Searching For China: Part 1.

The search is on!

We’ve arrived in China! The cuisine that so many of us love but truly know so little about. I have been anticipating getting to this country for a long time. China has been one of the top countries I've been waiting for in my pursuit of Eating A-Z in NYC. It’s a very large country with a vast cuisine, so I knew this wasn't going to be a "one + done" kind of newsletter. New York has plenty of traditional Chinese restaurants, so I knew this was going to be a multi-part ode to those eateries. According to Michelin star-rated Hakkasan, there are eight different regional styles of Chinese cooking. The one most commonly found here in the U.S. and abroad is Cantonese because the majority of immigrants came from the Guangdong region in the 1800s, where that style of cooking comes from. Some other notable styles are Szechuan and Hunan, which are known for their tongue-numbing heat from the heavy use of chilies.

I want to explore what Chinese food is and what it also can be. Most of my research has pointed me in the direction of Manhattan's Chinatown. I know Chinatown has great food - I've eaten a lot of it - but I'm not ready to go there quite yet. I wanted to visit a place that describes itself as Chinese food that is traditional but forward-thinking. According to an article on Grub Street, The Tang is exactly that, "a noodle shop that strives for authenticity by breaking with tradition."

The Tang is located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which is just a couple of blocks away from Columbia University. The area has slowly been changing from local Dominican food restaurants and mom + pop shops to hand-pulled noodle bars, spicy hot pot joints, and modern Chinese outposts for dining. I decided off the bat that I wasn't going to have noodles at The Tang since I was dining alone. Your girl here has limits to how much food she can chow down alone and a whole bowl of noodles would have been my limit! I ordered 4 small dishes (I know it sounds like I just went against what I just said above 😅). I ordered char siu, asam prawns, pan-fried turnip cakes, and spicy marinated cucumbers.

Table for one please!

Char siu is sliced homemade roast pork with honey. I usually will go against the better judgment of my tummy that usually can't handle pork and dive right into char siu because it is freaking delicious. Unfortunately, I found myself in a conundrum when I ate The Tang's char siu. The pieces were definitely tender, but they kind of fell flat. The pork was barely room temperature and the flavor was meh. Writing this makes me feel so uneasy. I am NOT a food critic nor would I ever want to be. I try to stay very objective and just describe the taste, flavor profiles, texture, and so on, but I really can't with this one. It was just kind of okay. My job here isn't to crap on someone's livelihood as a chef or restaurant owner. Both jobs are exceptionally hard, and reviews make it even harder, which is why Eating A-Z in NYC newsletters are not restaurant reviews. They're meant to be slices of life through food. An experience that is meant to be shared with my readers in an exploration of understanding the impact of immigrant communities through the cuisine they bring here for us to enjoy and take part in. That being said let’s move on to the prawns.

Honestly was looking forward to this being really good.

😢.

The asam prawns are deep-fried breaded shrimp with a chunky sweet sauce, sesame seeds, and scallions. The sauce is very reminiscent of a sweet duck sauce. The shrimp stayed crunchy in the sauce which I appreciated. The breading didn't become wet and soggy. I honestly enjoyed it and kind of wish there was more on the plate.

Wish there were more shrimps 😢.

The pan-fried turnip cakes are deep-fried Jenga blocks of turnip. The insides are fudgy with a super crisp outside texture like a giant french fry. The innards reminded me of mashed potatoes. If you've ever had a turnip it tastes exactly as you imagine. A bit earthy and a bit sweet. The dipping sauce that came with it was a simple Sriracha mayo. The cakes are quite oily, but that's always the gamble with fried food. I'm okay with that, but for others it might not totally jive with them.

Turnip cakes.

Turnipy insides.

The wildest thing about eating at The Tang was that out of all the dishes I ate the most memorable one was the spicy cucumbers. They were cold crisp Persian cukes. Not a soggy one in sight which can sometimes happen to cucumbers once they have been cut and sitting in dressing. They were marinated with chili oil, garlic, and seasoning spices. I found it to be very refreshing between bites of the fried food.

Every restaurant I eat at is a gamble. I always hope that it's going to satisfy my hunger and curiosity for foreign flavors. The Tang was a gamble I was willing to take and I don't regret it. For me, it was a learning exercise in maintaining objectivity. Obviously, if the food is exceptionally bad or not even edible I wouldn't bother writing about it. I do have to come to terms with that being a possibility I may encounter down the road since I'm only halfway through the C's. The rest of the alphabet of countries will be wildcard surprises that I will have to lean into with unbiased understanding and zero ill-will. Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this is if a place says it's the best noodle bar restaurant in NYC, I should undo the top button of my pants and just eat the noodles.

Cook. Eat. Repeat.

Natalie 💗✨