Chinatown Chronicles: A Day of Delight

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I explored Chinatown in New York City for the first time this past Friday and I loved it. Growing up around NYC Chinatown has always been a familiar name, yet I’d never actually been there. Although I’ve visited Chinatowns in other cities, such as D.C, my preconceived notions were based on those experiences. To my surprise, the reality of New York’s Chinatown was a delightful departure from my expectations.

My foray into Chinatown was spurred by a planned cousin’s night out. One of my cousins had recently moved to an apartment on the border of Chinatown and little Italy, providing a perfect opportunity to visit her apartment, have dinner and explore local bars and eventually make our way to Koreatown for karaoke. Additionally, a friend from Brooklyn was home for the holidays so we decided to meet for lunch, in Chinatown. 

Wandering through Chinatown felt like stepping into a different world. I felt like I was exploring a new city in a new country, experiencing it for the first time. It didn’t feel like New York. I was filled with awe and curiosity and despite it being a tourist hotspot, it maintains an air of authenticity and charm. The lively streets adorned with a beautiful hodgepodge of storefronts along with signage that extend stories upward line the sidewalk and decorations for Christmas, the upcoming Chinese New Year (or maybe they are permanent), criss-cross the street above. Its evocative narrow lively streets are full of endless surprises. 

For lunch, my friend and I ate at a restaurant called The Original Buddha Bodai, a kosher, vegetarian (with gluten free options) Chinese restaurant. I never had dim sum before, so we got a dim sum sampler and pan-fried turnip cake and vegetarian ribs with black bean sauce. The turnip cake was my favorite and the vegetarian ribs, a late addition (chosen by me) was my least favorite. The “ribs” had the consistency of eating a flavored sponge. Overall, the experience was positive and the reasonably priced meal was hard to complain about.

When in Chinatown, drink tea. Tea is ubiquitous in the daily life of Chinese people and China has a long history of tea drinking. It plays and has played a prominent role in Chinese culture and in their relations with foreign countries and it’s the reason why we drink tea in the U.S. today. Even though I’m not a tea drinker, I wanted to find a traditional Chinese tea house and have some tea. It wasn’t easy to find one, most tea shops around the area have become boba tea shops, offering very little in terms of traditional Chinese tea. 

Eventually, we found a place called the T Shop. The T shop might technically be outside of Chinatown, but it was the only non-commercial one we came across. They had a wide selection of teas from China, Taiwan and Korea offering the opportunity to get tea in a cup, a pot, a tasting or as leaves. We couldn’t actually stay and drink our tea because they were closed for a tasting and only one party is allowed at a time. This was unfortunate because it was a cozy intimate space with a few tables. We settled on a $5 cup, rather than opting for a $20 cup and took them back out into the cold. However, that allowed us to stumble upon Elizabeth Street Gardens, an enclave of green space (not during winter) and art nestled within the urban jungle of the city – a space that might not be around for much longer as the city wants to develop it into luxury retail, office and apartments. 

For dinner, I was with my sisters and cousins. We ate at a restaurant called Deluxe Green Bo in the heart of Chinatown. It was recommended by my sister’s friend who had lived there. Their soup dumplings were the main pull. During the day, I happened to walk by it twice and each time there was a line down the block, however when we went for dinner there was hardly any. We had 7:00pm reservations and we had to wait until a table cleared. The place is small, maybe enough room for 50 tightly packed people, my cousin at the end of the table was in the entrance and the couple next to us might have well been a part of our table. Unfortunately, they didn’t have vegetarian soup dumplings (I should have gotten them at lunch, but I was saving them for dinner), but they did have fantastic scallion pancakes. I also had vegetarian dumplings that were okay, while my cousins and sisters tried an array of soup dumplings and dishes. According to them, the dumplings weren’t that great. 

For dessert, we went across the street to The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.  A tiny famous ice cream store with a unique variety of flavors visited by the likes of baker Duff Goldman. They too had a line out the door and down the block, luckily the scaffolding protected us from the rain. They had a variety of unique flavors like: taro, almond cookie, pandan (a tropical plant), lychee, don tot, as well as more traditional flavors like chocolate, orea and mint chip. I got one scoop of almond cookie. One scoop was $7.50, the same price of a basket of soup dumplings across the street! But it was delicious. 

For drinks we went to The River. It is a nondescript easy to miss bar slightly away from the main street of Chinatown. Its lack of outward facing windows with a dark green painted wooden facade, make it look like a storefront waiting for a tenant. It’s a cozy, dimly lit, intimate space filled with wood accents, wood paneling runs 3/4 of the wall height around the room, while the upper quarter is filled with rural murals of American landscapes. The interior columns are a facsimile of ionic columns made from actual trees. It’s dark enough that you can hardly see the tables in the corner. The atmosphere was great, but I can’t imagine the drinks were cheap. We stayed there for one and then made our way uptown to Koreatown for karaoke bringing an end to my day in Chinatown.