NYC Desserts: Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

As the thermometer rose ever closer to 100 degrees during New York City's recent heat wave, my thoughts turned toward ice cream.

Specifically, my mouth started watering for the many flavors of soft serve offered in Japan. OK, I didn't much miss the black sesame, but I easily could've downed a vat of either green tea or purple yam soft serve. But a trip to Japan isn't in the works anytime soon, so what's a girl to do?

That's when I remembered the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. During my last week in New York, the gods had come together and deemed me worthy of a green tea ice cream cone.

By the time Edith and I arrived in Chinatown on my birthday, the sun had started to set. That was excellent timing: While the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory is air conditioned, it has no seating and the aisle was only a bit wider than the stroller in which Edith sat.

Of course, I knew which flavor I wanted, but I also knew there were many others I wanted to try. Red bean! Lychee! But I limited myself to one sample: taro, a kind of root vegetable. Delicious, and if I hadn't already made up my mind, I might have gone for the full serving.

But green tea it was. I ordered one scoop for $3.99. Bonus: The one-scoop servings are actually two scoops. No complaints here.

I gingerly made my way outside, doing my best not to drip the quickly melting ice cream on the stroller. I'm normally the slowest eater in the world -- hey, I like to enjoy my food! -- but this went down the hatch fast so it wouldn't end up on the sidewalk. Better it enters my stomach at record speed than not at all.

Although the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory may be a tourist haven, it's one I highly recommend. Not everywhere in New York can you get such unusual (or what they call "regular"!) flavors of ice cream. Perfect for a hot day. Or really any day.

Celebrating Chinese New Year in Brooklyn

The Chinese Lunar New Year was technically last Monday, Jan. 23, but most celebrations in New York marking the Year of the Dragon seemed to take place this past weekend.

That includes the Chinese New Year party we held at work on Thursday -- a couple of coworkers collected donations from us all and brought back a feast from Chinatown: all kinds of candies, pastries and pretty much every dessert that incorporates sesame seeds. The mother of one of my coworkers even made turnip cake and a kind of sticky rice pudding. Signs on the wall helped us determine where our birthday falls in the Chinese zodiac, along with our elemental sign (water, wood, fire, etc.). I'm a metal rooster, which I take to mean that I'm basically a weathervane.

Of course, New York City's various Chinatowns held their own, more official celebrations, and we went to one of them on Saturday. Paul frequently works with bank branches and businesses in Brooklyn's Chinatown, and he heard about a Chinese New Year festival going on at the recreation center in Sunset Park, the neighborhood just north of Bay Ridge and also the neighborhood where the Brooklyn Chinatown is located. A few of his colleagues were going to be there, and we decided to check it out.

We arrived a few hours after the festival began, and hundreds of Chinese families were already there. We didn't even peek into the children's area to the right of the main entrance, instead making a beeline for the performances in a gymnasium on the left.

The stage and performance areas were alternately filled with presentations both traditional and modern. We saw Chinese calligraphy and dancing, as well as your typical school recital fare, like performances from a ballet class and band. The festival also felt a little like Halloween -- snack-size chocolates were readily passed around to everyone in attendance.

Yep, that's a dog on the man's head

The festival was free and open to the public, but Paul and I were one of the few people there who weren't first-, second- or some-generation Chinese. By now I'm used to being surrounded by multiple languages and ethnicities, but it was still one of the few times I've ever been so clearly in the minority without leaving the country. (Just the fact that I noticed this probably proves this is so.) But of course, we never felt anything other than welcome, and I'm very glad we went.

It still amazes me that events like this can happen two miles from home, and I usually don't have even the slightest inkling that anything is going on. Who knows what else I am missing?

Dim Sum Discovery at East Harbor Seafood Palace

I briefly had second thoughts about trying dim sum at East Harbor Seafood Palace in Brooklyn after we arrived and received a number that would be called over a speaker when we were to be seated. It didn't take long to realize that the numbers the man was calling were in Cantonese, Mandarin or some other Chinese dialect. In any case, it wasn't in English.

Finally, a pinch of English. "Forty-six!" the man called. We were 84. Until he got to us, we heard only one more number in English -- a testament to the mostly Chinese clientele at this restaurant located where Bay Ridge meets Sunset Park and Brooklyn Chinatown.

I'd lately been eager to try dim sum -- small dishes, kind of like Chinese tapas -- and what better place than a restaurant that had been getting rave reviews online (like from The Girl Who Ate Everything, who took terrific photos of the food) and, better yet, is only a mile from our apartment? The place was hopping when we arrived at 11 a.m. on a recent Sunday and was no less crowded when we were seated an hour later or left an hour after that. And for a place the size of a basketball court, that's a lot of people.

East Harbor has only tables for large groups, so Paul and I were seated with a party of three who didn't speak English -- or at least didn't do so with us. No matter -- we were too busy inspecting the passing carts of food to bother with too many niceties. The worst part of the seating situation was my deplorable chopsticks skills. I'm sure they got a good chuckle out of the number of times I dropped my dumplings.

But on to the food. A-maz-ing. I did some research and knew what a few of the must-haves looked like, but I had no idea what their names were. No big deal. The servers carting around the dishes or carrying trays of food knew at least enough English to tell us if the dumplings were filled with pork or shrimp, and to give us a rudimentary idea of what we were digging into.

Dumplings, turnip cake (center), calamari

With each dish we selected, the server would stamp our card, which was tallied at the end -- about $30 for the two of us. It easily could have been cheaper, but we were so eager to try everything in sight, we kept eating long after we were full. We even brought most of two of our favorite dishes home with us:

Fried whitebait

The fried whitebait looks like french fries, except for the tiny eyes that are still visible. Crunchy, salty, yummy.

The black sesame paste inside the coconut-and-peanut covered mochi looked like tar but was sweet and delicious.

I still have so much I want to try; I wish I would have learned of the glories of dim sum long before living here for 3+ years. I suppose the only thing to do is to return to East Harbor Seafood Palace soon and often.

$1 "Mini Cakes" in Chinatown

As Sarah and I strolled through Chinatown, from Prosperity Dumpling to the subway, one specific food cart caused me to do a double-take.

It seems that most New York food carts offer one of three things: hot dogs, sugared nuts, or some unknown foodstuff that smells really burnt. But in Chinatown you can get 20 mini cakes for $1.

I didn't get a real good look at how they were made -- when I forked over my dollar, the lady immediately handed me a white bag pre-stuffed with mini cakes and I got out of the way. But from the photos I was able to snap, it looks as if the cake batter is put into a special molded skillet (see the photo above), heated up, and then emptied onto a tray and broken apart.

The vanilla cakes really were mini -- about the size of your biggest toe -- but warm, and at the very least, fun to eat. The only thing missing? A vat of frosting in which to dip them.

Chinatown Dumplings: Prosperity Dumpling

Why is the "open" sign flipped over? We'll never know.

When I was wracking my brain for a quick, easy, cheap place to eat with Sarah, I immediately thought of Vanessa's Dumpling House, where Paul and I ate to overflowing for $15 last month.

But then I had an even better thought: why not give its competitor down the street a try? So after Sarah and I explored Chinatown, we meandered over to Eldridge Street so I could conduct a taste test at Prosperity Dumpling.

The first thing I noticed was Prosperity Dumpling's size. It's a cubbyhole, really. I think office cubicles are generally bigger than this place is. Small counters line two walls. One counter has enough room for two short stools; the other has no stools, probably because the opening door keeps bumping into whoever is standing there. This is definitely a to-go type of place.

But it was cold, and I didn't know a good place to take our food. We took our chances and got our food to stay. By the time it was ready, we had snagged a spot in the corner, between the trash can and window.

Luckily, the space doesn't influence the food. I fell in love with the sesame pancake with vegetables at Vanessa's, so that's what I ordered. The sesame pancake at Prosperity was definitely good (and, at $1.25, certainly cheap), but not as tasty as Vanessa's.

Sesame pancake -- more like a Chinese pizza, really

Sarah opted for the Chinese vegetables and pork boiled dumplings (10 for $2). I declined her kind offer of a sample, but they looked pretty good.

Dumplings

So while I can't give a complete review and comparison, I know I'll return to Vanessa's Dumpling House before going again to Prosperity Dumpling. A better sesame pancake + more seating = Winner.

An Afternoon in Chinatown

It's almost always fun to explore New York City with out-of-town visitors, but I've rarely had as good a time as I did with Sarah, my college roommate who came to town a couple of weekends ago.

We hadn't seen each other in at least four or five years, so we had a lot of catching up to do. And as we were catching up, we walked. And walked and walked.

First we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Then we walked up Broadway and explored Chinatown. Then we took the subway to Times Square and walked up and down the corridor until Sarah had to catch her bus back to Philadelphia.

What made our walk so interesting -- aside from the talk -- were Sarah's observations. Graffiti, signs, business names -- nothing escaped her notice or her camera's lens. I'm not as attentive, and I'm sure my photos are necessarily more boring. Nevertheless, this week's blog posts are dedicated to the neighborhood where we spent most of our Sunday afternoon: Chinatown.

Even Flat Stanley made an appearance!

Chinatown Dumplings: Vanessa's Dumpling House

Cheap and tasty doesn't often come together in the New York foodie scene. Paul and I found one exception earlier this month: Chinatown dumplings.

Paul was in the mood for dumplings, and I was an enthusiastic supporter of his suggestion. After all, I'd never had dumplings in any Chinatown restaurant, and that certainly needed to me remedied. But I didn't want to go to just any dumpling shop. Only the best would do -- especially when the best costs about $1 per plate.

The fine people of the internet narrowed our choices to two: Prosperity Dumpling and Vanessa's Dumpling House. We opted for the latter because it seemed to have more seating (which, as we later found out, wasn't saying much).

Vanessa's Dumpling House was bustling when we got there about 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday. Our order:

• 4 cabbage and pork fried dumplings ($1)
• 8 cabbage and pork boiled dumplings ($2.50)
• 3 pork fried buns ($1)
• 1 steamed red bean bun ($1)
• 1 steamed vegetable bun ($1.50)
• 1 sesame pancake with vegetables ($1.50)
• 1 sesame pancake with peking duck ($2.25)
• 1 coconut bubble tea ($3)
• 1 soybean milk (1.25)

Total bill: $15. And we left completely stuffed. In fact, we each threw away part of our steamed buns (me, after scooping out and devouring the yummy red bean filling).

$15 of food (plus drinks)

The dumplings were steaming hot and juicy, but they weren't my favorite part of the meal. Those honors go to the pork fried buns and the sesame pancake with vegetables. The pancake was really more of a sandwich in the shape of a pizza slice, filled with cilantro along with julienned carrots and cucumbers. So delicious, and really a meal by itself.

Sesame pancake with vegetables; pork fried bun on left

The worst part -- and really, a small price to pay -- was the seating. You seat yourself, if you can find one. When it's busy, as it was when we were there, everyone has their eyes on the 20 or so lucky patrons, waiting for them to make the slightest move indicating they're about to leave. We ate standing at a long table along the window for about 10 minutes before snagging some seats.

When (not if) we return, I'll get only the pork fried buns and sesame pancake -- more than enough for a meal. Maybe the red bean bun if I want a little something sweet. What started as a quest for dumplings turned into one of my favorite New York meals -- and the dumplings weren't even the highlight.

Where Chinatown Meets Tourists

Chinatown information kiosk, the intersection of Canal, Baxter and Walker streets

Chinatown's Charming Fire Escapes

Courtesy of my cousin, Emily K.

Most New York City tourists keep their eye on the sky. Whether it's midtown's skyscrapers or Times Square's neon lights, all heads are tilted up, up, up.

Not so in Chinatown. Everything to see is much closer to the ground. Live fish flopping for their lives in bodegas. Hawkers setting out their fake purses on crowded sidewalks. Food carts whipping up some unknown concoction that smells terrific.

There's so much to see so low, that maybe I just never realized that Chinatown's buildings have more than one story. At least, that's my excuse for never having noticed some of the neighborhood's elaborate fire escapes.

Yes, fire escapes.

I was shocked when I first saw them. Some of them even look charming enough to be balconies.

Made me think: If you have to escape a four-alarm fire anyway, you might as well do it in style.

Dog Surfing and Other Things To Do in NY

We've lived in New York for more than a year and a half now, and yet I still have so much left to do.

But with the three-day Memorial Day weekend, I at least made a serious dent in my to-do list.

On Monday we ate at Hinsch's, an old-school neighborhood luncheonette just a few blocks from here. It's not open at night, so we haven't had too many opportunities to give it a try. My waffle was good, but next time I'll be heading straight for the superb-looking sundaes.

On Sunday we went to the pub quiz night at our favorite bar, Pacific Standard. We did just as horribly as I feared (unfortunately I am an expert on neither the Philippines or Provincetown, Massachusetts), but we didn't do too badly in the general knowledge category.

On Saturday we visited a basilica about 20 blocks from here followed by a stroll through Chinatown.

But Friday ... ahhh, Friday.

What better way to start a long weekend than a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge on a beautiful night? The entrance is just a short walk from my place of work, so after a few drinks with my co-workers, we took off.

When we stepped foot in Brooklyn, we vaguely knew where we were and decided to go exploring. Finally Paul recognized some landmarks and realized we were pretty close to his office. We were walking through a pedestrian area that Paul crosses on the way to Starbucks, when all of a sudden he said he just had to show me something.

That something? A statue of a dog.

His wish? To have a photo of him surfing on it.

Yes, this was what Paul crossed off of his to-do list last weekend:

A Tale of Two Chinatowns

Chinatown is on nearly every tourist's to-do list, as it was on mine almost six years ago on my first real visit to the city.

Chinatown's charm, however, quickly wears off after a couple of visits. The thrill of seeing a non-Roman alphabet doesn't last very long, and it's a pain to contend with the crowded sidewalks -- crowded even by New York City standards. I'm sure there are gems of restaurants and stores throughout the neighborhood, but I haven't been patient enough to find them.

There is another alternative: Brooklyn's Chinatown. It's only about a mile away, yet Paul and I had never managed to visit. That changed on Saturday.

We didn't browse through any of the shops; I was content to walk the 20 blocks or so of 8th Avenue that make up the neighborhood. That was enough to confirm that Brooklyn's Chinatown seems much more authentic, even if it is a bigger pain for Manhattan tourists to visit.

The two Chinatowns are alike in the most obvious way: Chinese restaurants and bodegas on every corner selling meat, fish and other delicacies. But unlike Manhattan's Chinatown, in Brooklyn Paul and I were the only white-bread faces for blocks. This Chinatown was actually filled with Chinese instead of tourists. In a rare moment of thinking-before-doing, I left my camera in my purse. By snapping photos it seemed like I would be destroying a bit of the very atmosphere I was lauding.

All this, just 25 blocks away from our apartment.

By Brooklyn standards, Bay Ridge isn't considered a very diverse community. I would strongly disagree more now than I would have when we moved here a year and a half ago.

Not only are the Greeks and Italians that were stereotyped in "Saturday Night Fever" still around, but the ethnic communities that used to be outside Bay Ridge's borders are slowly moving toward the center.

I regularly meet women covered in veils strolling down the sidewalk. I sometimes get couscous from the Turkish grocer a couple of storefronts away. My favorite bodega is run by a Middle Eastern man. The Lebanese restaurant a few blocks away has live entertainment, and the Moroccan place a few blocks in the other direction is known throughout the city for its couscous dishes.

Walk 20 blocks north and you'll pass through both Arab and Latino neighborhoods. A few blocks east of that and you're in Chinatown. There's also a Jewish community nearby-- in fact, the Ace Hardware store a couple of blocks from here is closed on Saturdays so the owners can keep the Sabbath.

Bay Ridge and the surrounding neighborhoods are a real-life melting pot. Maybe it doesn't have as many ingredients as other New York City locales, but it's twice as spicy as any other place I've called home.

Jolly holiday

Paul's mom and sister visited us last Thursday through Sunday, so that meant more exploration. This time, however, we stuck mostly to our neighborhood.

Paul and I had never walked to the shore since we moved here, so that was the first order of business. It's an easy 20-minute stroll, and the views are lovely. Across the bay is Staten Island. Look south and you see the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Look north and you see lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. A nice hiking/jogging/walking trail hugs the bay, and I'm sure I'll be using it more next spring.

The shore is also lined with beautiful multi-million dollar homes with garages (sigh), along with more modest (but still outrageously expensive, I'm sure) houses on the side streets. We also walked down Third Avenue, which has a long stretch of restaurants and stores.

On Friday we rode the Staten Island Ferry and visited Chinatown and Little Italy. But I was most looking forward to seeing Mary Poppins on Broadway that night. For a little under $40 a pop, we got the second to last row in the balcony. No matter. I love the movie, and I found the show surprisingly different but still fun. The show has a few different songs (but "Jolly Holiday" was still included, hence the title of this post. I hope someone got that reference!), but the spirit is still the same. The backgrounds were beautiful and ornate, as was the theater itself.

Paul, Sherry and Becky went to the botanic gardens on Saturday morning, while I headed to the main Brooklyn Public Library. Another thing to add to my list of annoyances: I can only reserve five books at a time. In Columbus, I would reserve 10 or so books and just make a visit every month or so. In any case, I had to print out a few pages from the computer there, so I took the time to pick out a handful of books. The branch closest to our apartment is small and doesn't have much of a collection, so it was nice to actually be able to browse.

In search of the perfect cannoli and other adventures

The rain continued through Saturday morning and into the afternoon, but Paul, his friend Ryan and I braved the downpour and visited Chinatown and Little Italy. Carrying around an umbrella wasn't nearly as annoying as trying to bypass the small ponds that collected where the sidewalk met the street.

In any case, we ate at a small Chinese restaurant and walked down the streets. I liked peeking into the markets. Like the markets in our neighborhood, these had no front wall. However, they sold things that didn't look the least bit familiar, and the Chinese signs didn't help much.

Little Italy abuts Chinatown and is more my style. Lots of streetside cafes and restaurants, and the smells are hard to resist. Paul and Ryan got some gelato at Ferrara (which dubs itself "America's oldest pasticceria") while I continued on my quest for the perfect cannoli.

The pastry part of the one I got there was covered in chocolate, which I was surprised to find I didn't enjoy as much as the plain ones I've eated before. The search continues.

By the time we took the train to the Staten Island Ferry, the sun was shining and the weather was warm. We hopped on the 5:30 boat, which meant we had perfect views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island at dusk on the way there and lit up at night on the way back. We could also see our neighborhood near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.