Eating In Translation

Food stand beneath the Manhattan Bridge

One-buck bites: a fried taro cake, and an apparently seafood-free but nevertheless lip-smacking version of a Fujianese "oyster" cake.

Food stand beneath the Manhattan Bridge
East Broadway at the southeast corner with Market St., Manhattan

Bánh Mì Cô Út

Après bánh mì: thin sweet housemade yogurt, listed on the menu under its French name, yaourt. On my first visit: A bánh mì thịt kho trứng, with braised pork and egg, was split between two bags by default. This would have meant less muss and fuss if I were sharing my sandwich, or saving half for later, rather than wolfing it down at one go.

Bánh Mì Cô Út
83 Elizabeth St. (Grand-Hester Sts.), Manhattan
646-767-0444

Dr. Clark

Lamb curry rice is a countermeasure for cold, snowy winters in Hokkaido, the previous home of Dr. Clark's chef and the source of his spice blend. (My server couldn't identify the ingredients, but I'll guess that cayenne plays a major role.) Mine was served at a kotatsu (much like the one in the final photo), a table that incorporates a heavy blanket and a heater underneath. These keep warm what curry can't.

Dr. Clark
104 Bayard St. (Baxter-Mulberry Sts.; once the site of Winnie's Bar and, later, Lalito), Manhattan
646-998-3408
www.DrClarkHouse.com

Chiu Hong

This old-school Cantonese bakery makes my current favorite mochi. Rolled in shredded coconut, they're filled with a mix of ground peanuts, sesame seeds, and granulated sugar or (when distinguished by a reddish dot) with red bean paste. These two-for-a-dollar "snowballs" begin to lose their shape even as you peel back their paper cradles, which is good — it's evidence of the extremely supple glutinous rice dough.

H/T (from years back, and again this winter) Lauhound

Chiu Hong
161 Mott St. (Broome-Grand Sts.), Manhattan
212-966-7664

Window service

Peach Tao for the Chinatown Mural Project, 2020
Hand-painted mural around the corner from Sam's Deli, 30 Mulberry St. (at Mosco St.), Manhattan
212-964-6418

Chinese sidewalk handcart

Apart from her hours of operation, this street vendor and I had only a few words in common, most in my best language and not hers. I was willing to venture a few dollars, however, when I realized that some of her snacks resembled the small eats of an elderly lady who used to set out her wares nearby. (It's been several years now since I've seen her.) Deciphering the menu is above my pay grade, but social media queries yielded the following:

糯米糍 glutinous rice cake
芋头包 taro bun
鸡屎藤 Chinese fever vine
南瓜饼 pumpkin bing
艾糍 a traditional cake made with Chinese mugwort
花生粽 peanut zongzi

Thanks for the translations, Bernard! (Thanks also to Stanford and Kim for their comments.) He added that in my combo pack of glutinous unfilled dumplings, his best guess would be that the drab green items were made with mugwort and the greenish black orbs with fever vine. Both are good as is, better when taken with tea.

Chinese sidewalk handcart
On the southeast corner of Elizabeth St. with Grand St., Manhattan
"Every morning"

Now Serving Dim Sum

On the menu, for what looks to be about a half-zodiac of customers: piggy buns, fried dumplings, char siu buns, beef balls, chicken feet, sesame balls, turnip cakes, egg tarts, durian cakes, chicken with sticky rice in lotus leaves, har gow, shrimp chow mein, tripe, green vegetables, hot sauce and soy sauce, and green tea.

This new artwork replaces a 2014 deli-grocery mural that was defaced earlier this year. Greetings from Chinatown — another 2014 mural, around the corner — has faded but is otherwise unchanged.

Now Serving Dim Sum
Peach Tao for the Chinatown Mural Project, 2020
Hand-painted mural outside Dai Sing (formerly known as Tay Shing), 100 Division St. (at Allen St.), Manhattan
212-925-2942

Kopitiam

For this Penang-style muah chee — a variation on mochi, beloved in Malaysia and throughout the Southern Chinese diaspora — hand-rolled glutinous rice flour is liberally coated with crushed peanuts, sesame seeds, and sugar. Served warm. Four toothpicks suggest that you share — share safely!

Previously: a bowl of pan mee, flush with hand-torn chewy noodles swimming in anchovy broth; minced chicken wrapped in (and flavored by) pandan leaves; a dessert course of sweet sticky rice, pandan-coconut jam, and thousand-layer butter cake with cinnamon; and teh tarik (Tay ta-Reek; literally "pulled tea"; comped). This traditional Malaysian milk tea is frothed by being poured repeatedly from container to container, which offers the fringe benefit of cooling the tea just a tad to optimum drinking temperature. The wider the "pulls," the greater the showmanship and the frothier the tea.

Kopitiam
151 East Broadway (Pike-Rutgers Sts.), Manhattan
646-894-7081
www.KopitiamNYC.com
Closed Wednesday

Lung Moon Bakery

(This venue is closed.) Can your dan tat do this? My egg tart was so fresh and warm that it was squeezably soft, too; I circled back for seconds.

Previously, and illustrated below: If you've seen "tuloy po kayo," the words of welcome posted on the door of many Filipino businesses, you might associate tikoy pudding with the Philippines. To be sure, Lung Moon is a Chinese bakery, and the characters on this sign — "nian gao" or "year cake" — have associated meanings that resonate with good fortune during the Chinese New Year. In the Philippines, where most of the Chinese diaspora first spoke one of the Hokkien dialects of southeastern China, the food is known as tikoy pudding, a name derived from Hokkien. What's curious about this sign is that it bears the Romanization "tikoy" without the equivalent characters, which are different from those of "nian gao." In Manhattan's Chinatown, perhaps the sign is directed toward American-born, second- or later-generation Hokkien speakers who know tikoy pudding from holiday talk at home but never have need to write the characters.

As for "pudding," textures vary. This Southern Chinese rendition, sweetened with brown sugar, employed a relatively low proportion of glutinous rice to non-glutinous rice. Steamed and allowed to set in a metal pan, it was thus very firm; note the marks where I had to work my knife back and forth to cut the cake free. Tikoy pudding can be eaten as is; firmer versions such as this can also be washed with egg and pan-fried.

The final photo (taken in 2012) shows the bakery and a neighbor, a discount store that has truthfully acknowledged rising prices by disdaining a "99 cent and under" name. It has also saddled itself with the implication, unfortunately, that you'll always need to spend an extra buck.

Lung Moon Bakery
83 Mulberry St. (Canal-Baxter Sts.), Manhattan
212-349-4945
www.Instagram.com/explore/locations/6132370/Lung-Moon-Bakery-NY-Inc

Taiwan Pork Chop House

The name "taro ball Taiwan ice" only begins to tell the tale. I won't try to identify all the ingredients in this dish (also shown in the first two photos below), or even to enumerate them; I stopped counting at a dozen. Perhaps you'll do better by splitting it with a friend, between two bowls; the portion is huge.

Previously, from visits to the restaurant in its earlier incarnation, as Excellent Pork Chop House: Glad I got the small size of smelt with chili; it's simply too spicy as anything other than a palate awakener between courses. The eponymous pork chop, over rice and a pleasingly sour pairing of ground pork and pickled vegetables, is much more mouth-watering. A friend from Taipei has noted that this restaurant has an older, famous namesake in his hometown, and that the featured item is far better at the original. That has to be some dynamite pork chop, because the version down on Doyers is very good by me. A bespoke bowl of Taiwanese ice featured the muted but tasty trio of taro, dry-roasted peanuts, and condensed milk.

Taiwan Pork Chop House (shown below in 2014)
3 Doyers St. (Pell St.-Bowery), Manhattan
212-791-7007
www.TaiwanPorkChop.com