Id be game for this one
we’re pretty booked up rn but could plan something the week after jan 1.
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I am more or less free after Jan 6
I’m up for it too, but will be back a bit later in the month.
If you folks go before that, I’d be up for a repeat visit if it’s good (or perhaps another visit to Laghman express or elsewhere if not).
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As @divinebaboon suggested above and @DaveCook noted the NYFC has undergone changes. I’d posted above a picture of the replacement for Mr. Duck (Stall #2), and there are at least two others that I found yesterday.
Sadly, stall #13, the snail noodle joint, has been replaced by a pig joint:
but it does appear to have an interesting array of pig parts (I didn’t try any):
Next door, stall #14 is also new:
I had their #8 option, fish with rice noodles, nicely populated with tofu, pickled cabbage and the like, and flecked with the occasional long red pepper slice.
I was there between 5 and 6:30 pm and it was very quiet. Several stalls appeared to have no customers over this period. On the way back to the 7 I popped in at the New World Mall just to have a look and a sniff and it was packed.
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Yes, the New World Mall Food Court gets packed pretty early and easily; the other food courts get the excess.
As for snail noodles, one vendor at the new Eat Up! Food Court serves these. I think that’s true at the New World Mall, too.
Yes, Eat Up does have snail noodles, as does New World if my sniffing was accurate. I wasn’t there long yesterday, just a quick walk around, but I did catch the distinctive aroma without trying to track down the source.
The Landmark Quest Mall across Roosevelt from NWM also had snail noodles, but I gather that mall is closed right now.
Cousin Snail Noodles (the joint you’ve mentioned) had a tiny space inside the Landmark Quest Mall. They upgraded to a stall (#13) at the New York Food Court but apparently couldn’t make a go of it.
Landmark is being renovated and rebranded as the Ever Prosper Food Court. Three weeks ago the interior — what I could see of it through a hole in the hoarding — was largely framed out.
This is my worry about the other stalls in NYFC as well. The general quality of the food there based on sporadic but multiple visits over the last year is excellent, but yesterday there was this subdued atmosphere of defeat that permeated the court. At two places the FOH person was slumped over on the desk taking a quick nap. At New World, when I paused briefly to examine a display case, the corresponding person, already dealing with three people on line, observed me, snapped to attention and called out something that sounded like “you want?” I was looking at a divided tray of tripe and other innards, and I wanted very much, but I had to pass.
Not to be all gloom and doom, Stall #6 – Fat Cat, is still dishing out superb flat breads (I had the black pepper beef and spicy pork yesterday), but they have added reheating instructions on their counter. And at the opposite end of the numerical sequence but essentially behind you as you stand at Fat Cat, the crab roe place, Stall #26, abides.
You might have been there before the dinner rush. It’s usually packed after 6:30/7.
New World is probably full earlier / most of the day because it’s right at the 7 train exit and the nexus for most buses.
Several superb flatbreads from #6 earlier this week, all winners: pork, pork with dried veg, spicy pork and curry beef. They have a 4 for 3 deal, so my four flatbreads came out to $5.25 each, a bargain. I am not sure why there are not lines at this place – lucky for me in the short term, I guess, but not in the long term if they go out of business. Flock there folk, but avoid the days I’m there.
I also went back to the newish stall #14 and had their #8 again (see above). I reconfirm that it is very good. They also had a picture of a pork noodle dish (I forget the number) that had little round, yellow chickpea-like spheres depicted on it. I ordered it. As far as I could tell they were chickpeas (and on looking up I find that while not an ingredient in most branches of Chinese cuisine, chickpeas do occur in Xinjiang cooking). The dish was very satisfying as a whole. This is a stall well worth exploring in detail.
I also got some wonton soup from Stall #21 (although it may have changed hands since my picture above from last year), with plump, meaty, juicy wontons, and a nice broth with greens. Also an interesting pork mooncake. Rounded off my purchases with some dry fried noodles from Wuhan Foodie, stall #25.
There’s a lovely, homey feel to the whole mall. On the dining tables just outside stalls #22 and #23 they had laid out large trays of bok choy, ready for cleaning. On the counter of stall #5 they had placed to cool trays of newly roasted duck bits and tripe (separate trays), scattered with long red peppers and aromatics.
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I’m really enjoying these posts!
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Why, thank you, kind person. Today was my last visit till September and I had you in mind throughout. What would @vinouspleasure’s pleasure be I’d ask as I chose every morsel.
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You would, I say with certainty, want a pleasurable comparison between Fat Cat’s pork flatbread with preserved veg and the one with dried. Both were excellent, but I had a slight preference for the tang of the preserved. **
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Just for you I endured this excellent sucker:
from the stall on the immediate left as you enter (#26), crab with sticky rice. -
Went back to #14, and had this today:
Soup with shrimp (4) and clams (4). $15.
** A note on how best to eat these suckers:
a) Immediately fresh.
b) A few minutes later on the high LIRR platform at Flushing, or the low #7 train. But the nutes are crucial. That stuff gets soggy easily.
c) OK, you’re home and have soggy flatbreads. What do you do? You’re civilized, aren’t you and have a wide mouthed toaster? Stick the bread in for a minute, then enjoy the resurrection.
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minutes
Yes, that, not a “nute”.
I would eat that sticky rice dish in new york nute!
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