to figure out how to get from the basement garage to the main exit but went too high on the elevator and had to saunter down oddly positioned stairs, accompanied by the strains of soft music.

Spicy & Tasty continued the feel. I've never been to China, but I like to believe it felt very Chinese. Or Sichuan at least, as that is their thing. I wasn't blown away by the peppercorns as I expected to be. Maybe I was thinking Thai heat, not subtle buzzy Sichuan spicy, or maybe the food wasn't heavily spiced. It was certainly good, though. I go nuts for bamboo shoots in chile oil, and they were made all the more attractive by being prepared up front by a cold dish guy. There were all sorts of appetizers, jellyfish, sliced tendon, eggplant and more that I would've liked to try, but you can only eat so much with two people. I had to order the enhanced pork, if not for the name alone. I'm not sure what the enhancement was referring to–there was a copious amount of leek greens in the dish, which could be construed as enhancement (a few days later that green onion hepatitis outbreak began and like a good hypochondriac began wondering if leek greens were also a danger). James got the Szechuan lamb, which was like a rich, almost Indian spiced stew that came in a metal dish over a flame.

I left feeling uncharacteristically upbeat and actually looked forward to walking through the hotel lobby back to the car just for shits and giggles. The odd thing was that the elevator places you right inside the office where you pay and no one was around, but you could hear footsteps and clear-as-a-bell voices from the garage where the cars initially drive in. The place was miked, for what reason I'm not sure, but it was kind of creepy. We were quiet as mice when we got back into the car just to be safe. Of course all they'd hear us saying was how great the food at Spicy & Tasty was. (11/14/03)

Spicy & Tasty * 39-07 Prince St., Flushing, NY

Follow

Share on Tumblr

Happy Family

1/2 I’d never partaken in steamboat, shabu shabu, hot pot, Chinese fondue, whatever you want to call it, until recently (though I’ve broth-swirled a little Canadian horsemeat). Flushing’s Happy Family a.k.a. Little Lamb (a cartoon sheep with a shirt collar appears on various signage) proved to be a great jumping off point. Actually, it’s a little more advanced than amateur; we had some procedural ordering confusion.

In my day, Mongolian was simply suburban code for a pile of stuff cooked before your eyes. Here it’s all d.i.y. You pick your broth from red, white or green. The latter is herbal and I wasn’t feeling the urge. But you can also go yin-yang and choose two broths kept separate in a huge metal pot inset in your table. White=creamy soymilk. Red=hot as hell. There are all sorts of oddities floating in the liquids like a whole nutmeg kernel, jujubes (Asian dates) and a metal tea bobber filled with mystery herbs and chiles (opening it would’ve solved the mystery but I didn’t want to unleash any unnecessary fury).

The tricky part was how to acquire dipping material because you pick the hot pot by meat i.e. lamb hot pot or fish head hot pot, but there are also pages and pages of a la carte items like chicken, taro, and innards. We picked beef hot pot because it seemed neutral and it came with a plate of bean curd, greens, rice vermicelli, dried mushrooms, hard-boiled egg, bean sprouts and lots of other crunchy things. We eventually got our waiter to bring shrimp and pork-stuffed fish balls to supplement our thinly sliced beef. Practically anything could be improved by the hot pot treatment, but whatever you do abide the menu’s plea “please don’t bring other products into the store to cook (including beverages and liquors).”

Because we’re gluttons, we also got grilled lamb skewers to start. Cumin was definitely present but I was surprised at the chile level of the spice rub. This was my kind of food. I have a high tolerance for heat (though I’m not sure when I acquired this. I’ve always liked spicy food but I was just thinking about a birthday dinner in my early twenties where my mom took me out to Bangkok Kitchen in Portland and the tom kha gai was so punishingly hot that we couldn’t slog through it. Now, wiser and older, Portland Thai food seems pretty tame though I’ve never returned to Bangkok Kitchen for comparison. Were we NW wusses and I’ve toughened up or have my taste buds dulled from years of smoking? I only sparingly indulge anymore, f.y.i.) and even so there was a tongue-burning that persisted throughout the meal. Combined with the heat and steam emanating from the hot pot itself (and a few drinks—though no soju for me), sweating was nearly unavoidable. And as you might imagine, as the broth bubbles and cooks down the resulting concentrated soup is intense. It was nice to be able to alternate between the fiery and sweet chambers of stock.

Even though the hot-potted treats don’t really require them, there is an eighteen-slot condiment bar in the back of the long room that’s just kind of fun to poke around. Black beans, chopped garlic, sugar and soy sauce all kind of make sense, but if you’re feeling wild you can also take a scoop of pure MSG. Ah…sweet, sweet glutimates.

My “real” review for nymag.com

Almost completely irrelevant asides (you have been warned):

Hot-potting has become a euphemism in my household for what gastro-intestinal unpleasantness occurs about twelve hours later. There was a lot of hot-potting going on last week in Mexico City that has yet to cease. But I never realized how funny hot-potting was until I heard it referred to by someone who had no idea what hot pot was.

I met up with a former coworker a few weeks ago to get the dirt on who’d been fired, humiliated and so on. But I became intrigued when she started describing my replacement, a young Chinese-born go-getter with an apparent penchant for hot-potting. It seems that the girl whoops it up all over Flushing, indulging in hot pot with wild abandon, comes into work late, and then complains, “I have terrible cramp…very strong period” as an excuse. No one seems to think that these cramps are liquor induced except for my friend who now refers to binge drinking as hot-potting. But she’s suspicious, mean-spirited and astute like me so I’m inclined to believe the hangover theory.

Once the former coworker walked into the women’s bathroom to find the new me laying on the ratty entryway couch moaning in pain with her boyfriend at her side rubbing her head. Frightening (though not so much as the pair of abandoned shit and blood stained panties once left in front of a sink on the floor by god only knows. P.R. is a classy profession).

Hot-potting has become a great catch all phrase for everything unseemly. This former coworker (and no-nonsense dyke) also shared my love of the word hot pad, the self-given nickname of my butch Girl Scout camp counselor who resembled an obese John Denver. I don’t even want to imagine what hot-padding is.

Happy Family * 36-35 Main St., Flushing, NY

Follow

Share on Tumblr

A Fan Ti

One of our waitresses matter-of-factly asking James “Is she your wife?” baffled me all evening. I’ve learned that there’s a certain ESL bluntness that seems particularly acute with Chinese to English and it doesn’t bother me. I’m never sure if lack of subtlety is a translation thing or if it’s cultural. It was easier to shake our heads and say yes rather than explain, “Well, actually it’s kind of complicated. We’re actually just dating but we’ve been together for nearly eight years which is longer than anyone I know has been married, but we’re just boyfriend and girlfriend.” We were the only ones speaking English so maybe she was attempting to chitchat to make us feel welcome? Or was it that I didn’t seem like his wife, and we make an odd couple? I like James’s version, that it was her way of asking if he was available.

The other waitress didn’t speak English at all and I do appreciate that she brought us Chinese menus, though I think it was more a case of her not really thinking it through as opposed to concerted non-pandering. After a few seconds she was mildly scolded by the lady boss and made to bring us English menus without our saying anything.

At least the English menu wasn’t lacking any of the oddities that we didn’t order anyway. I have no fear of offal but it’s no fun eating it alone. The first thing listed is lamb testicles and a bowl of eyeballs bobbing around in liquid is also for the taking. We compromised and stayed on the tame side.

Despite sounding like an American bastardization, I had to order the kung pao, which is called simply lamb in hot pepper sauce. It’s peanut crazy and full of startling ma la sensations. Going double lamby, we also had the salt and pepper lamb, which comes spice-crusted (cumin-heavy) on the bone with a little saucer of crushed Sichuan peppercorns and salt for dipping. We barely used half and our mouths were numb by the end of the meal.

This is the type of place where it’s not like you’re blending in anyway so why bother trying. I was initially afraid of looking barbaric by using my fingers to pick at the bits left on the bone of our salt and pepper lamb. I then noticed others were flat out gnawing on the thing. I should be so shameless.

I would’ve ordered something with bean curd but soybeans and well as organs don’t fare well with this not-my-husband dining companion. To squeeze a vegetable in, I tried the eggplant, which I’m sure was oil laden to make the flesh so silky. It was nothing like you’d get from corner takeout (last night I ordered pork with eggplant from our local not-so-great place Ting Hua [not to be confused with Wing Hua a few blocks up and definitely not to be mixed up with Me and My Eggroll in between the two] and I was given pork egg foo young instead. Bizarre, I haven’t had that since I was a kid) there’s a sweetness and also a chile spiciness, not just garlic, and somehow it stayed steaming hot for a full twenty minutes.

I love places like this, i.e. Little Pepper and Happy Family, which I haven't posted yet. Maybe it’s all the chiles and peppercorns but I always end up with a good feeling, even a sense of well being (seriously) when I eat Northern Chinese food.

My nymag.com review (nitpickers, it contains a to-be-corrected inaccuracy not of my doing)

A Fan Ti * 136-80 41st Ave., Flushing, NY

Follow

Share on Tumblr