46 replies to this topic

[Fat Guy]

What are the best restaurants (and why) in Flushing Chinatown right now? Yangtze River, my former favorite, seems to be gone. The scene there seem to shift rapidly. What's the best current info?

[allister]

I'm not sure if this is the best food, but these are the places that I've been eating at in Flushing over the past few months. Haven't touched on any of the large Canto places (the one at Fay Da bakery - which i thought was the best - closed recently) sorry. Hope this helps

For Sichuan food, i think every one already knows about Spicy and Tasty. I think their real highlights are not so much the entree type food but rather the appetizers that they make in the front of the restaurant.
I still really like Sun Lok Kee. It's on Main Street closer to Northern Blvd. Good seafood. I will say that alot of their dishes are not on the menu. Some are written in chinese on pieces of paper hanging from the wall. Probably my favorite meal there is braised fish casserole and salted fish steamed meat pancake. It's very old school Chinatown (as many know it was originally on Mott street, still the same owners).
There are quite of few restaurant on 40th road that offer 3 dishes and a soup for $16-$17 dollars. Additional dishes are about $5. Diners can choose from a list of about 40 dishes. For the family that doesn't like to cook this is really a great bargain. The one that I've been going to for some time has a name that translates to South and North Unite. It is on the north side of 40th street, west of the liquor store. It is mainly Taiwanese food. This place also does a really great job on Taiwanese Breakfast - soymilk, chinese doughnuts, soup dumplings, potstickers. You really must also have the beef roll - beef, scallion, hoisin sauce rolled up in a scallion pancake (they serve this all the time).
Of course, there's also Minni's - the individual hot pot place. If you like hot pot, you'll really like this place. It is located next to Sweet and Tart. If you like congee and glutinous steam rice - Sweet and Tart is the place to go.
These places that I've been going more and more often though are a group of stalls located on Main Street across the street from the Post Office. These mini malls consist of a few regional food stalls that offer anything from dumplings to sichuan food to chinese muslim food. It really is like outdoor food stall of asia transported into a small piece of Flushing. There is not sign on the door but if you want on Main Street it is located across from the Post office. You will see a dumpling booth and a soup booth in the doorway. If you get to a pet store, you've gone too far. There is a sichuan stall in the back of the mall. Their DanDan noodles ($3) are excellent as are their spicy beef and tendons ($6). Unfortunately, very few of these places have english menus. Also, if you are expecting white table clothe service, you will be deeply disappointed.
There is one other food mini mall on Main Street between 41st and Sanford, closer to 41st. It is in the back, there is a cell phone shop in the front. This minimall offers two stands - a dumpling shop and a muslim noodle shop. The dumplings at the noodleshop are great. The muslim store sells chive boxes ($1) which are probably the best in flushing.
Flushing is also the place to go for boxed food. This is the strofoam container of rice plus 4 dishes from the steam tray plus a small bowl of soup for $4. Makes a great meal for 1. Probably the two best places to get this are the Sunflower Cafe/Bakery located on the west side Main Street near the LiRR bridge or downstairs at East which is near Maple and Main. These places are mostly takeaway, though Sunflower has some limited seating. Also, both places allow you to purchase a large order (think about the large plastic white/clear bowls grand sichuan deliverys in) of any steam table dish for like $5.

[Fat Guy]

A mercurial online acquaintance pointed me to this blog, by the
employees of a power company in Flushing. (Be sure to read the
description of the blog at the top.) The Shanghai place they recommend
down towards the bottom -- No. 1 East Restaurant aka Peoples and
People -- sounds very promising, as does Szechuan Gourmet (the first one mentioned).

Peoples and People - Shanghai Chinese
For Shanghai style breakfast food, Peoples and People(the awning now says "No. 1 East Restaurant) restaurant is the best. It has moved from 38-02 Prince St. to 41-27 Main St. (next to the public library) Flushing, NY 11354 (718) 460-8686. The breakfast food is available through mid-afternoon. The fried dumplings and steamed meat balls (actually a soupy bun with pork filling) are delicious and unlike any you have probably had. At dinner, try the Black Pepper Scallops. Also, try the shredded pork with dried bean curd and an order of scallion pancakes. The owner showed us how to split open the pancakes, slather the inside of the pancake with hoisin sauce and fill it with the pork and dried bean curd. What a great sandwich!

Szechuan Gourmet ( 135-15 37th Ave. Corner of Prince Street, Flushing (718) 888-9388) serves food that create sensations in your mouth that you probably never had and in the process will break every sterotype you have about Szechuan food. If you think Szechuan food is only about fire caused by dried chili peppers be prepared to find out that heat comes in lots of different ways and does not have to overwhelm all the other flavors in a dish. Not since the Chinnese Communist Provincial government ran Szechuan Pavilion in Manhattan (25 years ago) have I had food like this. . . .

http://www.kepcopowe...restaurants.htm

[I_call_the_duck]

I had a great meal with my family last Friday at Kum Gang San (138-28 Northern Blvd). I don't know how this compares to the Korean restaurants in midtown, but this was very good. In addition to the BBQ, we also had sushi (actually rolls), a scallion pancake, and noodles. The little dishes they set out beforehand (I'm not sure what they're called) were good too, esp. the fish balls.

I'd say that their strength is in the BBQ. The scallion pancake was very good, with a lot of scallions and very little batter, but a tad too greasy. The eel roll tasted a little fishy, but the other roll was good.

For our BBQ, we ordered the octopus, short ribs, shrimp, and pork. All meats came with assorted veggies. My favorites were the pork and octopus. The marinade really stood out with each. The beef and shrimp were good, but a little drier and less flavorful compared to the pork and shrimp.

The place was packed on a Friday evening. I believe it's open 24/7, and my brother, who is a night owl, says that it's even busy in the wee hours of the morning.

[Alchemist]

I am a big fan of New Loc Kee. It used to be Sun Loc Kee at 13 (or 69 I forget) Mott. They moved out to flushing after a fire. They are now at 36-50 Main @ 37th street. They still stay open very late. I would say that they specilize in seafood. The last meal I had there was ridiculously decadant.

My dining partner, who is one of the most gifted diners I’ve ever encountered, didn’t even flinch when I ordered enough food to feed an Austtrailian football team. She just paced herself, like a marathoner and laughed when we had three bags of left overs.

We were starving, so we ordered wonton soup and a couple of egg rolls as an amuse. Not the smartest thing when a table full of food was on the way.

We started with salt and pepper scallops. Perfectly cooked, slightly crunchy on the outside, and then silky on the inside. The texture is almost like really firm custard, like biting into a hot sabayon while the sea is whispering in your ear.

Then we had peppers stuffed with pork and shrimp. This is like Shanghi roulette. Some of the peppers are mild and some are like biting into an atom bomb. It makes food wonderfully exciting.

Cantoneese lobster, two lobsters, sautéed with egg and ground pork and black beans. This is one of my favorite dishes in the world. I think if the sauce was finished with just a touch of cream it would be literally orgasmic. And a triple threat for the non-goyum.

Sautéed chives. Garlic, oil salt and white pepper. So basic and good.

This was all washed down with a bevy of Tching Tao (I know its spelled wrong, my spell check only has domestic beer in it memory. Stupid computer.)

The other thing I have had there that is amazing is the whole steamed fish. Ginger scallion, S&P. I just couldn’t bring myself to order a whole fish on top of two lobsters, Scallops, and a battalion of shrimp, as well as aquatic swine. The guilt of depopulating the ocean would have spoiled my appetite. For about three minutes. The scary thing was this was qan early lunch. We planned on walking to Jackson Diner for a light bite and the stroll over to Sripaiphai for dinner. It was hot so we had to stop at a couple of mexican bars for Michiladas, and spicey cacahuates. The walking was key. A bit of exercise between bouts of gluttony. Roosevelt is a vibrant, bustling aveanue. I want to do an all hispanic day. Colombian for breakfeast, Peruvian for lunch and Equadorian for dinner. But that is a whole different post.

Sorry the pictures are blurry there was grease on the lens, like vasaline on the lens when they shoot soft porn.

Edited to get adress right.

Edited by Alchemist, 10 July 2006 - 12:48 PM.

[emsny]

I wish I could make a first-hand contribution to this thread, but I can't. Towards the end of last year, Peter Meehan reviewed this place in the NY Times: Waterfront International Enterprises, 40-09 Prince Street (Roosevelt Avenue); (718) 321-1363. Sounded worth a visit. Has anyone been?

[Fat Guy]

We wound up going to the recently relocated No. 1 East Restaurant at 41-27 Main St. I'll definitely be going back -- I think it took at least this one trip and will probably take another to learn about ordering. We were going to a game at Shea so we came in around 5pm when there were very few customers. By 6pm the place was full of customers and, if we had seen what they were ordering, we would have been able to point and query and learn a lot more. Still, we had some hits just through basic dumb luck. We ordered all the available dumplings, three kinds in all, and they were amazing. Particularly noteworthy were the spinach dumplings, which were packed full of fresh spinach and the best vegetable dumplings I've ever had. The pork soup dumplings were as good as the best I've ever had. The pork fried dumplings were probably not as good as at New Green Bo, but probably better than at any other restaurant I've tried in New York. The thing about all three types of dumplings was that they all seemed to have been made moments before being cooked -- they had a fresh, clean, caring, handmade look, feel and taste to them. The restaurant is apparently known for breakfast food, so this probably fits in to that picture. The scallion pancakes were unlike any others I've had. Usually you either see a deep-fried thin pancake or a thick, breadlike pancake. This was a thin, breadlike pancake -- kind of halfway between a traditional Chinese-American restaurant scallion pancake and a flat bread like pita. As far as I could tell, these pancakes were meant to be used as a vehicle for other food, but we just gobbled them down straight with a little of the sauce from the dumplings.

Of the entree-type dishes (we only got three, as there were only two of us), by far the best was the shredded pork with dried bean curd. The pieces of dried bean curd were long and thin, like the shreds of pork. It was great. I'd like to go back and try some of the other shredded pork dishes -- there are a few permutations. Less successful was the eel with scallions. We had something of a miscommunication here -- we wanted live eel, but there was none available, but we didn't really comprehend that, so this dish was made with frozen eel. It wasn't terrible, but on my best day I'm not a true eel-lover so I only like it when it's exceptionally fresh. This was just okay. The big disappointment was the pepper crusted scallops. I imagined the scallop equivalent of salt-and-pepper shrimp, but this was more like the scallop equivalent of sweet-and-sour pork with a lot of pepper added. It had too much breading, a weird orange sauce and was plated bad-Chinese-restaurant style surrounded by a ring of steamed broccoli. I guess we inadvertently stumbled into the tourist portion of the menu for that one.

We felt stupid for not ordering some of the live crabs from the tank up front. Also, once the die-hard local customers showed up, we saw that the most popular items were the soups and various casserole-type dishes, so that's an area of the menu to explore for sure. Also, several people ordered pea shoots, which looked great, and some of them had the pea shoots with shrimp. Mmmm.

[Pan]

I had a great meal with my family last Friday at Kum Gang San (138-28 Northern Blvd).  I don't know how this compares to the Korean restaurants in midtown, but this was very good.[...]

If you get a chance, you could try their branch on 32 St. just east of Broadway, and compare the two branches.

[snausages2000]

Went to Waterfront International Enterprises (40-09 Prince St. Flushing) a couple nights ago.

Food is from the northern Chinese Liaoning Province, which borders North Korea.

I suspect that the (giant) menu contains dishes from many regions and that a more specifically Liaoningese meal than mine could be orchestrated.

The staff was great. Super friendly, though clearly amused by how much food a couple of white kids ordered.

After the first round the waitress said, 'you've ordered 7 dishes - you sure you want this much?' Before it was over we'd had 11 dishes. When in Flushing...

Country Style Green Bean Sheet



Dried Tofu Skin With Peppers



Pea Shoots



Jellyfish



Fried Crispy Pork with Orange Flavor



Steamed Buns with Sour Cabbage and Pork



Lamb with Spices (Whole Roasted Cumin)



Assorted "Sweets" (Banana, Taro, Apple, Pineapple Coated in Hot Sugar. You dip it at the table in cold water and they turn into hard candied nuggets.)



Jellyfish Flower with Scallion



Waitress (who I fell in love with) cutting up the Jellyfish



Fried Eggplant Stuffed With Cabbage and Minced Pork



Tendon in Spicy Sichuan Pepper Sauce



Consistently good. Definitely worth a repeat visit, though I'd say the success (as in, 'this dish is awesome') rate was only about 50%. But the menu is huge and I think it'd take a few visits to really master it, figure out what the kitchen most excels at. Next time I'd order the Lamb (it was great), the Green Bean Sheet, the Dumplings and the Pea Shoots and then start fresh from there. The Jellyfish Flowers must be tried, but their appearance and texture (crunchy) were a bit too suggestive of...jellyfish.

They serve beer by the pitcher, which is fun.

[EoPandaBear]

Since so many of the great Chinese chefs have now migrated to the Flushing area, I was wondering if anyone could give me tips for a very tasty dim sum experience. I haven't been back to New York in a while so I need some Chinese restaurant advice.

[Gastro888]

If you want an industrial like setting with average dim sum but a guaranteed table every time you come go to one of the East Buffet chains. The one on Kissena Blvd has ample street side parking. Their dim sum's not great but it'll suffice if you want it now without the wait. (I'm particular. I'll wait for some damn good dim sum.)

Don't go to Gala Manor. It's incredibly overpriced. You get great atmosphere but unless you have connections or score a good table in the front at the cross sections of the walkways (near the kitchen so you can get the dim sum hot and fresh), you're in dim sum Siberia. That means cold picked over dim sum. Bleah.

The quality of the food is not horribly bad but I got away with $20 for dim sum for 2 (1 small dish, 6 medium, regular tea service, tax and tip) at New Tung Yi Fung across the street where the same fare at Gala Manor was $50(!). If you are into a more elegant atmosphere, go to Gala Manor and try their kung fu tea service with dim sum. You'll get a separate tea room and the kung fu tea service that's $5 a head. (Normal tea service is $0.75 a head)

New Yung Yi Fung is my favorite but I recommend that with a warning. Although you'll find excellent dim sum (and my favorite - black sesame rolls - you must be there before 11:30 to get those babies), you'll have to know how to wait for a table. One, it's a two level restaurant. The kitchen's on the first level. Unless you're super hungry, it's worth waiting for a table downstairs. Two, the wait for the table can be a pain. Each level has a host and you have to be assertive when you're jockeying for his attention along with other patrons. They are very nice - it's the PATRONS you have to watch out for. If you're unlucky enough to sit at the front people will hover over you to make you finish faster. Also, I almost got into a fight with a family that stole my table. Long story short - their number was called 10 numbers ago (30 minutes ago) and they didn't respond. Our number came up and we were to be seated and lo and behold this family swoops in and said they were there first. To be fair, the host gave the table to them even though they didn't respond when their number was originally called. Pissed, extremely hungry and well, pissed off starving, I argued. (Luckily for them there were kids around.)

So why do I keep going? Why did I put up with it? Because the dim sum is that good (to me. Did I mention they have the best black sesame rolls? Seriously, that's my crack.)

Gum Fung is a good one, too. The room's big enough that you don't wait too long but small enough that if you don't get an ideal table, the dim sum is still fresh. The variety is decent and the dumplings here are good. The prices are reasonable and they have several specialty dishes that float around including roasted suckling pig.

If you are a party of less than 6-8. you'll end up sharing a large banquet table with another family. This is normal and just dig right in. Just keep an eye on what's yours and that the waitstaff marks the proper tab.

NOTE: These are all my opinions. So take it as just some foodie's obsessive opinion. I know what I like and I have my own standards for dim sum. I'm also Cantonese so my taste in dim sum may be different from yours. I judge restaurants by their ha gaow, their variety & selection, their freshness, the quality & skill of their culinary talents and how (relatively) clean they are. I would say that the restaurants I mentioned are all "good" but New Tung Yi Fung is my favorite (they meet all the criteria and they're good enough that I'm willing to put up with bullshit to get a table and I've no patience so that might tell you how I feel about their food) and my second favorite is Gum Fung.

Gala Manor Inc
3702 Main St
Flushing, NY 11354
718-888-9232

Gum Fung Restaurant LLC
13628 39th Ave
Flushing, NY 11354
718-762-8821

New Tung Yi Fung
135-29 37th Ave
Flushing, NY 11354
718-886-8233

East Manor website

And random Flushing tidbits:

The best xiao long bao in NYC is in Flushing at Shanghai Tide. Forget all those in Manhattan. They have excellent fried dumplings as well. Two dumpling dishes are $6.50 total.

Shanghai Tide
135-20 40th Road
Flushing, NY 11354
718-661-0900

New Lok Kee is the best homestyle Cantonese place. They make an awesome beef with bitter melon over white rice. This is where I go for comfort food. Delish!

New Lok Kee
36-50 Main Street
Flushing, NY 11354

Hope this helps! Good luck and happy eating!
718-762-6048

PS: Of course it is helpful in Flushing if you speak Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) or if you're not able to, you go with someone who does.

Edited by Gastro888, 05 March 2007 - 09:40 PM.

[Alchemist]

I must add that at New Lok Kee have the Cantonese Lobster, the salt and pepper scallops, the chives, and the stuffed peppers. Yum. The peppers are some what like the lottery, some are scary hot others not.

Enjoy.

[Gastro888]

New Lok Kee is *the* place to go for homestyle Cantonese and seafood dishes. It's not "fine seafood dining" like Ping's on Queens Blvd in Elmhurst, which is a nice restaurant as well. Ping's does salt and pepper frog and fried duck tongues very well. They have a dungeness crab dish that's fried and served with fried garlic that I'm keen on trying.

Ping's also has good dim sum but limited in its variety. They have very good "fun jaow" (chicken feet). It's been braised in a sauce that tastes almost like cha siu (Chinese roast pork). The benefit of going to Ping's is that they have their own parking lot and as a duce you can get your own table. Unheard of in almost all dim sum restaurants!

Ping's
8302 Queens Blvd
Elmhurst, NY 11373
(718) 396-1238

PS: Best chicken feet are at New Ti Yung Fung. Those are braised until they're incredibly soft and tender. If the chicken feet are chewy and tough, it's a sign for me that the restaurant's cooks don't know what they are doing and can't manage a kitchen well.

(Yes, I'm very picky when it comes to dim sum. I'm sorry. I'm anal!)

Edited by Gastro888, 06 March 2007 - 06:34 AM.

[raji]

New Lok Kee is *the* place to go for homestyle Cantonese and seafood dishes.  It's not "fine seafood dining" like Ping's on Queens Blvd in Elmhurst, which is a nice restaurant as well.  Ping's does salt and pepper frog and fried duck tongues very well.  They have a dungeness crab dish that's fried and served with fried garlic that I'm keen on trying.

Ping's also has good dim sum but limited in its variety.  They have very good "fun jaow" (chicken feet).  It's been braised in a sauce that tastes almost like cha siu (Chinese roast pork).  The benefit of going to Ping's is that they have their own parking lot and as a duce you can get your own table.  Unheard of in almost all dim sum restaurants!

Ping's
8302 Queens Blvd
Elmhurst, NY 11373
(718) 396-1238 

PS: Best chicken feet are at New Ti Yung Fung.  Those are braised until they're incredibly soft and tender.  If the chicken feet are chewy and tough, it's a sign for me that the restaurant's cooks don't know what they are doing and can't manage a kitchen well.

(Yes, I'm very picky when it comes to dim sum.  I'm sorry.  I'm anal!)

Is the Queen's Ping's better or worse than the Chinatown one?

And, is the ascension of Flushing so much so at the expense of Manhattan's Chinatown? I haven't been out to eat there in a couple years, but my experience with Flushing was traditionally:
Because of the local population creating more demand, there is more variety and authenticity to some specific regional cuisines. This is a few years ago but I recall getting really good Taiwanese, Shanghaiese foods... Meanwhile, the same qualitySzechuan can be had at a fraction of the priuce.

So, in a nutshell, the reward for hiking out to Flushing was either getting the food you love a lot cheaper, or exploring a certain regional cuisine that you wouldn't otherwise find in Manhattan -

[Gastro888]

Yes! For sure the Ping's in Queens is much better than the one in Manhattan. It's much bigger too and their seafood is very good.

Unfortunately, Flushing does offer more variety and (usually) better quality compared to Manhattan. Personally, I prefer Cantonese food over the non-Cantonese food but am slowly trying the other types of cuisines. Apparently there's this fantastic "ja montau" (fried montau - montau being the plain steamed white bun) that is in Flushing that comes with condensed milk on the side to dip in. Having had the bastardized verison (prepacked maontau that are deep fried), I'm eager to try the real thing that's handmade.

Don't get me wrong - Manhattan's Chinatown still has *so* much to offer! It's a fantastic place! When I'm in the city, I still gravitate towards Chinatown. I can't find a place in Flushing that does roast prok buns like Mei Lai Way or shrimp rolls like New South Wind. The old school Cantonese is still rocking in Chinatown. Definitely don't sell it short!

re: Chicken feet. To me they don't taste like cod liver oil but then again, I don't know what cod liver oil tastes like. I love chicken feet and it's great to be able to eat them when they're properly cooked.

re: Being aggressive and pissy at "traditional dim sum houses". *sighs* I hate that sometimes you need to do this in order to be serviced and fed. Believe me, I don't want to argue with someone for my table. Unfortunately, you need to adapt to the environment around you in order to survive. Or else some elbow poking, back shoving, step over you, mannerless person(s) is gonna get at the good food before you. Ai, it sucks but I didn't make the rules. I'd change them for sure!

[Gastro888]

Oh there's a new restaurant called Corner 28 that just opened near the 7 train station in Flushing. It's a casual dining/BBQ/rice box restaurant where you can order noodle soups, rice boxes (3 or 4 choices of entree over rice plus a plain soup) or BBQ meats. You find your table after ordering and everything's self-service. It's two levels and quite big. Their special for now is a $0.75 Peking duck bun that they sell by the dozen out the front window. I haven't tried it and I'm not too keen on trying it as my preference is for the pancake and not the bun to eat with my Peking duck.

Bakeries in Flushing are nice as well. Tai Pan and Fai Da have multiple branches in Flushing. There are some Vietnamese places as well but I've not tried them. Of course there are Korean restaurants in Flushing and you have the hybrid Korean-Chinese restaurants which are very interesting.

Edited by Gastro888, 07 March 2007 - 06:42 AM.

[Gastro888]

Thanks for all the info Gastro!  I speak Cantonese fluently and can get by on my Mandarin, so I should be okay.  Sharing tables and having others hawk yours while you eat is like eating dim sum in Hong Kong.  I can get pissy like the rest of them but it can get annoying when you have to get aggressive about being fed.

Gum Fung, New Ti Yung and Gala Manor have Cantonese speakers. We're the minority in Flushing so I'm always surprised when I hear Cantonese. It's frustrating when people ask you if you speak Chinese and my response is yes, I do. I speak Cantonese. Then I'm asked again, no, I meant Chinese. Do you speak Chinese?

I try to control my chopsticks of fury at that point.

Edited by Gastro888, 07 March 2007 - 06:44 AM.

[Gastro888]

And back to Flushing...

Speaking of shopping, if you're interesting in Chinese style jewlery, you'll find better prices there.

Sago Cafe is the main bubble tea shop on Main Street. It's a funky little Taiwanese style teahouse. I feel that Saint Alps' has better atmosphere, though. Sago Cafe offers more variety on their menu (ramen, rice dishes, sandwiches) than most bubbletea houses but it's so loud in there - even when it's 1/3 full! - that you can barely hear yourself think.

And my people not known for being soft spoken.

[LPShanet]

I'm looking for the top places in Flushing's Chinatown. Places that a foodie who has never been there must try. Also, any suggestions for which items are especially good at which places is greatly appreciated.

[vloglady]

Anyone know of a place in Flushing that does Dragon's Beard?

[Nathan]

I'm looking for the top places in Flushing's Chinatown.  Places that a foodie who has never been there must try.  Also, any suggestions for which items are especially good at which places is greatly appreciated.

Spicy & Tasty to start.

and everyone who likes S&T who has been to Little Pepper loves it too.

[kathryn]

Best North Dumpling Shop - Pork and fennel dumplings
Perfect Team Corporation (dim sum) - Char Siu Sou, egg tarts, Lotus Root/fish cake
Peking Duck/cheung fun window outside Corner 28
Scallion pancake/etc. stations. The windows are yellow, there's a sign that says AA Plaza I think. Located under the LIRR train overpass on the west side of Main Street, between 40th and 41st
Golden Shopping Mall at 41-28 Main St. - Xian restaurant or dumpling stand
Dumpling kiosk at 41st, just off Main, no English signage, across from a Starbucks and next door to Chao Zhou
Spicy & Tasty or Little Pepper or Chengdu Heaven

Resources:
http://www.villagevo...,419748,15.html
http://newyork.metro.../387536/content
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/497820
http://www.chowhound.com/topics/451804
http://www.yelp.com/...-stall-flushing

Edited by kathryn, 29 April 2008 - 01:53 PM.

[markk]

I'm a New Lok Kee addict from way back (to its days as Sun Lok Kee on Mott St.) and recently posted photos of a small seafood feast we had there (softshell crabs, many orders of lobster, green vegetables), and it's still my favorite. Of course, I'm more into Cantonese seafood than any of the other Chinese cuisines (sadly, can't eat anything spicy-hot). But some great photos are here:

Photos (and video) of New Lok Kee

I will say that the Flushing location is considerable more upscale than the down and dirty Mott St. place was, which was famous for it's lack of cleanliness in the front of the house (the Flushing location is upscale and clean) - but I can say that I had been taken through the kitchen and down to the seafood tanks in both places, and surprisingly enough, the parts that you can't see are utterly immaculate. The seafood tanks in the sub-basement sparkle cleaner than anybody's prized aquarium that I have ever seen.

[Babiemindy]

Ocean Jewel has high quality and good food, either bring a large appetite or several people with you to try a few dishes. They serve dim sum during the day also and have their own parking.

98 39th Ave, across the street from Flushing Mall, about 3 blocks from the 7 train.

[LPShanet]

Thanks everyone!

[TarteTatin]

Today we were in Flushing for the first time, our vegetarian friends took us to the Buddha Bodai for dim sum.
I know that we were at the "quiet end" as they said of Chinatown, on the main street.

The dim sum was pretty good, even though we are not vegetarians.
There was a lot of soft rice wrapped dishes, with spinach and other things-also a sort of spring roll, a fake BBQ meat, something sesame...other tasty tidbits. I really don't know what we had, but it was pretty good.

Later we went up the main street a bit and off on a side street shopped at a large-ish Asian supermarket. I bought cilantro for 2 for $1.00 and some soft ginger root, which I'd never seen before.

I must admit we missed some of the tasty looking meat dishes we saw - or rather smelled- while walking around...

[sickchangeup]

My wife is Chinese, and her uncle and grandpa live outside of Flushing, so we go meet them for food a lot. The one place we always go to is called:

Imperial Palace
(Chinese name is East Lake something?)
136-13 37 Av

It's better than any food I've had in Manhattan. Everyone eating there is pretty much Chinese, and it's most suitable for larger parties (i.e. definitely not couples). AFAIK, this isn't the place for dumplings or the like, though in fact nothing that I'd normally order from standard Manhattan take out get's ordered here (her family does the ordering)

My personal favorites are:

- Some sort of fried Seafood patty appetizer

- Sticky Crab Rice (huge thing of rice with a cracked crab plopped right in the middle of the table. No need for any other rice if you get this)

- Mayonnaise Shrimp (deep fried, covered with mayo and served with candied walnuts - absolutely sinful)

- Deep fried pork chops/pieces

- Sizzling beef with black pepper sauce

- soft tofu cubes in some form of egg yolk sauce


Other popular items are lobster stir fried with garlic and ginger, steamed fish with soy sauce, chinese broccoli or pea shoots, roasted chicken (eh) and roast duck.

Her family manages to get reservations by calling, but otherwise I'd just show up early.

[daisy17]

Did a little food outing in flushing today, mostly in the basement of the Golden Shopping Mall, and then some dishes at Spicy & Tasty which were mostly both (although not really super spicy - did they go light because we weren't asian? I could have handled more heat). Will post photos when I can. The food stalls in the basement of the Golden Shopping Mall were AMAZING. When I'm back in flushing next I'm spending the whole day there.

[kathryn]

That was my experience at S&T, too, and I'm Asian-American. I think Little Pepper (Xiao La Jiao) might be spicier.

[Steve R.]

Did a little food outing in flushing today, mostly in the basement of the Golden Shopping Mall, and then some dishes at Spicy & Tasty which were mostly both (although not really super spicy - did they go light because we weren't asian?  I could have handled more heat).  Will post photos when I can.  The food stalls in the basement of the Golden Shopping Mall were AMAZING.  When I'm back in flushing next I'm spending the whole day there.

A bunch of us spent noon-2pm on Sunday in the newish Roosevelt Mall (small, 8 stall place around the corner from Fu Ran aka Waterfront and 1/2 block from S&T) checking out the food. By and large, as interesting as Golden, but much more open & well lit. Posts on CH about it. I miss the J&L Mall but the food at Golden and now Roosevelt will fill the void.

As an aside, I've grown to like Fu Ran better than just about all the other Flushing places, with Little Pepper right behind and S&T in third.