New York Magazine - USA (2021-02-01)

56 newyork| february1–14, 2021

A Restaurant Cr itic

Tr eadsa Familiar

ChinatownPath...

OnthecuspoftheLunarNewYearand 12 months

afterCOVID-19upendedtheneighborhood,AdamPlattsearches

forsignsofrebirth(andhisfavoritedumplings).

food

Edited by

Rob Patronite and

Robin Raisfeld

even his noted dim sum destination strug-

gles for customers. Trump’s overtly racist

“China virus” label has had a real effect on

business, he said, but the community has

rallied, particularly the younger generation,

whose members have created projects like

Welcome to Chinatown that have raised

hundreds of thousands of dollars to help

keep local businesses afloat.

Many of the storefronts along Eldridge

were closed when I went foraging for dump-

ling rations during the summer, but more of

them are open now, including the Platt

family’s favorite supplier, Shu Jiao Fu Zhou

Cuisine, which reopened in November on

the corner of Broome. I’m happy to report

that $11 still buys a bag of 50 pork-and-chive

dumplings there, although you may have to

wait outside the door because customers are

allowed in only two at a time. A counterman

once told me the dumplings vary in thick-

ness depending on whether you plan to boil

or fry them at home (we like to boil them),

and for a few dollars more, you can get a tub

of cool, chewy wheat noodles poured with

one of the lighter, more delicate iterations of

peanut sauce you’ll find not just in China-

town but anywhere in New York City.

Super Taste is open for business too (call

for the Special House Noodles with a fried

egg on top), and if Hong Kong–style milk

tea is your addiction, Jennifer Tam, co-

founder of the Welcome to Chinatown ini-

tiative, which has raised an impressive

$650,000 for local businesses since it was

founded in March, recommends 388 Cafe

& Deli at the bottom of the street. Milk tea

isn’t your humble critic’s addiction, as it

happens, so I bought a crunchy breakfast

cruller at a busy little cafeteria called the

Lian Jiang Restaurant at the end of my

favorite Chinatown dining trail and ate it

as I walked under the rumbling bridge

before making a couple more stops on my

rounds and then turning north with my

noodles and bountiful bags of dumplings

for the long walk home.

L

ike ancient hunting trails or

hidden pathways through the for-

est, favorite routes wind through old

familiar dining territory. During less

complicated times, my culinary rambles

through that oldest of New York City din-

ing neighborhoods, Manhattan’s China-

town, used to begin at Eldridge Street just

below Delancey. There tended to be fewer

tourists than on Mott Street, say, or the

sidewalks of Canal, even back in pre-covid

days. The street has long been a mecca for

lovers of dumplings (Vanessa’s, the old

Prosperity Dumpling) and hand-pulled

noodles (Super Taste), and the walk south

past the fashion boutiques and mixology

bars toward the original tenement build-

ings bunched up at the bottom of the Man-

hattan Bridge always seemed to me like a

leisurely stroll through the cultural and

gastronomic history of Chinatown itself.

Like the rest of the city, Chinatown is a

changed world, of course, but with the

Lunar New Year approaching, it seemed

like a good time to venture down the old

trails again to see how the neighborhood

was faring. Mott Street was strung with new

orange and purple paper lanterns, and the

streets around East Chinatown were more

crowded than I remembered from visits

this past spring and summer. The markets

along Grand were filled with masked shop-

pers buying bushels of chestnuts and winter

mushrooms, and at a place called 99 Favor

Taste, on the corner of Grand and Eldridge,

tables were set on the sidewalk, where cus-

tomers were enjoying brunchtime vats of

simmering, oily red hot pot.

Wilson Tang, whose Nom Wah Tea Par-

lor marked 100 straight years in business

during the cursed Year of the Rat, told me

that although “it’s possible to see just a little

light at the end of the tunnel” for restau-

rants like his, the best time for any China-

town culi tou a d

(“Weekda pre —a ke

sure the sun is out, because on rainy days

you may know Grace Young as the

award-winning cookbook author, stir-fry

savant, and self-styled “wok therapist.”

But late last winter, Young found a new

calling—or, more accurately, the calling

found her—as the city’s most visible

advocate for Manhattan’s Chinatown as

it began experiencing the catastrophic

effects of the pandemic. In conjunction

with the Poster House museum, she

filmed a series of short, stark interviews

with business owners on March 15

(“The last day Chinatown was Chinatown

as we know it,” she says). And since then,

she has made a near-daily pilgrimage

to buy groceries and takeout food

at the community’s struggling shops—

not only for herself and her husband but

for just about everyone she knows.

She has a regular route:

first, her favorite fruit stand on the

southeast corner of Mulberry and Canal

for “absolutely amazing” finds like green

cocktail grapefruits (“I don’t cut it like

a grapefruit. I peel it as you would an

orange and then pull apart the segments”);

then, right next door, her preferred

vegetable market, 88 Natural Food (“The

outside is not very inviting, but the produce

is superb. The freshest cilantro—$1 a

bunch!”). From there, her other preferred

vegetable market (Hung Lee Corp., 79

Bayard St.) for fresh water chestnuts (“Just

peel it like an apple”). Over at 83 Bayard

Street, Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle has “the

best sponge cake,” which it gets from its

sister bakery, Kam Hing (118 Baxter St.).

“Chinese love sponge cake,” Young says. It

comes in all kinds of flavors—butterscotch,

matcha, chocolate chip—but for Young,

plain is best. Why mess with a cloud?

Mee Sum Cafe (26 Pell St.) is one of her

recent discoveries: “All these years, I never

noticed this place! It’s like a Chinese diner

from the 1960s, and they’re known for their

rice tamales and homestyle Cantonese food.”

She loves the feeling of being transported

back in time. “A lot of people are thinking

that these businesses will only survive if they

catch up with the 21st century. But I actually

think they’re not meant to,” she explains.

“Some things in life aren’t meant to be on a

website. It’s like taking a flower—something

organic and beautiful—and saying a flower

has to have social media.”

... And a

Cookbook Author

Tells You Where to

Shop for Groceries

Grace Young eats her

way through Chinatown

in order to save it.

by rachel sugar

Photographs by Janice Chung