How about some stingray in lotus leaf or jellyfish salad?

Part One: America's ethnic food city beckons Cape Codders

The scene as you walk south on Mott St. in New York's Chinatown is about as "foreign"
as American city streets get. This two, square mile enclave of ethnic, eating excitement
is like visiting Asia itself and makes the drive to the Big Apple worth the effort.

By Walter & Patricia Brooks

If you haven't eaten in a couple of New York City Chinatown restaurants, you haven't really eaten Asian food. If you let it, this ever-changing ethnic, eating experience will lead you to a culinary Shangri-la right here in the Big Apple.

Asian Food quotes:
   "Our trouble is that we drink too much tea. I see in this the slow revenge of the Orient, which as diverted the Yellow River down our throats."
- J.B. Priestley
   "Chinese conquered the world through their food."
   "I just love Chinese food. My favorite dish is number 27.
- Clement Atlee, former British Prime Minister
   "According to the Jewish calendar, the year is 5765. According to the Chinese calendar, the year is 4703. That means for 1,062 years, the Jews went without Chinese food." 
- Safe treyf
   "Never eat Chinese food in Oklahoma." - Bryan Miller 
    "When it comes to Chinese food I have always operated under the policy that the less known about the preparation the better. A wise diner who is invited to visit the kitchen replies by saying, as politely as possible, that he has a pressing engagement elsewhere."
- Calvin Trillin
     "What else is there to live for? Chinese food and women" 

New York's is the largest Chinatown in the United States with the largest concentration of Chinese in the western hemisphere. It is located on the lower east side of Manhattan south of Greenwich Village and SOHO where we once owned a coffeehouse on Bleeker St. and read poetry for a living.

Chinatown suffered a great loss of visitors after 9/11 due to its proximity to the World Trade Center, so the Explore Chinatown group hired a top mid-sized PR company, M Silver Associates to bring back the tourists, and their campaign obviously worked - it got us back for the first time in five years.

Its two square miles are loosely bounded by Delancey St. on the north, Worth St. on the south, Allen St. on the east, and Broadway on the west. With it's ever fluctuating population estimated at between 70,000 and 150,000, it is the favored destination for Chinese immigrants, although in recent years the unique, ethnic neighborhood has also become home to Malaysians, Burmese, Vietnamese, and Filipinos as well - and these late comers simply added to the Chinatown Chowder.

You can get a very good PDF map of the area with walking tours, attractions, subway stops and parking garages by clicking here.

Walk south on Mott or Baxter, slowly

Chinatown's pace is so frantic it's hard to flag down busy pedestrians for directions, so pick up a map at the Chinatown Visitors Kiosk at the intersection of Canal, Walker and Baxter streets, or go to the Chinatown Restaurant Association's web site for help.

The site also offer a simple-to-follow one day tour of Chinatown here with snapshots of the most intriguing streets and good photos as well.

As you wander south on Mott or Baxter, keep your eye peeled for Bayard Street where you'll find the legendary Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Yes, they have flavors you can get anywhere else, but not every ice cream parlor carries lichee, green tea , ginger, litchi, mango, almond cookie and taro home-made ice cream. The red bean is richer and more delicious than any rocky road we've ever tasted.

Jaya Malaysian features typically hot & spicy dishes from that equatorial land like this Pandan Chicken marinated in coconut milk & spices and wrapped in srew-pine leaf only $4.95. Patricia loved the curried Stingray in Lotus Leaf, $14.95.

Don't miss the Peking Duck House,28 Mott St. where the name says it all. This is known as the most sophisticated of Chinese cooking and is $24.95 per person and includes several other courses.

The whole garlic Snapper at Doyers Vietnamese Restaurant at 11 Doyers St. was to die for. Yes, that's a carrot over its eye, and there are great appetizers at $3. and entrées from $5.25.

Not a restaurant, but a lot of very Asian medicine can be bought inexpensively at Lin Sisters on The Bowery a block south of Canal St. The gentleman above is cutting up some ingredients.

But before you have ice cream, how about a main course — or two or three? Chinatown is renowned for its restaurants, and with so many to choose from, your biggest problem will be settling on any one place. Here are a couple of good rules. Don't let looks fool you. The food might be fantastic even if the lighting is dingy. If the local Chinese are eating there, odds are it's good. Be adventurous in what you order and ask the waiter for suggestions. You will be pleasantly surprised. It's ideal to dine with two or three others because entrées are usually served family-style in the expectation that everyone in your party will share.

Nobody really knows how many Asian restaurants call Chinatown home, but it's hundreds and hundreds, and there are even six vegetarian restaurants in the neighborhood.

Not just hundreds of restaurants

Today Chinatown is home to hundreds of garment factories as well, companies that have an annual payroll bill of over $200 million, and a jewelry district that rakes in approximately a $100 million in gold and diamond sales per year,  in addition to over 200 restaurants that attract thousands of tourists, and 27 banks, by far the highest bank-per-capita ratio in the city.

Start eating Cantonese, Shanghainese, Szechuan, Fujianese, Chiuchow, Taiwanese, etc., and those are just the Chinese cuisines, then add Thai, Singaporean, Japanese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Asian Fusion and others to complete this gastronomic Gotham. 

Chinatown is also a shoppers paradise. The variety of goods ranges from affordable gifts and treasures to ancient antiques and fine jewelry is absolutely amazing. The shopping opportunities include bakeries, electronic goods, fashion boutiques, gift shops, general stores and malls, jewelry, markets with fresh produce such as seafood you won't find at the Stop 'n Shop, Chinese traditional medicine, martial arts supplies and tea houses. 

Life after Chinatown

We spent four days and nights in the city staying at a wonderful Buckingham hotel at the corner of 57th St. and 6th Avenue, and managed to pull ourselves away from Chinatown and our old village haunts long enough to sample several other quite wonderful restaurants about which we'll tell you in Part Two of this story.

The Buckingham Hotel is perfect for a family visiting New York because it's really a series of apartments, larger than a few homes we've lived in, and the location a block from 5th Avenue and Madison Avenue shopping made for a culture shock change whenever we wished.

If you're tired of hotel rooms the size of a walk-in closet this boutique hotel located in Midtown across from Carnegie Hall has a median room size of 700 square feet which comes out to 33¢ a square foot ... making it the best boutique hotel value in the City. Each suite in the hotel includes a fully equipped kitchen, and there is pre-arrival concierge service, a full-service business center, in-room high speed Internet access, and 24-hour fitness center."

You can read Part Two of our Big Apple adventure here, and read our other travel adventures here.

Please remember, when preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money.

Then take half the clothes and twice the money.