MISSION CHINESE FOOD - A Restaurant

Located in the Lower East side of New York City is this Chinese restaurant where the style has been tweaked to a different level but still bearing the flaovrs of China.  Although it's been described as American Chinese, it should not to be confused with "suburban" Chinese food.  It is a breed of its own using Chinese seasonings in a different level.  You have to try it in order to judge it.

I believe, this restaurant was named after Mission Street where its main restaurant is located in San Francisco bearing another name.

When you enter the restaurant, there is a long corridor where you can watch the chefs cook.  At the end is a red curtain that opens to another corridor with steps up to the restaurant. (Sort of a mysterious destination)

Steps down from the street is the restaurant.  It's a relief that it's graded A by the Health Department

As you enter, you will see the menu board.
If you are ordering to take out, this is where you would do it.

Watch the Chef cook through the glass window in the corridor before going in to the restaurant area.

In this area, as you walk towards the restaurant area, you feel that you just stepped outside the street where you can see the dining room area up ahead.  The dining area seats up to 40 people and has 2 big paper dragons hanging from the ceiling and some chairs.

What we ordered:
I particularly liked the fried rice with salted cod, Chinese sausage and lots of chopped parsley.  It was well seasoned and had a clean taste.  But do not confuse with typical Chinese fried rice.

It somewhat reminds me of Malaysian style fried rice except in this case, they used salted cod instead.

The Kung Pao dish has loads of skinned peanuts and chunks of their homemade pastrami with Sichuan seasoning.
It's a little spicy in a good authentic way.

The spiciest of all we tasted was the fried chicken - mostly wings and some small drumsticks.  I personally did not like the strong powdery seasoning that was on this chicken dish.  I think it was a bit powerful.  It left my lips tingly and throbbing.  Others like it.

The restaurant donates 75 cents from every large plate to the Food Bank for New York City.

Ordering 3 items is not enough for me to make a judgment.  I need to go back one more time and try more things in their menu.

You may wait a while in cooler season, so make sure you have a scarf.

Our eggplant dish

MISSION CHINESE, NYC

154 Orchard St
New York, NY 10002

(212) 529-8800

http://www.yelp.com/biz/mission-chinese-food-new-york#hrid:j5esicKg_CJPGRyt586_FA

 

http://www.missionchinesefood.com

http://www.missionchinesefood.com

NEW WORLD MALL

Although we have a big Chinatown in Manhattan, last weekend, I decided to explore Flushing Queens, New York, for its Chinatown; particularly the New World Mall.  I was happy to discover that it was very close to the last stop of the #7 train.  A friend of ours had talked it up so I was curious to see it for myself.  I was in for a great surprise!  As soon as I stepped in the mall, I felt as though I was suddenly beamed down into another world!

The mall has three floors and a basement with a big food court.  I was transported into Asia (mostly China) with restaurants galore.  Except for the 2nd floor, the entire building including the basement, was dedicated to food!  A foodie's heaven. (NOTE:  I have a quick recipe below)

Our first stop at this food court to try was the grill place below. It's easier to remember it as Food Stall #16.  It's where we had the sticks of various foods of your choice for $1/stick.  (Unbelievable for New York City)They came in a variety of seafood, beef, chicken or lamb and vegetables.

The stall for grilled foods in a stick  (easier to remember as #16)

I selected skewered shrimp, seasoned lamb, stuffed long thin peppers with seasoned pork, and wrapped cilantro.  They were all very well seasoned with Xian type condiments.  The taste reminded me of Szechuan food I had in Xian, China except that these were grilled.



Above is how my skewered meats were ready to eat!

At New World Mall, some of the shops make their own noodles and buns.  Below are some of the videos I took:  This one was Tianjin Foods where we ordered the bun with chives and pork.  Watch her make it!

First, the man above made the noodle.  Then, she steps in to continue and stuff it.  Note:  She also tasted the filling before stuffing them in to make sure it tastes good!

 Above, she's preparing the dough to put the chive pork mixture  (bowl of greens on the left) into it.  It is then fried on an oiled oven skillet.

Bun with chives cut in half to show the filling.  You get 2 large buns for $5.  They are slightly crisp outside with very tasty filling.  The filling has been cooked ahead of time prior to stuffing it in the homemade dough.

Above, watch the man make the noodles.  It reminds me of a pizza maker except this looks like you need a lot more muscles and precise movement to make the noodles.  By his slamming and stretching, the dough splits in multiple strands to become noodles.

And he does it again and again!

Another interesting place was the Seafood bowls of food at Tian Fu.  One selects from an assortment of seafood to use from lobsters, cut up fat crabs, to tofu, mushrooms, and vegetables.  They sell the lobsters by the pound.  They cook it for you and serve it in a huge tin bowl.

 Also called Spicy Wok.

Seafood of your choice is placed in a bowl to be made into soup with Chinese condiments that again remind me of Szechuan or Hunan style cooking.  They serve the soup dish in a silver bowl as you see them on the left.  They are very big!

Then, we went over to the Taiwanese food stick stall.

Above is an assortment of food found at the Taiwanese food stall.

Notice how the signs are mostly in characters.  Although they have a menu board above, it is still pretty challenging to make one's mind a pick the food you want. It's really another world!  Fortunately, they all look good to eat.  Pointing at something may be the best way.  That's how I did it when I selected the foods to grill at the grill area #16.

After our meal, we went down to the main floor for some supermarket adventurous hunt.  Below, we found some geoduck clam.  This is more than a pound so it's actually a very good price.  They also had very fat crabs.  This is something you buy at their market to take home and cook yourself.

Above, I like the razor clams.  The recipe below is not a Chinese recipe but it's delicious!  It's what I did with the razor clams.
INGREDIENTS:
Olive oil
garlic
razor clams
sea salt
minced parsley

One can actually cook them with garlic and olive oil.  Then sprinkle it with minced parsley.  It's so delicious!  First, quickly blanche the razor clams; then, brush them well with olive oil mixed with minced garlic (or olive oil that has been soaked with garlic to get a strong garlic flavor). Open the razor and lay them shell up on a hot griddle.  You can put a large heavy pan on top to flatten the razor clams open.

Above was our dessert.  I selected the sesame paste and almond soup.  It was different but we liked it.

I hope that I've given you an idea of what you will see under one roof at The New World Mall at Flushing Queens.  If you're like me, I'm never contented to have the same thing to eat and go to all the time.  With over 7000 restaurants in New York City, and various openings and closings of restaurants, why would you go to the same place all the time??  That's what I like about this city.  It's always changing and things to try is endless.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/new-world-mall-food-court-flushing

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=seGbuDQHjihE7TE29cQYWw

NUM PANG - A Vietnamese inspired Sandwich Shop

There is a wonderful little Vietnamese sandwich spot at 21 East 12th Street for over a year now and still a hot spot.  Their sandwiches are inspired by Asian flavors inherent to Vietnam.  They use light crisp baguettes with generous fillings.

This is the Num Pang sandwich shop in Greenwich Village with line at 6PM

Above is the pork sandwich I ordered. It's layered with a special mayonnaise at the bottom, with tender grilled seasoned pork, pickled carrots, cucumbers and cilantro and a wedge of lime.

Above is the order I picked out.  With the sandwich, I ordered an incredibly tasty grilled asparagus with special vegetable dressing and an ear of grilled seasoned corn with mayo mixture over and generous sprinkling of toasted coconut.  A wedge of lime is also served to squeeze over the grilled corn. 

For my beverage, I always order their homemade watermelon juice!

Best of all is the low tab.

This place is basically a take out place but you can go up its winding stairs to sit down.