What this new Northern Chinese snack shop proffers as a leek pancake ($2) is also well-known, in literal translation, as a chive box. Since the filling of chopped greens, egg, and glass vermicelli can be on the oily side, elsewhere in New York these stuffed pastries are often soggy, and wan-colored, too. Qing Ling's chive box is better-browned and more firmly packaged, in a word, boxier — the better to slice it in two, my dear.
Qing Ling
45 Bayard St. (Elizabeth St.-Bowery), Manhattan