When visiting Montreal back in November, the lady and I started our noodle soup love affair after stumbling into a nice Vietnamese restaurant in the Chinatown area up there and ordering up a few bowls of noodle soup. Upon her return from Haiti, one item we had on our itinerary was visiting the Manhattan version of Chinatown to continue our noodle soup romance.
Unsure where to really start and with a countless number of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants in the area, we picked one street to walk down and whichever places seemed most appealing, we'd go in. Starting at East Houston we went with Mott Street and went straight down through the Little Italy and Chinatown neighborhoods, although the Little Italy part is all about gone. After passing by some trendy blocks we finally saw Chinese lettering on upcoming stores and knew we were getting closer to the noodles. We began to get a little nervous we wouldn't find a good place to eat because the stores we were encountering at first were all market. The streets were lined up with establishment after establishment offering rice, vegetables, fish, crabs, oysters, and even frogs, swimming the last days of their lives in a cramped bucket. Since it was a bright sunny day, the heat reflecting off the fish wasn't lending to the best of smells. I needed to stop off at a bakery to get a glass of iced tea and cool off a bit, as well as escape the fishy scent in the air for a minute.
Our goal was to visit at least three places and share one soup each time so our bellies wouldn't get full too fast. I knew we would likely get full after eating at just one restaurant, but I figured if we just kept to soups them maybe we could get two in for sure. The first restaurant we came upon was Big Wing Wang Noodles and I had a good feeling they would make a good bowl of soup when I saw the line of roasted ducks hanging by their necks once we entered. The waiter had us take the table near the entrance and gave us two hot glasses of tea. They do sit-in meals as well as take-out, and since we were in the middle of lunch hour, there were plenty of people on line waiting for their orders. Even though we originally said one soup per place, we both ended up wanting our own soups. So with starting out with a steamed dumpling in oyster sauce appetizer, she ordered a beef tripe (stomach) noodle soup and I went with a less adventurous roast duck noodle soup. I though the dumplings would come out on a plate, it turned out they came out in soup form as well. It was actually shrimp dumpling soup, and when adding the two soups we ordered, it turns out we were going to have to eat three soups in just our first sitting. We thought maybe we were going to have to take the dumpling soup to go, but I felt a burst of adrenaline after finishing off my duck and was able to put away most of the dumplings. The prices were amazing as both large soups and the appetizer all came out to about fifteen dollars total.
Already stuffed and unlikely to be able to eat anymore that afternoon, we decided to take our time walking and getting too see all the Mott Street restaurants before making any possible next selection. There were a few thin streets with names such as Mosco that I never even heard of before, that gave an excellent view of the Freedom Tower as it continues to make it progress. We also passed by the Transfiguration School, which has a nice brainwashing ring to it, but is actually a religious US Department of Education fusion sort of situation. Once we reached the end of where the restaurants were, we turned around and felt too full to check out any of the other places we saw, so it was decided to just head back to the subway and go home. That was until she spotted charming establishment called the New Bo Ky Restaurant (I'm not sure what happened to the old one). Instead of tea, they gave us complimentary cups of water, but I was in mood for more iced tea so I had a can of Nestea as well. This time we were going to skip any appetizers and go right to the soups. In keeping with her digestive tract theme, she was drawn to the pig intestine while I had the (mystery meat) homemade beef ball. When they brought out her soup first it was perhaps one of the worse things I've smelt in weeks up to that point. The taste wasn't all that bad, but it was certainly something to not put your nose close to. There was nothing extraordinary with my beef ball soup and overall we declared Big Wing Wang Noodles as the champion restaurant for the day, with specifically my roast duck noodle soup the highlight. I was able to finish my second soup, but after only a few bites she needed to take the rest of her pig intestines to go. The bill again was a very modest twelve dollars for both soups, and combining everything for the afternoon, our Chinatown adventure of five soups cost less than thirty bucks.
If I wasn't so full of noodles and mystery meat, I might've considered helping those frogs escape....
Unsure where to really start and with a countless number of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants in the area, we picked one street to walk down and whichever places seemed most appealing, we'd go in. Starting at East Houston we went with Mott Street and went straight down through the Little Italy and Chinatown neighborhoods, although the Little Italy part is all about gone. After passing by some trendy blocks we finally saw Chinese lettering on upcoming stores and knew we were getting closer to the noodles. We began to get a little nervous we wouldn't find a good place to eat because the stores we were encountering at first were all market. The streets were lined up with establishment after establishment offering rice, vegetables, fish, crabs, oysters, and even frogs, swimming the last days of their lives in a cramped bucket. Since it was a bright sunny day, the heat reflecting off the fish wasn't lending to the best of smells. I needed to stop off at a bakery to get a glass of iced tea and cool off a bit, as well as escape the fishy scent in the air for a minute.
Our goal was to visit at least three places and share one soup each time so our bellies wouldn't get full too fast. I knew we would likely get full after eating at just one restaurant, but I figured if we just kept to soups them maybe we could get two in for sure. The first restaurant we came upon was Big Wing Wang Noodles and I had a good feeling they would make a good bowl of soup when I saw the line of roasted ducks hanging by their necks once we entered. The waiter had us take the table near the entrance and gave us two hot glasses of tea. They do sit-in meals as well as take-out, and since we were in the middle of lunch hour, there were plenty of people on line waiting for their orders. Even though we originally said one soup per place, we both ended up wanting our own soups. So with starting out with a steamed dumpling in oyster sauce appetizer, she ordered a beef tripe (stomach) noodle soup and I went with a less adventurous roast duck noodle soup. I though the dumplings would come out on a plate, it turned out they came out in soup form as well. It was actually shrimp dumpling soup, and when adding the two soups we ordered, it turns out we were going to have to eat three soups in just our first sitting. We thought maybe we were going to have to take the dumpling soup to go, but I felt a burst of adrenaline after finishing off my duck and was able to put away most of the dumplings. The prices were amazing as both large soups and the appetizer all came out to about fifteen dollars total.
Already stuffed and unlikely to be able to eat anymore that afternoon, we decided to take our time walking and getting too see all the Mott Street restaurants before making any possible next selection. There were a few thin streets with names such as Mosco that I never even heard of before, that gave an excellent view of the Freedom Tower as it continues to make it progress. We also passed by the Transfiguration School, which has a nice brainwashing ring to it, but is actually a religious US Department of Education fusion sort of situation. Once we reached the end of where the restaurants were, we turned around and felt too full to check out any of the other places we saw, so it was decided to just head back to the subway and go home. That was until she spotted charming establishment called the New Bo Ky Restaurant (I'm not sure what happened to the old one). Instead of tea, they gave us complimentary cups of water, but I was in mood for more iced tea so I had a can of Nestea as well. This time we were going to skip any appetizers and go right to the soups. In keeping with her digestive tract theme, she was drawn to the pig intestine while I had the (mystery meat) homemade beef ball. When they brought out her soup first it was perhaps one of the worse things I've smelt in weeks up to that point. The taste wasn't all that bad, but it was certainly something to not put your nose close to. There was nothing extraordinary with my beef ball soup and overall we declared Big Wing Wang Noodles as the champion restaurant for the day, with specifically my roast duck noodle soup the highlight. I was able to finish my second soup, but after only a few bites she needed to take the rest of her pig intestines to go. The bill again was a very modest twelve dollars for both soups, and combining everything for the afternoon, our Chinatown adventure of five soups cost less than thirty bucks.
If I wasn't so full of noodles and mystery meat, I might've considered helping those frogs escape....
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