Tag: Shanghai

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01/26/20 11:42pm

Taste Your Way Across China with QDC at Spy C on Feb. 10

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Chef Tom Lei puts the finishing touch on  a Shanghai specialty that will be served at the banquet.

A while ago I stopped by Chef Tom Lei’s restaurant Spy C Asian Cuisine in Forest Hills to review it for amNewYork. “What type of food would you like to eat?” the waiter asked. Chef Lei’s restaurant specializes in Sichuan food, but Lei, who studied at a top Beijing culinary school is conversant with a variety of Chinese cuisines, including Shanghai, Hunan, and Hangzhou to name a few. Since I was there to review the restaurant I couldn’t very well order any of these secret regional items, but I did have a great Sichuan meal, including mortar and pestle smashed eggplant (擂辣椒茄子, lei la jiao qie zi) and firecracker chicken wings (麻辣鸡翅, ma la ji chi). On a previous visit Chef Dr. Tom Lo, the restaurant’s culinary director, introduced me to Chef Lei’s take on crispy squirrel fish (松鼠鱼, song shu yu), a specialty of Hangzhou capital of Zhejiang so named because of the cross-hatched flesh appears when deep fried. It’s traditionally served with a sweet and sour sauce, but Chef Lei make his with a garlic sauce.

As I ate the squirrel fish and Chef Dr. Lo (an anesthesiologist by trade who is also a trained chef) waxed rhapsodic about Chef Lei’s smashed cucumbers in spicy sauce an idea came to me: Queens Dinner Club should have a multiregional Chinese banquet. Which is precisely what we are doing on the evening of February 10th. Make sure you don’t miss out on this very special dinner by signing up for our mailing list here. (more…)

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Dish O' The Day
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03/18/16 12:45am

‘Chinese Pizza’ via Shanghai and a Flushing Food Court

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RiceCake

Seafood sticky rice balls are gloriously golden brown.

The menu at Diverse Dim Sum is as advertised, running to some 30 items, including various pancakes, noodles, dumplings, and other snacks. The soup dumplings at the oddly named Shanghai xiao chi specialist are so good—thin of skin and fragrant of broth—that I’ve sampled hardly anything else on the menu.

I’d been hearing great things about the seafood sticky rice ball ($3), so the other night a carb craving friend and I decided to have it as a sidecar to an order of xiao long bao. Hai xian zi fan gao, as they’re known in Chinese, come two an order and they’re more blocks than balls.

“Chinese pizza,” the lady behind the counter said as she presented the pair of golden brown slabs. (more…)

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Twofer Tuesday
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04/21/15 11:54am

A Duo of Dumpling Discoveries, Down-home and Deluxe

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FRYDUMPLING1

Sheng jian bao at New York Food Court.

There are so many dumplings in the bustling and delicious Chinatown of downtown Flushing that keeping track of them all would be a lifelong task. A task for which I am ill-equipped. Perhaps that xiao long bao obsessive guy whose exhaustive soup dumpling survey is making its way around the interwebs will come to Queens one day, calipers and scale in hand. Until he does I will muddle along as best as I can. That being said, let’s talk about two of my favorite new dumplings. (more…)

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Flushing
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01/24/13 9:43am

Xiao Long Bao Battle Royal in Flushing

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Are the pork and crab soup dumplings at Kung Fu Xiao Long Bao Flushing’s finest?

Are the soup dumplings at Kung Fu Xiao Long Bao Flushing’s finest?

PLEASE NOTE NAN XIANG XIAO LONG BAO HAS CLOSED

Last week my friend and neighbor Suzanne Parker, TimesLedger food critic and author  of “Eating Like Queens: A Guide to Ethnic Dining in America’s Melting Pot, Queens, New York,” called me to rave about Kung Fu Xiao Long Bao’s pork and crab soup dumplings.

“Seriously,” I said, “their soup dumplings aren’t all that, they’re good, but certainly not the best.”  The best I’ve had in Queens, I pointed out, can be found at Diverse Dim Sum in the Flushing Mall. This got us to wondering whether either of us really knew where to find the best xiao long bao in Flushing. So we decided to find out. I should point out that we are both certified  Kansas City Barbecue Society judges and certified food enthusiasts (Suzanne, it should be noted flies the foodie flag, while I abhor the word).

We very roughly modeled our judging criteria—filling, broth, wrapper, texture, and taste—on the KCBS categories and set out to evaluate four xiao long bao joints.  The plan was to savor just one dumpling at each restaurant so as not skew our judgment by becoming overly full. The remaining dumplings would be taken back to Suzanne’s house to reheat and reassess. I had the brilliant idea to eat two dumplings at each stop, one with vinegar and one without. I did this not because it enabled me to judge the dumplings better, but because I am a glutton. So without further ado C+M presents the Xiao Long Bao Battle Royale.

Nan Xiang Dumpling House ain’t what it used to be.

Nan Xiang Dumpling House ain’t what it used to be.

The first stop on our soup dumpling survey was Nan Xiang Dumpling House where an order of pork and crab soup dumplings is $6.50 for 6 pieces. At one time I could say with confidence—and home borough pride—that Nan Xiang had the best soup dumplings not only in Queens, but in all of New York City. Sadly, that time has passed. The first thing we noticed about the xiao long bao here was that they were huge. The second thing we noticed is that they were abysmal. The broth was completely devoid of crab flavor, and mine even had a bit of gristle in it. What was once a great soup dumpling joint has clearly been spoiled by its own success. It was all I could do to not remove Nan Xiang’s Michelin sign on the way out.  Nan Xiang Dumpling House, 38-12 Prince St., Flushing, 718-321-3838

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