One of my absolute favorite ways to spend a weekend afternoon is wandering through Chinatown, stopping to enjoy my favorite tasty treats along the way. And I am in good company -- Eric Asimov on rediscovering Manhattan's Chinatown (link to the accompanying audio tour).
Nobody says much about Chinatown these days. Not Manhattan Chinatown, anyway. Flushing is where the excitement is, or Brooklyn. "You know," one Chinese-food maven whispered to me recently, "there are really two Chinatowns in Brooklyn now, Sunset Park and the Avenue U area near Bensonhurst, but nobody knows about that one."
Lovers of Chinese food crave secrecy and are suspicious by nature. They are desperate to learn where the hot chefs are cooking, but fear they have chosen a restaurant where the great chef has already left. They are certain a restaurant's real treasures are denied to them because they can't read the proverbial Chinese-language menu. Long ago the writer Calvin Trillin said that he carried a card with the Chinese sentence for "Bring me what they're having at the next table."
But the big secret in Chinese food these days is right out in the open, if only anybody were looking. It's Chinatown — Manhattan Chinatown — where the food, to my mouth at least, is as good or better than it's ever been.
Some mentions:
Mei Lai Wah Coffee House, 64 Bayard Street
Big Eat, 97 Bowery
Chanoodle, 79 Mulberry Street
OK 218 Grand, 218 Grand Street