New York City: March 2009

I visited New York City on a less-than-48-hour trip that began Monday, March 25, 2009. I was there to see Di Yin and her parents before flying to Chicago with her. I don't really have much to say about this trip. I didn't do any tourist things; in fact, I remained entirely within Queens. I did have three good meals.

Tuesday
Tuesday began with an early lunch at Nan Shiang Dumpling House in Flushing. Di Yin's mom chose a particular time for our lunch because she knew one street was scheduled for street cleaning, meaning if we arrived near the end of that time, we'd be able to find parking. I thought this was ingenious. It worked. Apparently she wasn't the only one with this idea: check out this picture of a bunch of other people parked on the same street waiting by their cars for the street cleaning time to be over and, no longer at risk for ticketing, they could walk away and go about their business. (Note: that link leads to the three pictures I took on this trip, the other two being pictures of the Nan Shiang's menu.)

Nan Shiang is a Shanghainese dumpling restaurant that was on my destination list from my last visit to Flushing. In fact, I remembered looking in and noticing that every table was occupied. It was similarly packed this visit. For the first half of the meal, I thought the restaurant was sizable--until I realized the existence of a mirror running the length of one wall made me think it was twice the size it actually is.

We had a traditional brunch, a good meal consisting of:

• a Chinese donut, not as oily as most. For some reason, we found soy sauce made it better. Who would've guessed?
• soy milk.
• red bean puffs.
• xiao long bao (soup-and-meat-filled dumplings) (of course). These were the soupiest XLB I've ever had. Given the clientele, I think these will be my mental model of what authentic XLB should be. Incidentally, they worked best when one bit the top off, letting out some steam, and poured a few drops of vinegar onto the pork inside.

In the afternoon, Di Yin and I ran around Meadow Lake in Flushing Commons, across the street from her parent's apartment complex. As we ran, I kept an eye on the nearby UFO-like buildings that are a remnant of the 1964/1965 World's Fair.

Tuesday evening, Di Yin's family, I, and her aunt and uncle ventured to the East Restaurant output in Elmhurst (Queens) for an insane buffet. When I say insane, I mean it: the offerings included hot pot, sushi, tons of Chinese stir-fry dishes, soups, peking duck, a robata grill, Korean stuff, American stuff (mostly salads and desserts), jello, and more. I borrowed Di Yin's camera and took pictures of about half the selections before someone asked me to stop. I ate a ton. Her family did as well. It's nice to fit in.

Here are the pictures from Di Yin's camera from dinner, taken by both of us. They continue until you see a caption that mentions Chicago. (Don't peek at the Chicago entries; I'll post about them soon enough.)

Wednesday
Wednesday's main event was Di Yin's mom fulfilling a promise she made to me through Di Yin: she taught me how to make a particular cabbage, mushroom, pork, and mochi stir-fry dish. I'd previously eaten this dish when Di Yin brought a container across the country with her on one trip. The dish feels homey. Supposedly a standard household Shanghainese dish, it conveys to me the same comforting emotional experience as mac-n-cheese. I wanted to learn how to make it, couldn't find a good recipe online, and Di Yin's mom said she'd teach me.

Well, she did, and it came out well. We had it for lunch along with sweetened steamed sweet potatoes and won tons. We also packaged some leftovers to bring with us to Chicago. :) The recipe seems simple enough. I'd never attempted this dish before, though I had tried cooking with mochi (glutinous rice flour cakes) in the past to poor results. I now believe the problems came from using poor-quality mochi, not in how I treated it.

Soon after lunch on Wednesday, we left for the airport, where it turned out we had tons of time before our plane departed.