New Year celebrations may be behind for most people, but I’m still looking forward to my favorite of the year: Chinese New Year. It’s about a month away, and as with Thanksgiving day and Christmas day, I’ll likely spend it in a Chinese restaurant in Seattle. Or, more likely, Bellevue, as that’s where the better Chinese restaurants are—specifically the Sichuan ones.
But what if I could be anywhere in America for Chinese food? The San Gabriel Valley in the Los Angeles area would tempt me (and wouldn’t disappoint), but at this point, I find myself leaning toward Flushing, New York.
Flushing? Yes. Get out of Manhattan, taking the #7 train to its last station. Better yet, fly into LaGuardia Airport, and you’re just a stone’s throw away. There’s an international melting pot of food in the borough of Queens, and Flushing’s the place if you want a full array of Chinese cuisine.
Now, if you’ve not been, I recommend you meet a man with passion and a plan to show you around: Joe DiStefano. He writes Edible Queens’ World’s Fare blog, and based on what I’ve seen, he’s sampled so much of the street food and more in Flushing and beyond. DiStefano offers a variety of culinary tours of the area. He’ll likely greet you wearing a Mets cap and a #7 train t-shirt, with the fuchsia-colored logo bright on his chest. After “How do you do?” exchanges, a “Have any dietary restrictions?” conversation (hopefully not!), and then a “Hope you’re hungry!” admonition, you’re immediately into the hustle-and-bustle of the Flushing street scene, which feels a bit like Hong Kong.
As someone who’s been to Flushing before, I took a bit of a modified tour with DiStefano. It’s an absolute feeding frenzy, mostly from take-out joints, food courts, and the like, but it’s a great way to sample the variety of Chinese cuisine (Fujian, Xi’an, Sichuan, and on and on…) in a rather compact area of Queens. DiStefano has many interesting stories to share and can throw in stops from little shops (like a Malaysian mom-and-pop place) to large supermarkets (like the Assi Plaza Korean market, loaded with lots of kimchi), demonstrating that Flushing is far from just Chinese-populated.
Check out the slideshow above for photos of dumplings, buns, pork tongue, xiao long bao, and other highlights from the tour. Included you’ll find a few dishes from “Biang!” restaurant. We decided to do this one sit-down place, as I’d gone to Xi’an Famous Foods—whose popularity pushed the opening of the more upscale “Biang!”—just the day before. Photos from my meal at Xi’an and a few other New York City area Asian (and one non-Asian!) restaurants are also included in the slideshow.