recent manhattan chinatown bites

When you’re taking about roast pork, you mean cha siu? Big Wong doesn’t do pork belly as far as I know.

My regular haunts in Chinatown for decades have been Noodletown and Congee Village. I also like Noodle Village, mentioned above. I kind of feel like because of the pandemic, I’m a little out of the loop, in that I’m pretty much just doing takeout and haven’t had the chance to try some of the new places that I’d really like to try eating in when it seems safer. In that context, though: Have you tried the jerky at Malaysia Beef Jerky on Elizabeth south of Grand? https://malaysiabeefjerky.com/ I love the place! Their jerkies are pricey treats; as you can see on their site, they’re all $27-28/lb. I highly recommend their spicy chicken jerky in particular, but any of their chicken or beef jerkies. In fact, I like their jerky so much, I splurged for some for both my birthday and my girlfriend’s birthday (both in February).

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for some reason, despite all the recommendations, I’ve never been to congee village! what do you like there? I also like pings…

I have been to the beef jerky place and do love it but, as you say, it’s pricy. The first time I had this style of beef jerky, I travelled to singapore with a client, exhausted and jet lagged after 22 hours of travelling, my client’s company had a car waiting for us. Rather than head to the hotel, he insisted we detour for jerky :smiley:

My wife and i were back to singapore pre-pandemic, the price of jerky there is not much different, maybe more expensive than the place in chinatown. I’ve tried to make it in my oven and smoker without too much success…

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Here are some items I like at Congee Village:

Duck’s blood with ginger and scallions or with chives (a little salty but good)

House special chicken with garlic

Steamed chicken with mushroom and Chinese sausage

Filet of beef with onion on sizzling hot plate

Sauteed lotus root with Bean Paste (which, unusually, is red bean paste)

Sauteed Chinese spinach (that is, ong choy/water spinach) in bean paste (seasonal, though - none right now)

Rice baked with chicken and mushroom

Rice baked with Chinese sausages

I’ve also had some fish and seafood dishes I liked, Beijing-style pork chops, really good authentic (not Americanized) beef and Chinese broccoli with chow mein (a nest of crispy fried angel hair noodles - I didn’t see it on the online menu for some reason), and Sha Cha beef (tasty but maybe a bit too oily). It’s a long menu. I also used to order congee and don’t get it now only because I try to be low-carb.

Congee Village also serves some of the best hot and sour soup I’ve found in a restaurant. Over the years, there have been times when it was a bit clumpy, but it’s usually just a really good genuinely hot and genuinely sour (only a bit sweet) soup with good pork and, if I remember correctly, pickled mustard greens or cabbage.

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thanks, those dishes sound great can’t wait to head there and give them a try!

I also like cafe hong kong, lauhound from ch did a review there, the chicken w garlic, peking pork chops, salt and pepper pork chops, stir fried string beans are all delicious. they also have a lunch menu which, if dining alone, they’ve allowed me to order from during dinner hours because the dinner portions are so large. and actually, I struggle to finish the lunch time portions.

A women dining alone there struck up a conversation with me, turns out she was from hong kong and couldn’t believe how authentic the hong kong dishes were. she had a huge dish of baked spaghetti which I couldn’t believe she managed to finish. I was able to pick her brain for some places in hong kong which we eventually visited.

last time we visited on a weekend (pre-pandemic) they were crushed, I guess word got out about the food…

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The menu is very, very HK. They got a bit of everything Cantonese- Chiu Chow, Hakka, Hong Kong, I don’t live in NY I have never been there. Since they have everything from the super casual to the banquet, its harder to pin down their strengths just looking at the menu. But here are some of the things I would be seriously tempted to order:

  1. the congees. Ask them how they make their congee. If their process is even half as involved as the process at this specialist, then you got a pretty good one, since they are more generalists that cook everything Cantonese:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVfR7eW2n1I
  2. something from their live fish/ seafood tank. other tables will show you what live seafood they are strong at.
  3. the simmered soups- dried scallop winter melon/ ginseng chicken with conch, chicken with black garlic, duck with herb, or whatever they make that day. since they have individual size for some of the soups, take advantage of that.
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I’ve liked Cafe Hong Kong in the past and used to have banquets at their predecessor, Cantoon [sic] Garden.

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yes, pork belly is roast pig in chinatown.

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Hm, just rechecked the menu - I’ve never been able to get it by the lb (usually don’t eat there anymore) but it is on the menu I guess - my mistake.

hey sorry @escaped , my bad, I didn’t communicate well. yes, when I was talking about roast pork I was talking about char siu. I wasn’t aware big wong had pork belly, which is called roast pig in manhattan’s chinatown. I like the pork belly at new york noodletown but do try to get a lean piece, I can’t deal with a big blob of fat between two crispy pieces of meat but realize that a lot of people love it.

sorry for the confusion!

best,

Oh no worries, it’s always hard when dealing with two languages - I’m not really native so I definitely do get mixed up at times. Totally agreed on the leaner pieces, the fat can be difficult for me no matter how well it’s rendered… I honestly haven’t found a go to place for siu yook even after all these years (hating the transliteration, no idea how to really call it in English) in Chinatown, but I haven’t been down much since covid. It’s technically not (and for native speakers please correct me if I’m butchering this) translated as roast pig, the plain translation is just roast meat, I’ve just never really gone by English names. I’ll have to give noodletown a shot though!

The elephant (ok, the pig) in the room is Wu’s. I know that it’s now over hyped and everyone’s darling, but it pretty much replaced NY Noodletown for us when we want a sit down dinner (byob) in a nicer environment. At any rate, they do a bunch of “large format” dishes, including pig, that might be interesting if you have a bunch of people going. And their “Dumplings with Bone Soup” is really good. What hasn’t gotten play is that they have the usual C’town counter in front, replete with hanging meat to go (pig, chicken, duck) by the pound or section. Given how popular they’ve gotten, I’m gonna assume that the turnover of product is up there with NY Noodletown. Worth a try. http://www.wuswontonking.com/index.html

I’d love to do a HO group meal at Wu’s over the summer if we can arrange it!

In! If I’m invited. I just invited myself, so now you need to ignore me so I go away.

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I had it once. Not bad. Overall, Wu is better at main courses in my experience. When it comes to straight-up wonton and dumplings, there are many better restaurants in Manhattan Chinatown

Which?

I think this will be a fun meal, whenever it happens!

count me in!

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I’d be up for it!

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