For want of a proper name, I'll call this street food "Chinese taffy." Despite the crushed peanuts, it's not out-and-out sweet (note the bit of green), nor is it fully savory. It is, however, fresh enough to droop under its own weight.
H/T Joe DiStefano, Chopsticks and Marrow
Chinese taffy vendor
This afternoon, on the west side of Main St. between 41st Rd. and Sanford Ave., Flushing, Queens
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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
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Porcelain berry (Ampelopsis glandulosa var. brevipedunculata) arrived in the United States from East Asia in the 1870s, as an ornamental. Today it is widely considered an invasive. The vine, a member of the grape family, tolerates many sun, soil, and moisture conditions, and its seeds are readily distributed by birds and other wildlife. The showy, speckled fruits are edible for humans, too, but they tend toward what the Brooklyn Botanic Garden describes as "the winning combination of slimy and bland." Food for the birds, safe from foraging fingers.
Porcelain berry
Dangling from a chain-link fence in Flushing, Queens
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After moving to Flushing three years ago, Tingting Li missed her home city's most famous noodles, "which in the Chinese name of her restaurant are called xiǎo miàn. 'Small noodles' would be an overly literal translation. 'Small as in simple' explains them better, she tells us (in Mandarin; one of her two business partners translates to English). Eating them is a 'very casual thing' back home. 'No big deal … like you brush your teeth.' "
Finding them in New York, however, was another matter. Read more about the "local flavor noodles" that evoke her previous home on Culinary Backstreets.
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The comfort of SpaghettiOs without the Os: ding-ding laghman, fat Uyghur noodles sliced into spoonable nubbins.
H/T Sam Oppenheim
Nurlan Restaurant
4339 Main St. (Dahlia-Elder Aves.), Flushing, Queens
718-987-9878
www.Nurlan-NY.com
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Correction: Previously I had written that Flushing's Golden Shopping Mall, in its entirety, would close at the end of July 2019. Subsequently I've learned of good news: The street-level businesses will remain open while the lower level (shown: Tianjin Dumpling House) is renovated over the course of three to four months. When the lower level reopens (alas, without Chengdu Tianfu), the street level will be made over. Ultimately, four new floors will be built atop the current structure.
Golden Shopping Mall
41-28 Main St. (at 41st Rd.), Flushing, Queens
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Even at the height of summer, kongguksu — a cold soybean-based noodle soup — was not the most-desired dish at our table, though it might have been the most photogenic. The haemul pajun (below, being scissored before serving) was a superb version of this ubiquitous Korean seafood pancake, thicker and less oily than most. On a return visit, we'll tweak our order — one soup fewer, one pajun more — and attempt to decode the well-seasoned pancake batter.
H/T Roger Gans
Dae Sung Korean Noodle (aka Dae Sung Kalguksu)
4514 162nd St. (45th-46th Aves.), Flushing, Queens
718-460-0088
www.Facebook.com/pages/Dae-Sung-Korean-Noodle/2007748856208690
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Not the moon: a black sesame puff, the last of its batch, whose shell might have been puffier if I'd stopped by for breakfast and not before lunch. The dark side and the well-packed, even darker inside appear below.
At bottom: a handwritten sign, in Chinese and English, overlays a reflection of bus doors. Several routes stop immediately outside. Mia's clientele seem to be commuters who have eyes not only for buns but also for congee, noodles, tea eggs, chive pockets, lotus leaf rice, youtiao and soy milk, and the like. I believe the owners hail from Taiwan.
Mia Buns
3609 Main St. (Northern Blvd.-37th Ave.), Flushing, Queens
929-362-2007
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(This venue has closed.) Sichuan breakfast: Chengdu cold noodles. This beloved food stall shuttered when the lower level of Flushing's Golden Mall closed for renovations. At least a half-dozen mall vendors now operate elsewhere, but, sad to say, according to Joe DiStefano the proprietors of Chengdu Tianfu have no such plans.
(Correction: Previously I had written that Flushing's Golden Mall, in its entirety, would close at the end of July 2019. Subsequently I learned of good news: The street-level businesses will remain open while the lower level is renovated over the course of three to four months. When the lower level reopens (alas, without Chengdu Tianfu), the street level will be made over. Ultimately, four new floors will be built atop the current structure. The preceding paragraph has been edited to reflect this new reporting.)
Note also the arrangement of the wall menu shown below, the most comprehensive version of several different posted bills of fare. The menu items are arranged top-to-bottom and right-to-left, after the fashion of traditional Chinese text.
H/T (from ages ago) Brian S
Chengdu Tianfu Xiaochi (sometimes translated Chengdu Heavenly Snacks or, simply, Chengdu Heaven)
41-28 Main St. (at 41st Rd., inside the Golden Mall, downstairs), Flushing, Queens
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Thank you!
