The squid was very chewy.
That can happen unless you cook it for a very short time or a very long time. Let the squid sit in the soup pot for an in-between time (and what other treatment would it get at an express-lunch joint?), and you'll have a rubbery situation on your hands. Rather than order curry fishball squid noodle soup ($6.75), I should have known well enough to ask for soup sans cephalopod, then confine my grumbling to the flat spice profile.
Hing Won Express
48 West 48th St. (Fifth-Sixth Aves.)
212-719-1451
I eat here for four or five lunches and dinners a week -- this charmless resto has good food, but I've been more impressed by the savory than the spicy. The stir-fried squid, say with black bean sauce, has always been tender for me. The place is most popular for its savory noodle soups with pork (char sui) or roast duck, or its crispy pig (siu yuk). The food here's Chinatown quality, definitely the best greasy-chopstick place in midtown. You can find dishes w/ with greens like gai lan and bitter melon, too.
Posted by: Josh Karpf | February 28, 2010 at 09:14 AM