(This venue is closed.) A menu item called "sour cabbage fry sweet dumplings" demanded investigation; we were only more intrigued by our receipt, which listed "tang-yuan w/pickle" ($6). Glutinous rice dumplings like these, filled with a sweetened black sesame paste, typically are boiled, then served without ornament in a little of the cooking water. For our dish the Sichuanese cook stir-fried them lightly, then plated the tang yuan with the surprisingly apt pairing of pickled cabbage. Two bites of sweet, then a nibble of sour, and we were hungry for another.
Also shown: crispy (and chewy) Guizhou pork ($2.50); Chengdu za jiang noodles (small, $7). The latter is bland, even when sauce and noodles are mixed. But it can be considerably improved, my dining buddy observed, if you pour on a little of the accompanying thin salty soup (not shown) and perhaps mix in some crispy pork and pickled cabbage, too. Then you've got something.
Zhun Yi Beef Noodle
Fei Long Shopping Center food court, stall 7
6301 Eighth Ave. (63rd-64th Sts.), Sunset Park, Brooklyn
