Also transliterated as sanzi (with a near-identical pronunciation), these fried dough twists are a common street food and teatime snack in China's Xinjiang province. Sangza have also migrated, with the Hui and Uyghur minorities, elsewhere in China and, lately, to Flushing's Chinatown.
I've come across two street vendors, in fact, who sell sangza a few blocks south of the Flushing-Main St. 7 train terminus. One, a man who sells long, doubled-over strands, sits on a stool beside a wire pushcart, the sort that often carries groceries or laundry instead. The other, a woman, makes do with a less elaborate setup. She perches on a large white tub that might once have held MSG, and bags of her two-bite dough twists — they're crunchy, and a little sweet — are framed in the upturned lid of a cardboard box. She seems grateful for business.
Sangza vendor
This afternoon, on Main St. near the southwest corner with Sanford Ave., Flushing, Queens
