New Lok Kee, Flushing

[markk]

Sunday night we journeyed from NJ to Flushing to eat at New Lok Kee, where we haven't been in about a year, though we've eaten many a meal there, and were regulars for years and years when they were Sun Lok Kee on Mott St.

The food was even better than we remembered it.

First came the softshell crabs. These were monstrously large (they had to cut them into quarters) and certainly the meatiest and best prepared softshell crabs we've ever had. Not to disparage Oriental Garden, a great place in Chinatown where we've been going for the last year, these were even better:

Incidentally, at $16.95 per order, I think those are a steal.

Next came the lobster, for which they are justly famous. If anybody is not familiar with the place, on any given night you'll see that 90% of the diners are Chinese, and every one of them has ordered the lobster.

We have been invited downstairs to tour the massive arrays of lobster tanks at both locations, and they are so pristinely clean and beautifully kept that it is heartwarming to see. Not surprisingly, the lobsters are juicy and succulent and flavored to absolute perfection. We had ordered them Ginger/Scallion style, but in their wisdom, they sent them out Cantonese style, and we were grateful.

The crabs and lobster required some Ong Choy (Water Spinach):

We also had an order of House Special Mei Fun (which we forgot to photograph) because we saw some people eating it and it looked great, and it was!

For an encore, we had another order of lobsters, and another order of softshell crabs, and they may have been even slightly better than the first ones.

They have redecorated a few times. The place is not quite the hole-in-the-wall dump it had been on Mott St. (when Ed Koch came in to eat one night while we were there), though the food is better than ever. And the tablecloths are apparently new, because I remember well when they would dump some hot tea on the vacated tables to wipe them down.

Here's a short video that shows the steaming, succulent lobster that arrived at our table, and a view of the very lively Dungeness Crabs in the tanks that are right at the entrance to the restaurant.