Text 10540, 66 rader
Skriven 2011-05-08 23:43:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: my recent trip 300
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Niu Rou Mian (Nan Bei He), Prince St. near 39th, Flushing

Taiwan is well represented in this Chinatown, and this
place specializes in Taipei-style beef noodle soup (the
name translates to beef meat noodle; the alternate name
is either south north sea or south white sea, I'm not
sure which and can't look it up, because the last reinstall
of Windows took away the Chinese code page); it's said to
be the best in town. But if I got this, I would have to
have had only one dish, and anyhow, it was 60F out, and I
don't care for soup unless it's in the minus. So I got
beef in scallion pancake and xiao long bao. The former order
was two scallion pancakes of the ordinary sort, smeared with
hoisin, covered with braised beef shank, and rolled up into
cylinders - a very rustic takeoff on Peking duck. Pretty
good, though the beef had been out of its braising liquid
too long. The scallion pancakes weren't crisp enough,
which means they weren't fried enough, which means they
weren't fatty enough. The xiao long bao came as eight nice
little noodle pouches stuffed with pork meatball mixture
and aspic: when you steam them, the aspic melts, and when
you bite into them, the soup thus generated makes a mess
all over your shirt if you aren't skillful. These were a
standout - the wrappers quite thin, though unsightlily
brown, the meat good tasting, not too finely ground. I
ate well for under eight bucks I think it was. The tea
was a strange kind of burnt-rice-tasting dishwater that
I remembered from cheaper restaurants in my childhood.

==

Taste of Shanghai, 39th St. near Prince, Flushing

The other place had been on the cross street from the
hotel; this one is next door, separated just by the
driveway to the parking lot. Lilli, not interested in
her seminar proceedings, came out to play. She is not
an adventurous eater but encouraged me to order whatever
I wanted, so I got sauteed shrimp and pork kidneys with
green peppers - a combination that barely works, more
like Oscar and Felix than Barack and Joe. The shrimp,
about 15 24/30s, were snapping fresh and done just right,
the kidneys of course a bit overdone to my taste, so no
blood oozing into the sauce, also over half a pound.
Vegetables perfectly crisp-tender. White Cantonese sauce.
For her I got Shanghai noodles with beef; these were deep-
fried, not Shanghai at all, more Cantonese-style, in a thick
soy and broth sauce; goodly amount of beef, lots of broccoli,
onions, and other veggies. The noodles were decent - quite
nice, actually, once they had soaked up the sauce. The tea,
shall we say, did not compete for attention.

The xiao long bao, said to be the best in town by some,
couldn't hold a candle to those from Niu Rou Mian. They
did offer twice the food for the same price, which
probably sways many. The dumplings, 6 this time, had a
wrapper so thick that Lilli discarded hers without regard
to politeness, preferring to slurp out the inside and
abandon the rest.

This cost about $30, but that included two beers and
gave enough leftovers to feed me another generous meal.

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