Searching for China: Part 2.

The search continues...at the mall!

For the second installment of China, we venture off to Flushing, Queens. Flushing is New York's unofficial Chinatown. There are many Asian restaurants, shops, and grocery stores. Good food is literally a stone's throw away.

I met up with friend and fellow Substack author Ron Hogan (he joined me before for Bangladesh). We met on a rainy Sunday to grab some delicious delights from the New World Mall food court. This food court is one of a few food courts in Flushing with a bit of everything to try. 

Ron suggested we start with a big plate of chicken from Tarim Uyghur Cuisine. Yep, on the menu, it literally says "Big Plate of Chicken.” We got the small Big Plate of Chicken and were not disappointed. This dish was filled with big pieces of stewed chicken, bell peppers, potatoes and chunky handmade noodles. The noodles and chicken were enveloped in a delicious chili flecked sauce heightened with cumin and hints of cinnamon. Just a bit of heat, but I was able to bear it.

Noodles trapped underneath these hunks of chicken.

Spicy noodles.

Next we grabbed some very succulent and juicy pork chive dumplings. We all know by now that I can’t say no to a dumpling. These chunky steamed dumplings had thick chewy skin which helped retain the juices from the tender pork. Solid handmade little parcels of happiness.

Got the dumplings here!

🥟🥟🥟🥟🥟 This dumpling emoji strangely looks like an empanada.

Plump dumpling filled with tender pork.

I was in the mood for a whole plate of noodles so I bought some stir fried hand pulled noodles with lamb. The noodles had a similar taste to lo mein while the lamb was heavily spiced with cumin. There was an assortment of veggies in the noodles such as peppers, wood ear mushrooms, tomatoes, bean sprouts and mustard greens. The flavors were pretty mild and subtle. I asked for the braised egg on the side and that was probably my favorite part of the dish. The boiled egg was marinated in a concentrated liquid of soy sauce and spices. 

Noodles are from Lanzhou Handmade Noodle.

Crazy how these look like ears!

Hunk of tasty lamb.

Last but not least we got some soup on our rainy day out. The soup we got was one that I’ve never tried before - Chinese sauerkraut fish soup. The broth was super spicy and sour. Personally I love sauerkraut and found this version of napa cabbage kraut to be lemony and earthy. There were “noodles” in our soup, but we soon discovered they were strips of textured tofu. The tofu noodles were bland like most tofu that gets cooked in a broth. It had an unusual texture of thick construction paper (no offense to tofu noodle lovers!). The soup was filled with bean sprouts and mustard greens which added extra tanginess. Honestly I loved the broth and how it was an explosion of unexpected flavor and texture. 

Soup came from here!

Tofu “noodle”.

The food court had way more stalls and food to go through, but we were getting pretty full by the time we hit up the soup stall. This food adventure made up for my first foray into China a couple of weeks ago!

Question: Would you eat Chinese sauerkraut fish soup? What’s your all-time favorite Chinese dish?

Cook. Eat. Repeat.

Natalie 💗✨